Grid Runner

Grid Runner is a top-down game similar to tag. The object of the game is to capture a set amount of flags scattered around the playfield by touching them. Upon starting the game, two players must race to find the first flag. The first player to get to this flag will capture it, indicated by the flag changing to that player's color.

The other player is marked as "it" and must then hunt down the other player, "tagging" them and making them "it" instead. Only the player not marked as "it" may capture flags. Flags which one player has already captured can be recaptured by the other player.

The protagonist Axxel and his partner Tara, a pair of freelance space adventurers, are sent on a mission to the Gridonion Asteroid Field, a path between Earth and the Nether-Planets, to find out why ships have been mysteriously disappearing. While investigating a seemingly deserted alien ship in the asteroid field, Axxel is captured by an evil witch, Empress Vorga, who then forces Axxel to play a deadly game competing against her demonic minions. If the player manages to beat all of the 14 monsters, Axxel fights Vorga herself. If he wins, the witch is destroyed and Axxel escapes just before the ship explodes.

According to Virgin Interactive Entertainment producer Stacy Hendrickson, the developer Radical Entertainment thought of Grid Runner as a "fun, original alternative two-player game" that would be neither a fighting or a sports title about a decade before the game was finally made, and that they also put "a lot of work on the AI" of single-player enemies. All of the game's cast of characters were first sketched on paper, then turned into sculptures, before finally being rendered in 3D to limit the use of "work-intensive, expensive rendering workstations".

The game's console versions received positive reviews, earning it an averaged GameRankings score 76.20% from six reviews of the PlayStation version and 81% from four reviews of the Sega Saturn version. The PC version has a lower GameRankings score of 68% from three reviews.

Reviewing the PlayStation version, Next Generation opined, "While not particularly innovative, Gridrunner offers its share of fun, especially in multiplayer modes." Tim Soete of GameSpot likewise said that "there's nothing terribly innovative here", but was more enthusiastic, praising the numerous gameplay twists and increasingly challenging AI opponents, and summarizing the game as "a hectic, 3-D tag-capture-the-flag game that takes players on a relentless, nail-biting ride." GamePro's Johnny Ballgame said that "every game is a unique battle of strategy at a feverish pace." Like Soete, he praised the increasingly challenging opponents, but said the multiplayer is the best part of the game.