Felony 11-79
DON’T HAVE A MAN, COW
It may have only taken 30 minutes to complete, but Nick still had lots of fun
» Playstation » 1997 » Climax Entertainment
You can develop soft spots for some games for the weirdest of reasons, and the first game in the Runabout series – known outside of Japan as Felony 11-79 – is a great example of why. This arcade-style driving game tasks you with retrieving objects, outrunning the cops and getting to a goal, all while under pressure from a timer. As you smash into cars and other objects, dollar values are applied to a running total of damage caused, tapping into the intersection between love of accountancy and destructive appeal that Burnout would more fully exploit later on.
But as much as I enjoy all of that, for better or worse, I’ve never forgotten Felony 11-79 because of one particular sound effect. When I first encountered the game on an Official UK Playstation Magazine demo disc (always a treasure trove of interesting experiences) I had good fun with it – but I kept coming back to it, and that was because the sound effect that played whenever you drove past the cows was so bizarre. It sounded distinctly like a man doing an impression of a cow, and this cracked me up because I was an adolescent boy.
I never got Felony 11-79 back in the Nineties though, because the reviews put me off it. The problem with the game is that it’s short – a good player can finish the entire thing in 30 minutes, and while it’s fantastically entertaining while it lasts, it came out in the same year as games like Final Fantasy VII and Gran Turismo. Playstation gamers expected more bang for their buck, and as a kid with limited opportunities to get new games, I was just the same.
Thankfully, the memory of that sound effect kept the game lodged in my mind, ready for when the experience on offer and the price it was offered for aligned with my disposable income, and I had a great time with it. That’s why it’s always important to look beyond the review scores and check the actual text, because the criticisms behind those scores don’t always apply to your situation today.