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After having ruined some comics' licenses, Simulmondo tried again, this time with completely own storyline and characters. The project was quite ambitious: Fabbri is one of Italy's biggest magazine publishers, and the games were even advertised on television.
Like many other Simulmondo products, Time Runners is a series of action/adventure games that are lackluster in both aspects, although a little better than their predecessors - but you must consider that the predecessors were absolutely terrible. The backgrounds are detailed, and always adequate. The cutscenes are nice too, but they often suffer for blurry colors and poor 3D-rendered objects. Sound is almost non-existent, and set at a so low volume that I had to put my speakers to the maximum. Otherwise, you won't even notice it.
Basically, Max has to explore locations, avoid pits and traps, fight some enemies and searching for objects to use or take (press U to see the "hot spots" of each location). There are few of these objects, though, so you'll have to search carefully. Some screens are almost identical to each other, and it's easy to get lost. Probably for this reason, you can see a map by pressing M. Sometimes, the action will change to an adventure-style screen, where you use or take objects. You can see your inventory by pressing I, but you can't combine objects, or decide when to use them - Max does the action automatically if he has the object. So, it's a totally useless screen, even because it's a miracle to have more than two objects at the same time. Calling the tasks of each episodes "puzzles" is too much, considering how few they are too. Sometimes, "hot spots" are activated only when you did some actions, so you have to search for them again.
So, the adventure element is extremely thin, but the action? Let's face it: slow-paced and boring. When you fight with a Skunk, you seem to exchange slaps with him, like some old B&W slapstick movies. When I had a gun, I rarely bothered to use it, considering how stupid the enemies are. Sometimes, they even turn around pointlessly, allowing you to whack them. And now, the worst thing, the control system. Using the keyboard, it has some similarities to Prince of Persia and Flashback, but it's often unresponsive. You can perform a running jump before or after you really intended, and then fall in a large pit. When I tried to cross small pits with a standing jump, Max often did and additonal step before, falling miserably. Instead of making a better keyboard control, programmers found a shortcut: mouse control. Right-click on a spot of the screen, and Max will reach it, doing all the jumps automatically.
Like many other Simulmondo products, Time Runners is a series of action/adventure games that are lackluster in both aspects, although a little better than their predecessors - but you must consider that the predecessors were absolutely terrible. The backgrounds are detailed, and always adequate. The cutscenes are nice too, but they often suffer for blurry colors and poor 3D-rendered objects. Sound is almost non-existent, and set at a so low volume that I had to put my speakers to the maximum. Otherwise, you won't even notice it.
Basically, Max has to explore locations, avoid pits and traps, fight some enemies and searching for objects to use or take (press U to see the "hot spots" of each location). There are few of these objects, though, so you'll have to search carefully. Some screens are almost identical to each other, and it's easy to get lost. Probably for this reason, you can see a map by pressing M. Sometimes, the action will change to an adventure-style screen, where you use or take objects. You can see your inventory by pressing I, but you can't combine objects, or decide when to use them - Max does the action automatically if he has the object. So, it's a totally useless screen, even because it's a miracle to have more than two objects at the same time. Calling the tasks of each episodes "puzzles" is too much, considering how few they are too. Sometimes, "hot spots" are activated only when you did some actions, so you have to search for them again.
So, the adventure element is extremely thin, but the action? Let's face it: slow-paced and boring. When you fight with a Skunk, you seem to exchange slaps with him, like some old B&W slapstick movies. When I had a gun, I rarely bothered to use it, considering how stupid the enemies are. Sometimes, they even turn around pointlessly, allowing you to whack them. And now, the worst thing, the control system. Using the keyboard, it has some similarities to Prince of Persia and Flashback, but it's often unresponsive. You can perform a running jump before or after you really intended, and then fall in a large pit. When I tried to cross small pits with a standing jump, Max often did and additonal step before, falling miserably. Instead of making a better keyboard control, programmers found a shortcut: mouse control. Right-click on a spot of the screen, and Max will reach it, doing all the jumps automatically.
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