American Fugitive A Wrongfully Accused Fugitive on the Run

Will Riley is no angel, but he did not kill his dad. The town disagrees, so the game opens in a cell and ends, one escape later, with you hunting the real culprit through the criminal underworld. The plot runs on mystery, deception and corruption, with a motley cast of law-breakers and law-enforcers handing out work. Some of it moves the hunt forward; some of it is just a job that pays. The story is told in dialogue rather than voiced scenes, and a fair stretch of the missions is fetch-work, so come for the manhunt premise and the town more than for a twist every ten minutes.

The house-robbing system is the game's best trick. You peek through a window first to check nobody is home, then get in through a broken window or a crowbar and a door. Inside, a timed minigame has you ransack the place and get out before the cops arrive. If you bump into the owner, things escalate: you can scare them off, tie them up with rope and handcuffs, or buy lockpicks beforehand and slip in unnoticed, which is the polite way. The tools come from the local shop, or from robbing the shop. Fencing fine art and sticking up stores round out the felon's day job.

Redrock County is a vibrant slice of 80s rural deep south, seen from a top-down 3D camera, and almost everything in it can be knocked over. Fences, walls and garden furniture all give way when you drive through them, so a getaway never has to stay on the road: cut across a cafe's yard, flatten the scenery and lose the police in a field. The driving balances arcade handling with enough weight per car that each model feels different, and the chases are the game at its most frantic. Between jobs there are time trials, stunt jumps, hidden stashes and clue-hunting for safe codes to keep the wheels turning.