A guy travelling through space arrives at his intended destination to discover nearly everyone on board is dead, and his love interest is missing. Occasionally with the help of a partner, but usually all by himself, he proceeds through the levels in third-person perspective, solving puzzles, reading other people’s e-mail, upgrading his arsenal, and destroying aliens who re-animate the bodies of their victims to bolster their numbers. What’s worse, a strange bio-mass is slowly devouring everything in sight. Attacks are constant, ammunition is in short supply, and sometimes the only option is to flee from an indestructible killing machine. Name that game, readers!

If you thought, “Dead Space, because obvious game is obvious,” you are wrong. Deduct ten points. Half a dozen years before Isaac Clarke plasma cut his way through the Necromorphs infesting the USG Ishimura in his search for Nicole, Nick Connor prowled Forsetti Station to rescue Samantha in 2002’s Run Like Hell, designed by Digital Mayhem and published by Interplay.

Title Screen

Product placement and video games have a history going back to the days of the Atari 2600, when companies with zero connection to electronic entertainment decided they deserved some of the ginormous bankroll flowing from gamers’ pockets. This resulted in such bizarre abominations as Chase the Chuckwagon promoting Purina dog chow, and Space Invaders homage rip off Pepsi Invaders which was sponsored by Coke, because the Cola Wars were a real thing, not just the penultimate line of “We Didn’t Start the Fire”.

After the crash of ’83, it took a while for gaming to get back up to speed with the whole ‘sponsored by’ thing, but if there was one company of the 2000’s willing to whore themselves out for anything they could get, it was Interplay. Interplay became a massive mainstay of gaming starting in the Apple II days. They made a name for themselves early on with The Bard’s Tale, went on to produce a number of iconic Star Trek games, and are perhaps best known for tweaking the original post-apocalyptic adventure Wasteland into the turn-based masterpieces Fallout and Fallout 2. Unfortunately for Interplay, irrational business decisions and financial catastrophes resulted in that need for money wherever they could find it. They found a backer in soda company Solvi Acquisition, who were happy to infuse Interplay with cash. In return, Interplay had to get Solvi’s Bawls into your mouth by any means necessary.

Open wide.

Bawls is a caffeine-loaded carbonated beverage (their website insists it is not an energy drink) flavored with Guarana berry extract and high-fructose corn syrup. It’s exactly the sort of thing that will not be around in a few hundred years after humanity discovers warp technology and/or destroys the planet with nukes, but that didn’t stop Interplay from featuring Bawls soda in two of the last titles they published before spending a few years dead for tax purposes.

Unlike this alien, which will spend the next ‘forever’ being dead.

Part of Interplay’s success came as a result of their willingness to spend considerable time making sure everything in their games not only worked, but was fun to play. Long development times were the norm, and Run Like Hell was no exception, with development beginning in 1997. Then…well, we’ll just let Brian Freyermuth, the game’s lead designer, explain in his own words:

“During its five year run, we went through 2 executive producers, 3 producers, 3 Lead Programmers, and 2 Lead Artists. And each one came in with their own view of what the game should be.”

Those math-inclined among you will note that’s ten more senior-level staff than one company should need to replace over the duration of one game’s creation. You might think staff turnover is nothing new on large projects, and if that was the only issue plaguing the devs, Run Like Hell might be better-remembered than it is today. Unfortunately, Brian isn’t done:

“The worst happened when the game, 2 years into it, was changed from upper management to be an action game. […] The producer on the project at that point also thought we should do both action and survival horror, and thus we ended up with something that really didn’t know what it was.”

And an Xbox version where you can play as Samantha in her underwear.

Two years into the project is 1999. There’s no such thing as Resident Evil 4, or even Silent Hill 2, for these guys to use as inspiration for a third-person action/horror game. Developers were still subscribing to a “pick one and stick with it” mentality when it came to genres. That still leaves three years to produce a hit, way more time than many studios get today. Why’s this guy whining again? Well…:

“Then, to top it off, the art and levels were scraped and we restarted AGAIN ten months before it finally shipped.”

Great bouncing bollocks–I had nothing to do with Run Like Hell‘s development and even I’m contemplating the futility of life at this point! If you think ten months is enough to sculpt a triple-A piece of software out of a concept struggling to find its own place in the world, we at RGM (and Bryan Freyermuth probably) dare you to do better. After working on a game the size and scope of Run Like Hell for the duration of what was an entire console generation’s lifetime in those days only to see it flop, Digital Mayhem was doubtless feeling more ‘hunted’ than ‘hunter’. They stuck around long enough to complete the Xbox port, put the finishing touches on Virtual Pool 3 for the PS1, release a Space Invaders compilation for the Colecovision (because why the hell not), and closed up shop. Even calling it quits exacerbated the situation though.

Nick learns a valuable lesson about always backing up your porn.

Did we mention Run Like Hell was supposed to be the first in a three-game trilogy? Because, yeah, that was in the design document too. It ends on a cliffhanger with numerous plot points still unresolved and many options open for Nick to pursue.

Though the gaming press of the day lambasted RLH for its small cast of enemies, repetitive soundtrack (hope you like Breaking Benjamin, because Interplay sure seemed to), and simplistic combat mechanics, RLH earned righteous props for its exceptional cast of voice talent. If the idea of Bishop teaming up with The Kurgan and Goro to protect Captain Janeway and Grima Wormtongue while Darryl Revok gives you updated orders regarding station security fails to excite your controller hands, what is your major malfunction?

And if you got all those references, you should probably spend more time outside.

There’s no doubt the game’s intended horror elements were more successfully realized in Doom 3 (which Freyermuth freely admits is the look and style he originally envisioned for RLH) and the aforementioned Dead Space. Its lack of story conclusion, blatant and immersion-breaking product placement, and development woes keep Run Like Hell from being the masterpiece it wanted to be, but it’s still a solid mid-card, niche title with appeal for sci-fi, action, and horror fans. So bad it’s good? You bet your Bawls.

Michael Crisman

In 1979, Michael Crisman was mauled by a radioactive Gorgar pinball machine. After the wounds healed, doctors discovered his DNA had been re-coded. No longer fully human, Michael requires regular infusions of video games in order to continue living among you. If you see him, he can see you. Make no sudden moves, but instead bribe him with old issues of computer and video game magazines or a mint-in-box copy of Dragon Warrior IV.


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