Before I start, let me get this off my chest: I don’t like GTA. or any other similar game. I just don’t get the madness and destruction you cause in those game, but I certainly get the appeal of “you can do what you want” within the sandbox environment since you are not bound to follow the game’s missions unless you want to advance in the story. That being said, I have played games like GTA Vice City, Chinatown Wars, Sleeping Dogs, Saints Row, and Watch Dog. So when I got the chance to play American Fugitive, I must say that I was surprised that I found myself enjoying the game a lot, even if the “genre” is not my cup of tea.
In the game, you take the role of Will Riley. He’s having some financial hardships, thus making things hard with his wife. He receives a call in the middle of the night from his father, asking him to come to see him. Afterwards, he comes to a crossroads: does he wake his wife to let her know or does he leave without telling her? After getting to his father’s house, he notices a red car parked in front of the house, which was Weird since that is not his father’s car. With the door locked, he uses a stone to break a window and goes inside, only to find his father murdered. The police arrive( unusually fast I might add), he’s arrested, tried, and convicted of his father’s murder. Now if you saw the Sly Stallone movie, “Escape Plan”( the first one), you can kind of guess what you have to do. But our boy, Will, can give Stallone a run for his money, because the way he escapes the prison could be a great Hollywood blockbuster, in a Mario Bros kind of way, as he escapes through a pip. Now free, he plans to get answers and revenge. Aside from the plot. The first thing that caught my attention about American Fugitive is how good everything looks. Redrock County is so full of life and well detail. For example, when you make your escape, the police will give a description of how you look, asking civilians to call the police if and when you’re spotted, so you have to break into a house to steal some clothes.
One of the aspects I liked the most about the game is how you approach breaking and entering. you first look through a window and if the room is empty, you can loot it to your heart’s content. if there are people in, you can still break in but depending on your actions, they can call the police resulting in a chase. Or if you don’t hurt them. they can get scared, thus give you time to escape. these interactions are welcome since every object you get has a limited number of uses, so learning how to B and E without getting caught is a skill you need to master. And lucky for you, there is an upgrade system included that gives boosts in health, sprinting, inventory size increase( needed for a life on the run) and a really good but expensive upgrade system, that causes your break-ins to happen automatically so its something nice to look forward to. The Police A.I. is really odd. For example, when you commit a crime, they will do everything in their power to get to you, but a simple change of clothes and you can throw them off. Other times, the opposite happens. A small scrape against another vehicle could turn into a big deal with Swat teams and helicopters on your tail. This unbalance can prove fun but not all the time. I really like the top down view, mainly because you have a bigger picture of your surroundings, which can help you plan your escape routes more effectively. Another thing worth mentioning is how great the car engines sound. it feels really satisfying to drive whatever car you can buy or “borrow”. The only thing I was not a fan of was the load times. When you die, you start back from the pipe you used to escape and the loading screen between this is too long for my tastes. I hope an update can improve the loading times but that was my only real gripe with the game.
Bottom Line, American Fugitive was a pleasant surprise. While the story was not very original, the overall fun and shenanigans you can do in Redrock County are amazing. I definitely recommend it to fans of sandbox games because if a non-fan like me can enjoy it, imagine the fun you could have.
A Review code was provided for this review.