Urban Runner

Thoughts by Mr Creosote (03 May 2025) – PC (Windows)

How Coktel Vision could survive so long on the market is really a mystery. Was it the money they made of educational software? Outside of that, the highly frustrating Gobliiins trilogy was the closest they ever had to a critical success. Though there must have been an audience buying their stuff. Otherwise, how could they possibly have repeatedly pulled off big productions such as this one?

Arriving on four CDs, Urban Runner is a FMV adventure game. Characters move around physical locations, real sets; in a time when much of the competition used bluescreen and computer-rendered backgrounds. The videos even take up most of the screen space and the resolution is quite acceptable. Staging includes a lot of action scenes, with people running and moving around, giving a glimpse of the size of the sets used. This, for sure, is not a cheapy! Even more importantly, lo and behold, who would have thought that this company, known for mediocre or crummy games, would introduce an innovation into this genre which solves not just one, but several fundamental issues found in almost all of the competition of the time?

Remember, these are computer games. In those times, more and more, “games” appeared in which the “player” watched longer and longer cutscenes. Or, maybe even worse, designers got all dialogue happy and recorded endless exchanges. Either way, the effective time of interaction decreased versus purely passive watching and listening. In Urban Runner, the protagonist provides the narration through a film noir style voiceover. People acting out the key scenes, but for example in exchanges, we only see them talking for ten seconds while the offscreen voice gives a summary. Bam, dead time reduced to a minimum! More than appropriate particularly since most of the game, the first half fully, is a big chase. Plus, this elegantly works around the all too typical issues of amateur acting and, particularly convenient for a French company, language abilities of the people involved. It works so well that one has to wonder why this narrative style was never adopted by other productions.

This provides the game with a big appreciation bonus. Would be hard to spoil this, considering how much I’m personally annoyed and fed up especially with endless dialogue trees in games. And indeed, Urban Runner doesn’t drop down the bottomless quality hole in any other respect. Even if detailed execution is a bit hit-and-miss at times.

The structure is not unlike the one the designers previously applied in Fascination: the player is automatically lead through short, self-contained scenes in which a handful of basic puzzles need solved, some actions need to be carried out in the right order. The search space thus limited and the inventory emptied regularly, the main challenge is in the timed threats looming over the protagonist’s head. Hitmen after him. Evidence to be hidden before the inspector arrives. A security guard searching the offices to which he illegally broke in.

Here, again, the design isn’t too bad. A small picture-in-the-picture occasionally shows where the other character currently is. Both giving a practical indication of when to hide or run and increasing perceived pressure. Upon failure, the current scene can simply be restarted, avoiding useless frustration.

Though of course, this is an adventure game. As such, to enable for some puzzling, what happens sometimes makes little sense in the context. One good example right from the beginning: the protagonist surprises the killer chasing him with a boy scout type trap and knocks him out temporarily. Searching the guy while he’s out cold, what does he take? Maybe the gun or the key to the locked door leading to freedom? No, of course, he grabs the guy’s nail file to loosen a stone in the wall with it and thereby reveal a lever which opens a passage to a closed space in which the chase can continue as the killer wakes up again!

Given the overall quick progression of scenes, the constant forward movement, it’s not a huge deal. Likewise, the realisation that plot progress isn’t so much achieved by player actions, but rather happens in the brief interludes between. Or the pseudo choices whether to proceed as the initial protagonist or the young woman he seduces in an almost absurd scene halfway through – when in fact both scenes have to be played anyway eventually.

Yes, Urban Runner could have been better. Much better. But at least, it clearly is a game where such discussion, such considerations make sense. The foundation is there, and it is very good. Going ways which are refreshing, thinking outside the box. Providing reasonable puzzles at a level never seen before in games of this company. Unimaginative, sure, but a far cry from the nonsensical absurdities otherwise found in games of the company. In design terms, it could be their best game, even if it lacks the cult appeal of Inca. Too bad that when they made it to this quality level, their story actually ends. Not nearly making its production costs back, the studio was relegated to concentrate on the educational market only.