Throughout much of the 90s and early 2000s, Tom Cruise was a blockbuster actor. In 2002, he starred in a film called Minority Report that grossed over $358 million. While it wasn’t a smash-hit like some of his other films, it still did well. So well, that it earned its own spinoff video game. In 2002, Treyarch developed, and Activision published, Minority Report Everybody Runs for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube. Would this game be a big hit or like the title suggests, everybody should run away from this game? Either way, let’s settle in for this Minority Report Everybody Runs review.
Minority Report Everybody Runs Plot:
While this is based on a movie, there are some differences in the plots. The game stars John Anderton, who Tom Cruise portrayed, but he looks different in the video game. As for the plot, here is the gist of it.
In the future, murders are predicted by psychic humans who can see the future. The images in their minds are projected on a screen for the police units to see and help stop murders before they happen. This special program has only been rolled out in one city in the United States, but the FBI is auditing it to see if it makes sense for the entire country to use since it has prevented any murders for the last six years. John Anderton is a top cop on the force and swears by the system.
One day an image of a woman murdering Anderton comes up. They leave to arrest her and it turns out she works for SOL Enterprises which is a weapon manufacturer on the black market. This woman, named Nikki escapes, and Anderton and his crew return to headquarters where a new vision appears of him murdering a man he has never met. Anderton is then forced to become a fugitive on the run. With the entire police force after him, John must fight for his freedom. As the city is highly advanced in technology, John has his eyes replaced on the black market so scanners can’t pick him up. He learns that there can be glitches in the system from the PreCog inventor, and to clear his name he must download the info from the PreCog, who did not have the vision of him murdering the man.
Anderton returns to Precrime headquarters and steals the PreCog, who did not have the vision in hopes of downloading the information from her. He makes a deal with a former PreCog employee who can download her vision as proof that Anderton is innocent and that somehow the leader of Sol Enterprises Verhagen is behind the faux visions. I’m not sure they didn’t do a good job explaining why Verhagen wanted to frame Anderton.
Either way, Anderton makes his way to SOL headquarters and fights the woman named Nikki, who was acting as a bodyguard at this point to Verhagen. After fighting countless robots, Anderton reaches Verhagen and arrests him. The end scene is Verhagen being taken to virtual reality prison.
Minority Report Everybody Runs Gameplay:
Square, square, square, square, square, square, square, square, square, square, square, square! That’s all I pressed during my Minority Report Everybody Runs review. This game is a beat ’em brawler, but it’s one of the most repetitive games I’ve ever played.
I’ll start with what I liked about my Minority Report Everybody Runs review. The body physics is hilarious. It’s the reason I asked my dad for this game so many years ago. Throwing bodies and watching their limp bodies crash into objects and flop around does give me a chuckle. The other cool thing about this game is all the destruction you can cause. You’ll fight in offices, parks, and other environments that will have many breakable objects, all of which are fun to throw enemies into.
Now let’s get into the bad of this Minority Report Everybody Runs review, and believe me… there is a lot of bad. The gameplay boils down to a simple formula. You are in an area starting at Point A, you’ll need to make your way to Point B. There are many bad guys in your way. Fight them and proceed to your destination. That’s the basis of this game and there are other games very similar to that but are done much better. You can punch or kick, but I chose to kick as it deals more damage. I kicked every enemy to death with the same attack over and over, which is square. There are combos offered that you can unlock with money you find in levels, but they aren’t worth it. My mind went numb as I repeatedly pushed square every single battle. Sometimes I’d face 15 enemies, and I knew all of them would be kicked to death.
Speaking of enemies, they are bland, non-imaginative, and boring. You’ll fight the same PreCrime units over and over. Other than that, you’ll fight a few street thugs and some security robots. Each enemy looks almost identical, just different clothes. Each enemy attacks exactly the same. There are 40 levels to play through, and it sounds like a lot, but it’s not. Each level can take anywhere from 2 to 15 minutes to complete. Here’s what is lazy of the developers. There are only about 5 different areas and environments that you’ll experience. You make your way through the PreCrime offices, the streets, a hotel room, gardens, and sewers. About halfway through the game, each level gets recycled as you make your way back to the starting point of the game. It just comes off as lazy, and it was unenjoyable in my Minority Report Everybody Runs review. They even include a level called “Deja Vu!”
My Minority Report Everybody Runs review reminded me a lot of the original Fighting Force except on the PlayStation 2. There are fun brawlers out there, I enjoyed Anarchy Reigns, but Minority Report just feels lazy. You can use guns in combat which I did to defeat the tough bosses. There are only a few guns that you can pick up, but my favorite weapon was the puke grenade that made enemies, well you guessed it. Puke.
Some bosses were just stupid hard. There is a reoccurring agent who likes to fight hand-to-hand. It took me 15 minutes of fighting him and then waves of enemies between breaks to beat him. That doesn’t sound too long, but it is when you just press square nonstop. His health bar barely went down, and he was near impossible to hit. The game makes you jump through so many hoops just to defeat a boss and misses the mark between challenging and fun.
Want to know how I was able to complete my Minority Report Everybody Runs review? CHEATING! Probably the best part about this game is that there are cheats! I miss them in video games and for terrible games like this one, cheating is a must to keep playing. I turned on invincibility, and away I went. Even being invincible, the game wasn’t much fun. It only allowed me to see how repetitive the entire game is instead of the first 15 levels. Believe me, it’s not like I wanted to finish this game, but I had to for a proper review. The best thing about beating the game is seeing the end credits with the goofy guys dancing in it.
Memories:
This is a great example of what a good demo can do to a child. I had this game on a demo disc from my beloved PlayStation magazine. I played it tons of times and loved the ragdoll physics to the bodies and the destructible environments. I asked my dad for this game, and he bought it for me. Surely, the entire game would be as fun as the demo, right? RIGHT?
I had some fun with it as a kid, but I didn’t love it. It got too hard, and I ended up using the cheats. As a kid, I loved throwing the bodies all around and seeing them crash into things but even with cheats activated I couldn’t beat the game or lost interest. I don’t remember.
Turns out that when I decided to write a Minority Report Everybody Runs review and play a game that I hadn’t played in years, it was pretty terrible! I couldn’t wait for this experience to be over with. Wow, the game just kept getting worse and worse, and I played it.
Minority Report Everybody Runs Review Score:
Despite the hilarity of the ragdoll physics and satisfying destruction, Minority Report Everybody Runs is a repetitive lazy experience where you are outmanned at every turn. Even the most die-hard brawler lover will have issues completing this game due to the uninspired gameplay.
Minority Report Everybody Runs scores a 5.4 out of 10.
What would you write in your Minority Report Everybody Runs review? Did you turn the cheats on? What was your favorite level? Did you ever see the movie? Let me know your thoughts and comments on Minority Report Everybody Runs, I’d love to read them.
Tiger Chainsaw 