Game Reviews

On The Lam: Fugitive Simulator

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On The Lam: Fugitive Simulator

On The Lam is an intriguing, if slightly uncomfortable, simulation idea wrapped around a cumbersome UI and some bad design choices.

While it hopes to spin yarns of escape and hideouts, hotwiring cars and holding up pawn shops, it comes across as a one-note tapper, flat and uninspired and oddly cold.

It's a game of chance, broken fingers, and spider bites, all played out in bland text. It's never clear why some of your actions work and some of them don't, and rather than feeling like the pursued murderer the game wants you to be, you just feel a bit befuddled and then get arrested or die.

The concepts the game tries to play with are intriguing ones, and they're certainly worth exploring in an interactive setting, but the way On The Lam goes about doing that just isn't entertaining at all.


Just a normal end to a normal night on the town

The game is all about escaping from a crime. There are three starting points to choose from - you've committed a murder, you've escaped from prison, or you've blown up a mosque in an act of terrorism.

It feels uncomfortable taking on the role of a mass murderer, as it should, but that discomfort only lasts for a matter of seconds, as there's little in the actual substance of the game to remind you of your awful deeds.

Each game sees you choosing a loadout of stat points. You've got five to spend on endurance, dexterity, and perception. Then you can pick a perk, which might be a gun, a bag full of drugs, or even a car.

You're then taken to a map of America. Your starting point is random, but you'll be surrounded by a red square. This is the area where the search for you is the most intense, and you need to get out of it.


Why would all of your friends live so far away?

You can drive, if you've got a car, or hijack a vehicle. Sometimes you'll have a phone so you can call your relatives, while at other times you'll have an MP3 player to hock at a pawn shop.

The game is riddled with crashes and bugs. At one point I couldn't do anything but sit in a motel, and the app force closed itself a number of times.

But it's not the technical flaws that are On The Lam's undoing - it's the limited scope it gives you for your escape.

There's not enough to do, not enough reasons to do it, and some bizarre outcomes that end up with you being captured for no clear reason.

Only when your car has run out of gas can you fill it up. And you can only fill it up, rather than spending a bit of cash to get you a little farther along the road.

Most people just drive away when you threaten to shoot them, and when you're surrounded by cops you can't try and blast your way to another few hours of freedom.


Honestly officer, I was just having a lovely drive around a murder victim

It's the lack of choice that spoils On The Lam, or, in a rather ironic way, it's the lack of freedom.

Your escapes are so rigidly controlled that there's no sense of flight, or even the passage of time. You just sort of tap through the options available to you until a policeman kicks in your door.

Coupled with the shoddy presentation and recurring stability problems, it all ends up feeling a little amateurish.

There's a game to be made about escape, about the consequences of terrible criminal actions. This, however, isn't it.

On The Lam: Fugitive Simulator

A broken and buggy mess of a game, On The Lam: Fugitive Simulator should be avoided
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.