[b][quote]Warning: Broken Game![/quote][/b]This game has design/implementation defects that will render this unplayable for many gamers. The game launches and then quickly exits. This critical defect has been observed by numerous Steam gamers and the developer is aware of the defect but chooses not to rectify the problem.
Doctor Who: The Runaway is a fascinating case of a supposedly reputable company dragging a great franchise and their own brand through the mud, and gamers are left to wonder if this is due to simple incompetence or any other explanation. I never thought I'd see the BBC trying to scam gamers into buying broken/defective products, but here we are. You dig through the bowel section of the Steam store long enough and you'll see everything.
Let's talk about what this game was when it worked. It was a VR exclusive Doctor Who(tm) branded adventure game following the least successfully rated 13th doctor, portrayed on TV by Jodie Whittaker (weirdly, Peter Capaldi is rated the most popular followed by Tom Baker, and I always thought Baker would come out on top, but there you have it). If the game worked, you'd follow the Doctor on a space-time adventure in full, glorious VR.
From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
The game features lazy low-polygon "retro" assets, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the mid 2000s. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with.
This seems to have been made a VR exclusive to prevent any comparison with non-VR 3D games, a comparison that this game would fail very badly at. Developers must learn that while VR is great, if the only thing that makes the game great is the VR, then the game isn't great at all.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 7 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from (over 9,000 completely free titles), the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
You're forced to sign a highly questionable yet legally unenforceable End User License Agreement... for such a relatively low effort, low quality game this comes across more as a delusion of grandeur than anything else. This agreement includes questionable requirements that may attempt to revoke consumer law protections that gamers expect to have, which is also highly problematic. Developers must learn they are here to serve gamers, not control them. I had my cat walk over the keyboard while the EULA was displaying, which fixed that problem for me.
Despite this being free, I can't recommend it. It's unethical for developers to leave broken games on Steam, even for free, because this pollutes the marketplace and makes it harder for genuine indie developers who've done the right thing to find their audience.
[b][quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/quote][/b]Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.
