“Hi, I’m Martin Shaw. This is Run The Gauntlet. If you want to see Action Sports…. This is the place to be!” This is how you will be greeted when you are playing Run the Gauntlet.
Run the Gauntlet Title Screen
Lucky enough they also showed Run the Gauntlet on Dutch television. Today you got massive amounts of channels to choose from but at that time we only had three public channels. They also created a Dutch kids version of Run the Gauntlet so being able to play it on your computer was wonderful. For me it has some great sentimental value. I vividly remember the times when I played this game.
What is Run the Gauntlet about?
The run the gauntlet challenge is divided into three events which are
picked at random from the many instore. Each event consists of three
segments which can be either on land, water or the hill (assult course).
Complete the challenge with the best score and you’ll be awarded the Run
The Gauntlet trophey. The vehicles you will be competing with are fast and
exciting.
During the game you will be able to control the following vehicles:
Hovercraft – Tricky to handle
Speedboats – Very fast and manoeuvrable
Jet Skis – Fast with very tight turns
Inflatables – Moderate speed
Meteors – Very fast 2 man buggy
Buggys – Fast 1 man buggy
Quads – Fast 4 wheel bikes
Supercats – Amphibious 6 wheel all-terrain vehicle
(Info taken from Lemon Amiga)
Run the Gauntlet - Select Country
It seems I suppressed some issues since after playing it I immediately feel this huge urge to scream about the shitty controls. I happen to start with the Hill which right away reminds me how awful the controls are. But soon you will discover it goes for all the parts of the game. To be honest I really wanted to stop playing the game right away. In fact that is exactly what I did.
Run the Gauntlet - Speedboat
You won’t fill up a Friday or Saturday evening with Run the Gauntlet. When I played it when I was young there surely was a moment it felt good to play, just before playing the game when it was loading up or the first 3 seconds after the start, and that must have been the memory my mind has enhanced and tricked me in thinking this was a lot of fun.
Run the Gauntlet - Jet Ski
Run the Gauntlet - Hovercraft
Below you can see some ratings from various magazines from Hall of Light.
Run the Gauntlet reviews - Hall of Light
It is strange to see a lot of high ratings for the game. I could not agree more with Stuart Campbell from Amiga Power who gave it a rating of 15%. His comments are really funny and at the same time spot on. So what rating would I give it? I am sure some people would have a bit of fun with it at first and unlike Predator it is not all the same since you got different events. But the fact that it disappointed me hugely ways heavily on the score. One thing we can all agree on is the controls which are just terrible. I think I am on par with Stuart Campbell when it comes to the rating.
The Bucket Diary gives it a rating of 15%
Coder's Blog 
oldschoolgameblog
Nice review with an honest score. I like that. 🙂
One thing I liked about Amiga Power was their honest reviews. If a game sucked, they would tell you. Rise of the Robots is a good example of that. It was slaughtered in Amiga Power, but did actually get a few good reviews in other mags. I feel sorry for those who believed those good reviews, as they must have gotten disappointed when they got home and tried the game (myself included..).
Coder
Thanks. Also a lot of the reviews did not like it but still gave it a rating of 60% or up. I tell it as I see it and of course not everyone might share the same opinion. You could dislike something because it is not your style of game but still give it a good rating. But when something is bad you got to be honest. I am pretty sure that if you play Run the Gauntlet you would agree with me.
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