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News: Tom Morello stars in Guitar Hero III
Activision has announced that Tom Morello, from Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, will guest star as a boss character in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Click here to read the article.

Run Like Hell

The story in Run Like Hell goes like this: You are Captain Nick Conner, a war hero, who upon returning home to his space station finds that things aren't well... there are alien creatures everywhere and survivors are few and far between. If this wasn't enough, his co-pilot and friend becomes a special meal for a hungry alien... blood and gore included. So now it is up to you to kick alien ass, save any survivors, and get things back to normal. To add to the mayhem, your fiancée is also missing. So your adventure begins.

Run like Hell's gameplay is basically you and your guns shooting anything that attacks. Add some puzzles to the mix and you have the overall feel of Run Like Hell. Nothing really special or ground-breaking. Walk... shall I say Run, shoot, solve some puzzled to advance and then repeat.

The controls in Run Like Hell are as follow. The Left Thumbstick is used for movement while the Right Thumbstick moves the camera. The Right Trigger is used to aim while the Left Trigger is used to dodge. If you push in the Right Thumbstick, it will heal you without having to go into your inventory to use your health items. X is used to switch your aim and also to reload you weapon, while the A and B are used to fire you weapons. The Y, while holding the Right Trigger, allows you to kick or push an enemy that is directly in front of you. The Back button brings up your inventory. And lastly, the Black and White buttons are used to select your weapons.

Visually, Run Like Hell is quite nice. It supports HDTV 480p so for all of those with High Definition TVs, you'll get a pretty darn good picture. Don't think that you will need an HDTV to enjoy the visuals because you don't. The overall feel of the environments is well done. Dark hallways, spooky rooms, and an overall feeling of "something is going to pop out of the dark" help make this an enjoyable game to look at. Easy on the eyes. The characters are unique and well modeled and animated. Cut-scenes are great, while some may say there are too many; I say they help with the story. The cut-scenes use the game engine while the CGI clips don't, of course they look better, but are less often seen. Overall the visual side of Run Like Hell won't make your run like hell. :-)

Sound in Run Like Hell doesn't make it to Home plate; instead it gets stuck at third base. The game's soundtrack, which is included with the game, consists of a couple of licensed songs from Breaking Benjamin (yeah, I never heard them either) which aren't that bad. The rest is orchestrated music that is well implemented. The music kicks in when the action gets intense then slowly fades into the background when you are exploring. The sound effects, while getting the job done, don't really shine through. You got your gunfire here and your spiders there, nothing special. As far as voice acting is concerned, it is great! Interplay didn't hire crappy voice-actors for this game, no--these voice actors are amazing which makes me wonder, where were these guys when all the other games with awful voice-actors were being made... they would have made tons of money! Overall, the music is good and the voice acting superb, if not for the mundane sound effects, Run Like Hell would have scored a Home Run in the sound department.

Overall, Run Like Hell is an entertaining game that will keep you wondering what is around the corner, unfortunately after you pass this one for the first time, there really is no replay value. Nice visuals, good music and voice-acting and nice extra Xbox only features make this a game that should be at least a rental. Can't really recommend a purchase for this one. Maybe Run Like Hell 2 will be better, if it's in the works. In my opinion, with some tweaks Run Like Hell could be a worthy franchise. We'll see.

Report Card:
Gameplay = 7.5
Graphics = 8
Audio = 7.5
Replay Value = 7
Overall: 7/10

Click here for the Run Like Hell screenshots gallery!




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