American Fugitive:
America’s Least Wanted
It’s the 1980s. You’re a wanted fugitive, slamming down on the gas pedal in a stolen muscle car. Sirens wail, and your rearview mirror is alight with the flashing of pursuing police cars.
Your car’s engine roars and tires screech as you hang a sharp left at the next intersection, then deftly throw the handbrake and drift down a narrow dirt road immediately to your right. Instinctively, you jerk the steering wheel, smashing through a weak wooden fence and tearing through a cornfield.
Halfway across the field, you leap out from the still moving vehicle, then sprint to a small stone wall, vault it, land in the backyard of a farmhouse, snatch a change of clothes from a wash line, then hastily disappear into the night. Meanwhile, the cops scratch their heads, trying to find where the hell you went.
This is American Fugitive.
…At least, that’s what the developers at Fallen Tree Games thought they were making. It turns out American Fugitive is far less exciting. Instead, here’s an accurate description:
It’s the 1980s. You’re a wanted fugitive, slamming down on the gas pedal in a stolen muscle car. Inexplicably, the framerate drops. Sirens wail behind you but quickly fade as the cops ineptly crash their vehicles into walls, trees, and buildings.
Your car’s tires screech as you hang a left. Unfortunately, the tires are made from banana peels and not rubber. You slide into the side of a building. Some bystanders point at you. You floor the accelerator and begin to speed off, earning a higher wanted level for flattening a mailbox. One more mailbox or bench and you’ll have SWAT on your ass.
The engine revs hard; the car is once again gaining speed. Almost immediately you slam into a tree because the game is presented from a top-down perspective, so you can only see for like twenty meters in front of you.
Fuck it, I guess. You get out of the car, run a few meters, and crouch in some bushes. Then you sit the game controller down and go take a piss while you wait to lose your wanted level.
Now, this is American Fugitive, baby! Hell yeah!
Blasted by The Past
Do I seem less than enthused about this game? That’s because I am.
American Fugitive released at the end of May for PC and consoles. It was developed by Fallen Tree Games — a studio which boasts industry veterans responsible for games like Black, TimeSplitters, and Crisis — and is published by Curve Digital.
On the game’s Steam page, the developers describe American Fugitive as:
“[A] modern take on sandbox action, offering a new 3D top-down open-world single-player experience.”
And
“Set in the deep south of the 1980s, American Fugitive is a love-letter to the classic movies and games of old.”
By “games of old” they seem to have been most inspired by the classic, pre-third person, Grand Theft Auto games. You know the ones. Games that nobody seems to lament. Games that have been dramatically improved upon. Yet, games the team at Fallen Tree apparently thought needed a “modern take.”
But okay, I get it. It might seem that my only point of contention with American Fugitive is that older styles of games should be left in the past and not modernized. Before the hordes of classic GTA fans cry out for my blood, let me assure you, that isn’t the case. No, American Fugitive has far bigger problems. And, conversely, I’m not in any way opposed to modern takes on classic gameplay.
Believe me — in a few ways, American Fugitive is a good game. There’s clear intent inspiring deliberate game design. The problem is, a few vital elements of gameplay are poorly executed, and, even worse yet, American Fugitive is ultimately a boring game.
A Low Octane Thriller…
Why do people play action games? Wait, no — here’s an even better question: why do people play crime games? Why do people love games like GTA V or Saints Row? The answer may surprise you: crime is fun. As a wise young man once said, “it’s fun to do bad things.”
Players want to pull off heists, shoot cars till they explode, parachute from plummeting planes — hell, maybe you want to pick up a hooker, pay for her services, then immediately afterward punch and kick her to death and take back your money. I’m nobody’s judge.
Gamers want something exciting and crime is exciting. At least, most crime is. Petty crime, not so much. In American Fugitive you play former petty crook, Will Riley. You’ve been framed for your father’s execution-style murder, and after a hilariously easy prison escape, you’re on the run and out to clear your name.
Are you ready for a tale of cat and mouse, dangerous, political intrigue, that’s full of lust, revenge, and countless close-call shootouts? No? Okay, great, because you get none of that here.
In American Fugitive you’ll instead spend most of your time on the more petty side of the criminal underbelly. Illegally towing vehicles, using a forklift to move crates of stolen goods, fetching donuts and lost gloves. Occasionally, you’ll make a moonshine delivery or smash a few billboards.
“Ahhh,” you say, “But that’s all probably early into the game! I’m sure it ramps up!” That my friend is where you’re wrong. In fact, over half-way into the game, you’ll find yourself knocking someone out and painting him yellow, stealing a car and driving it into a pool, and beating up dock workers. Crimes, that if you’re caught, could result in a hefty fine and sentence of community service.
But okay, okay, occasionally there’s a shootout, yes. There’s like five or six in the entire game. They’re all the same and they’re incredibly easy. Was that description underwhelming? Good, so is American Fugitive’s combat… and its characters… and its story…
… With A Criminally Inane Cast of Characters
If, maybe, you’re holding out hope that, despite unimpressive gameplay, there’s a cast of colorful characters sprinkled throughout an intelligent plot — don’t; because there is no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, either.
Even more disappointing than the overall gameplay is American Fugitive’s story. Riley Will, Will Riley, or whatever his name is, is as bland as protagonists come. While the dialogue system is simplistic and would feel right at home in a mobile game, players are afforded the occasional choice in how Will converses. Yet, as far as I can tell, these choices amount to nothing. The story progresses exactly the same regardless of the choice you make. Worse still are the characters Will meets.
Throughout American Fugitive, players encounter a not-so-motley crew of uninspired archetypes. The always-down-on-his-luck brother-in-law, the corrupt cop, the femme fatale cat burglar, the power-hungry politician, etc. etc. etc. And while, yes, character archetypes do serve a needed purpose, the characters in American Fugitive are as memorable an experience as wiping with generic brand toilet paper. Meanwhile, the plot that ties them together is predictable at best and a convoluted mess at worst.
Events throughout the story seem to happen for no reason other than they can. Hollow “twists” are occasionally revealed in ways that lack coherence. American Fugitive’s story just seems to happen and then it ends.
Ultimately, it took me around ten hours to play through the game’s story. Diligent players could probably knock it out in an hour or two less. Afterward, there’s fuck-all else to do besides — for whatever reason you’d want to — completing some optional stunt jumps and time trials. Oh, and there are, of course, the obligatory achievements for the subhumans with too much free time.
Now Say Something Nice
So far I’ve been less than kind about American Fugitive. I should probably share some kinder words. After all, I did write earlier that “in a few ways, American Fugitive is a good game,” because there are a few things that Fallen Tree Games did do well.
For example, much of the game environment is destructible, from fences to bushes, lampposts, signs, and even some outdoor walls. The physics behind destructible items are great — making impacts feel… well… impactful and satisfying.
Also, Will’s movement flows naturally. By simply running up to waist high fences or walls, Will automatically vaults over them. Meanwhile, running into bushes slows Will to a crawl until he wades through them. This movement system makes the rare police foot chase feel both organic and strategic. Although, non-player characters are garbage, and often struggle against walls as they repeatedly slam their shins into them like absolute morons.
Okay, okay, okay — nice things! Be nice!
Yet another piece of gameplay done well in American Fugitive is vehicles. Yes, some vehicles definitely handle like they’re driving on wet ice. Some of the vehicles, though, like the buggy and heavier vehicles do handle nicely. The buggy, in particular, feels like it’s actually built to handle off-roading. But, what I found most impressive was how slower, less performance-focused vehicles, like low-end sedans and heavy tow trucks or garbage trucks, are actually slow.
If you find yourself in a police chase while driving one, you’ll find it’s near impossible to outrun the cops. While this can be a major pain in the ass, it’s still a refreshing departure from every other open-world action game in which a busted-up generic hatchback can break the sound barrier and leave pursuing officers sucking your exhaust a mile behind.
In some ways, Fallen Tree Games did a great job creating a grounded experience. It’s easy to see that they wanted to build a more down-to-earth sense of reality. Unfortunately, major parts of the game — like story, characters, and the game world in a larger sense, leave far too much to be desired.
Petty Crime Doesn’t Pay
A video game is the sum of its parts. A handful of good elements can’t make-up for a bunch of bad ones.
While, yeah, American Fugitive is only a $19.99 game developed by a small team, it can’t be afforded too much slack. It does some stuff well, some stuff poorly, and some big stuff it does only okay.
I can see how the developers tried to create a story and a world that felt grounded. In small ways, they succeeded; however, on many of the large scale — and far more vital — areas they created a bland experience. They wrapped boring missions in a messy, uninteresting story, and never manage to deliver anything new or exciting.
At the end of the day, regardless of your tastes, there are much better games to spend your twenty bucks on.
