Like many infinite runners, Run Like Hell! started its life on mobile platforms. The Vita, never wanting to be left behind, now has its own version. Run Like Hell! follows a man named Joe whose design was clearly influenced by Nathan Drake of Uncharted fame. Joe is on a tropical island and needs to get back to his boat that happens to be on the other side of the island. In-between he and his ship are the island and more importantly the island’s inhabitants. Joe is constantly pursued in 2D stages by stereotypical and racial insensitive tropical island archetypes straight out of banned 1940s/50s cartoons. Their appearance made me do a double-take in addition to their pseudo-tribal vocals.
The gameplay in Run Like Hell! is simple yet challenging. You run(obviously), jump and slide your way to the end of the most stages dodging your would-be captors, their spears, bees and other environmental hazards. Power-ups like adrenaline for speed boosts and offensive items like fog or lightning can be used to put some space in-between you and the island’s inhabitants. Every couple of stages there is one where you press the L or R buttons rhythmically to keep pace. I was not a fan of these stages but I did appreciate their brevity.
Run Like Hell! has leaderboards, challenges, online modes with bots and what I assume are ghost data from actual players as opposed to real-time online racing. But I could be wrong. Joe is the only playable character in the main game but other characters skins can be purchased with coins collected in-game or acquired from the PSN store. The asking price for this game seems fair but the imagery was an annoyance for me, especially for a game in 2014. Why be chased by offensive archetypes if you can be chased by a relatively inoffensive yeti? Who is actually the pursuer later on in the game.
Recommendation: Worth a buy on sale – if you can get passed the questionable imagery and depictions
Full Disclosure: The PS Vita version of this game was provided to GameEnthus by the publisher.
Genre:Â infinite runner
Developer: Mass Creation
Publisher: Mass Creation
Platform(s): PS Vita, iOS, Android
Price: $4.99 with microtransaction hooks
http://mass-creation.com/game_rlhv_us.html
http://GameEnthus.com
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gameenthus-podcast-video-games/id286435007?mt=2
Scale:
Worth a buy – paying full price for fans of the series or genre makes sense – often includes a caveat
Worth a buy on sale – not quite full price worthy but close, – often includes a caveat
No – borrow it if you must play it
Please no – Don’t waste any time and/or money on it