Steam Store Page.Since humanity.....
...first climbed on top of a motorcycle...
...and rode past someone at twice their speed.....
....there's been the desire to hit said person...
...preferably with a stick or some sort of heavy object.
In the late 90s there was a series of games called
Road Rash that was exactly about that. On the pretext of some cross country race, motorcycle riders would get their leather on, grab their chains and lead pipes and go for a nice ride. The police would join in on the fun, and a great time would be had by the guy who still had all their teeth in the end.
Road Redemption channels
Road Rash. It's a game about high-speed motorcycle thuggery for the modern era. It's currently $20.
Road Redemption has you riding down procedurally generated highways over a series of missions or races as you cross the country. With you are the other racers, some who count toward the race and some who are just there to get nasty. Police bikes, cars, semis and humvees also get in on the action. You carry up to three weapons and a harpoon gun. With your weapons you can strike out to the left or right, kick your opponents or even grab them and slam their head into their bike. The harpoon gun can tether you to other racers, vehicles, or even helicopters that fly overhead.
Each time you take down a racer, by clobbering them, kicking them into traffic or off a bridge or into an obstruction, you gain life and nitrous back as well as cash and experience. Missions and races come in various forms. Sometimes you just have to eliminate a certain amount of racers in a set period of time. Sometimes you have to create as much mayhem as possible, attacking anyone you can, to drive up police response. Some missions are actual races where you need to finish at least 3rd to win a cash prize. Others are more like time trials.
But there's also modifiers of sorts that can get thrown into the mix. Sometimes a race will feature cars falling from the sky to crash into the road, or psychotic drivers. One race even takes place across the rooftops of buildings, and you're given Jump Jets for your bike that you can keep and use later for other, non-roof top levels. The last level of game takes place on the Rainbow Road, a clear homage to the level from Mario Kart. There's a layer of bat-shit crazy on top of the game that makes it more than just your average racing game, and makes for some hilarious WTF moments.
You earn cash in races by taking down other riders and placing at least 3rd during races, or at least completing the objectives. Between races you spend this cash in a shop, buying health, NOS, increases to life, cash and NOS gained from kills, damage and crit damage increases, and so on and so forth.
Grafted to ALL that is a meta-game XP system. You gain XP from defeating other racers and I think completing missions and races. But you only spend that XP at the end of the game. See, it doesn't really matter if you win a race or any mission. What matters is whether you survived. The first time you die (with a couple exceptions) the game is over, and you spend what XP you've earned on upgrades that are fairly similar to the ones you buy at the shop. These meta-game upgrades are permanent between your playthroughs, whereas the shop upgrades are only good for that specific playthrough.
It takes about 20 to 30 minutes to finish a playthrough of the campaign (which isn't complete yet.) Each individual race takes anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes a piece.
*************
I've been playing Road Redemption for a couple months now, mostly coop split screen with a friend (
the game currently does not have online multiplayer) and really enjoying it.
It's not the deepest or most perfectly executed game ever. I'd describe the feel of it as "arcadey." It's not a hardcore motorcycle racing simulation by far, it's much more focused on fun, fluid gameplay at the expense of realism (or even sanity.) And while there is a primitive edge to the game overall, the detail to riders and bikes is quite good and it all manages to be fun while missing a couple polish points in a lot of departments.
So while it's sort of a casual handling and feeling game, it never the less is stupidly fun. High speed wrecks, rag-dolls, close calls at 150 MPH, explosions, gunfire, bowel clenching moments of watching a semi plow through traffic, and the savagely satisfying moment you smash a guy off their bike with a pipe wrench are why I keep coming back to it.
It's not an especially difficult game once you get a feel for it, although you will die several times early on just trying to get a sense of how the game works, as you get mobbed by the AI or take a sharp corner and face plant into an oncoming car too many times. Like I said, the physics are a little floaty so don't expect some really detailed handling of your bike or physics interactions. But the game goes fast and your reflexes are definitely challenged often.
Particularly because of combat, which is surprisingly deep and nuanced considering you're hurtling down the highway like a missile while you're doing it. You can attack left and right with a weapon as well as kick or grab in both directions. There are a surprising variety of weapons in the game, each with their own properties. They have length, damage, attack speed, durability and probably some other traits. So the difference between a shovel and sledgehammer is quite noticeable. After you use a weapon enough times, it breaks so you're constantly using different kinds in every race. You pick new ones up from enemies when you kill them, or sometimes you're offered a selection of weapons in some missions.
The melee weapons run the gamut from gardening tools like a shovel to construction tools like hammers and pipe wrenches, to found items like wood with nails in it or a tire iron, to medieval weapons like katanas, battle axes, hand axes, heavy maces, machetes or poleaxes. But there's plenty of ranged and explosive weapons too. Pistols, revolvers, AKs, shotguns of various kinds, C4 exploisves, grenade launchers, and other miscellaneous stuff like tasers and cattle prods.
In to this mix you bring all the combat controls. When you're holding a melee weapon you can tap a button to parry an incoming strike. If you have a gun or some non-melee weapon, that button turns into a duck you can avoid attacks with. After hitting enough people with melee weapons, you build up your crit bar which, when full if you hold down the attack button you will crit the shit out of your victim and do a ton of damage. Combat ends up feeling really responsive, and it's really exciting trading blows and parries with the AI while swerving across three lanes of traffic to avoid an oncoming semi or an accident. The gunplay IMO is way harder to handle than melee so I don't use guns all that often. But despite that even stuff like the Grenade Launcher is stupidly powerful, and fun, to use. I mean, can you get more 90s than a guy on a crotch rocket shooting an uzi at the back of a cop car? I don't think so. Arnold Schwarzenegger on the back of a chopper, shooting at cops with lever action rifle in one hand? This game has that.
All this combines for some very fast, frantic and enjoyable gameplay, where you're almost always got options of some kind. Guy parrying your attacks too often? Kick his ass into traffic. About to slam into a car? Hit your jump jets to sail over them. Falling behind? Go on a short killing spree and get some NOS to catch up. Spot a dense crowd of racers? Even the playing field by sticking the guy in with C4, or just swerve into the pack like a maniac swinging your battle axe. Gotta swerve off the road? No problem! There's tons of space out there to ramp off hills at ridiculous speeds and come soaring back on to the road.
*******
As for how it's developed, it's been out in Early Access for a year now. I've been playing it for perhaps the last three months. In that time it's seen a lot of changes to its UI and other things, but I'd characterize its development as "slow and steady." I don't get a very good sense of its road map, on when they hope to reach full release. The devs communicate intermittently on their forums and the steam forums. However, the game is already fun, I can safely say that.
I can't shake the lingering, casual feeling of the game overall (I can't describe it any other way, and I don't mean it as an insult.) But it has so much promise too. From more weapons to crazier maps to crazier modifiers to skins, bikes, skills, races, this is the kind of game that could only grow in depth and scope if the devs stay with it. When I'd first bought it I was getting the feeling it'd maybe been abandoned, but they just released a big balance patch not too long ago....and when you beat the game the developer actually lists their phone # for you to call them with feedback if you want. That level of putting yourself out there would say you're not about to leave your game behind without a word.
A Note to controller users:The game does not natively recognize non-Xbox360 controllers. In order to get your Logitech or other controller to work with the game, you'll need to download
x360ce and put it in the game folder. It requires some fiddling with versions to get it to work, especially after updates. The only true annoyance I've had with the game if I'm honest.
The good-Fast, satisfyingly brutal, fun gameplay. It has that "one more game" quality to it.
-Lots of variety in levels, enemies and weapons. (Players can't pick from one of the several dozen skin variations yet, I assume that's an early access thing.)
-Zany antics abound with all the quirky things the game does. The semis in particular like to go over the top.
-It's very replayable, even without the campaign and campaign +. Someone somewhere will doubtlessly say it's repetitive, and they wouldn't be wrong. But I think the game truly shines in the moment to moment gameplay, and hopefully long-term the game will improve.
The Bad.-This still definitely feels like an Early Access game in some ways.
-The UI is pretty fugly, out of race more than in race, and it's on its 2nd or 3rd iteration. The terrain, while varied, also isn't the prettiest. The models and their textures look good though.
-The physics are pretty gamey across the board, and also lack a certain level of polish. They're entertaining, for sure, but occasionally a little ugly and buggy. Driving is a lot floatier than I would like. It makes for big fun jumps and air time but not a great sense of how your bike truly handles. TBH of the 4 kinds of bikes you're offered to ride at the start of the campaign, I can't tell the difference between any of them.
-Sound is all over the place. It's got decent music but volume levels are a thing for it and sound effects. Some sound effects are loud as shit, like crashes and explosions. There is a rough quality to some of this as well.
-Bugs. Not a ton of obvious ones that I've seen, but they're there. Sort of glaringly obvious ones like "The super obnoxious and loud Rainbow Road music isn't governed by the volume slider."
The Ugly.
-Again I'd put a lot of this up to the Early Access-ness.
-Incomplete UIs. The game, while allowing for 4 player split screen right now, doesn't show all 4 players on the UI. So on the race map you only see player 1. In the shop menu you only see player 1's stats, you only see player 1's weapons when you get a chance to pick a weapon at the start of some races. Things like that. There's still work to be done there.
-3rd Party Controller Support. They say it's because Unity doesn't natively handle non-360 controllers, or something (don't quote me on that) as the reason people are using x360ce to get their Logitech controllers to work. I don't know if it's a priority for them, and normally I wouldn't be complaining too loudly. x360ce is pretty easy to get and use. Except that I've had to redownload both the 32 and 64 bit versions between builds because apparently the game's architecture changed? Whatever the reason, it's annoying to fire up the game and find my controllers aren't work and have to figure out why.
*****
I've gone back and forth myself about posting this game here. I know folks generally like to buy complete games and this one ain't complete and in some places a little fugly. But damnit, it's fun already and if you've loved Road Rash I think you'll love this. I think I bought it on sale at $10 or $15 and I wouldn't have any problems buying it for full price now. It's not a game you can put 40 hours straight into, but it's one of those EA games I'm happy to know is in my library, improving away. I see a lot of potential in this game when it gets fleshed out, and is the kind of game I'd want to see a developer stick with for years. That they still haven't released it despite the fact you could call it a mostly finished game says good things to me about their long-term development plans. When/if it gets multiplayer, it's exactly the kind of thing I'd get my friends to buy for LAN parties or just to kill 45 minutes doing the campaign coop.
