Snappy Game Reviews - That familiar rush
There are a whole plethora of anti-gravity racing games nowadays trying to capture the essence of the great classics such as F-Zero and WipeOut, with the latter has recently resurfaced on the PlayStation 4 the idea of a new F-Zero is sadly still pretty much dead in the water. While this seemingly endless wait continues though, I’ve had the chanceSnappy Game Reviews - That familiar rush
There are a whole plethora of anti-gravity racing games nowadays trying to capture the essence of the great classics such as F-Zero and WipeOut, with the latter has recently resurfaced on the PlayStation 4 the idea of a new F-Zero is sadly still pretty much dead in the water. While this seemingly endless wait continues though, I’ve had the chance to play a couple of indie games that tried to fill this gap, such as the Fast Racing Neo and now the slick Redout developed by the Italian studio 34BigThings.
Redout is a new anti-gravity racing game released in early 2017 that’s recently seen the light of day with some extra content, dubbed Lightspeed Edition, on consoles such as the PlayStation 4. Despite being an anti-gravity game, Redouttakes a more traditional approach to how it handles its primary mode. As soon as you start the Career mode you’re asked to pick one ship from any of seven racing teams in the game. These range from the usual well-balanced ships to the slower sturdier ones and finally the faster glass cannons. Each of these ships controls beautifully with a very intuitive default scheme and many controller options, you’ll be sure to find one that you enjoy. You can further increase each attribute of your ship by using the in-game currency to do so or compensate for certain shortcomings of your favourite ship by using active and passive power-ups. While these make for some interesting combinations I feel that it also defeats some of the brilliant simplicity that the genre is known for.
The Solar Redout Racing League is broken into four classes of ships, each with a set number of events of a wide variety of racing modes. This may be one of Redouts strongest suits as the number of modes and events is simply staggering with the Speed and Boss events being amongst my personal favourites. In Speed events your goal is to try and keep your ship’s speed above a certain number for as long as you can, with that time being deducted to your total lap time, Boss events, on the other hand, work like endurances of sorts, with each of the tracks of a single location are pieced together with portals making for very long, and also very exciting runs where a single mistake can mean having to start all over again.
Redout is a real joy to play. The AI is challenging but mostly fair, the track design and backgrounds of each of the seven locations are very distinct from one another and brimming with small details meaning that you’ll never get tired of going through the same tracks over again, though I would’ve liked to see a wider range of locations given the vast number of tracks on offer. The blistering sense of speed comes through even on the regular model PS4 at its sub-60FPS due to how the visual effects accentuate all the action going on screen. The original soundtrack is also worth noting with some great EDM and techno tracks that will push those bass-heavy speakers or headphones with its full 5.1 surround sound support.
The game is also packed with a ton of content. The 35 tracks of this Lightspeed Edition of Redout make up for over one hundred events in Career mode, on top of this, there are Free Race, 2-Player Splitscreen and Online modes. The main mode will most likely be enough to quench your AG thirst but in case you’re interested in picking up Redout for the online you better bring some friends along with you because as of writing this review the servers are pretty barren and the few people that show up online seem to only be there until they manage to get the single online trophy that Redout has. Speaking of trophies, the game comes packed with a friendly platinum that’ll be a joy to unlock for fans of this genre.
Redout: Lightspeed Edition is a fantastic tip of the hat to the anti-gravity racing classics, it’s absolutely gorgeous, plays like a charm and it’s packed with a great deal of content. The upgrade and perks mechanics are ultimately an unnecessary extra layer of complexity but these small issues are often forgotten as soon as you get on the race track and hold on to your controller for dear life hoping you don’t blow up your sweet ride on the first set of turns.… Expand
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