Road Redemption is a unique mix of both the Racing and Fighting genres, set in some manner of post-apocalyptic world ruled by biker gangs. You belong to one such gang, a band known as the Jackals and you’ve been sent out to collect a bounty on an assassin that just took out a high ranking arms dealer. Seems simple enough, until you realize that your group isn’t the only one with aspirations to receive that boatload of cash on offer for taking out said unnamed assassin. Every other gang and even unaffiliated bikers all set off after him and are willing to do anything to oust the competition. That usually involves a swift strike with any weapon they can get their hands on, as well as gunfire, and tons of explosions were taking out one foe will see two more quickly replace him.
The roads you zoom by are packed with violent individuals and to add to the chaos there are still many cars going about their own business. It is a quite a bit to take in as you are tossed right into the fray with your fellow bikers all too happy to punish any mistakes. You won’t make it far without being the craziest and most violent one among them as your terrible ride simply can’t compare to the competition’s vehicles. With racing out of the question, it is time to make good use of your multiple weapons, kicking, and parrying incoming blows. There is no shortage of options given to you, all having different situations to best make use of. It is far from a simple button masher and is shockingly in-depth which is why I compare it to a Fighting game.
Starting off, you will wield both a blunt weapon and a blade. The blunt weapon is far easier to use since it has a far more generous parry animation, making fighting easier, as well as quite effective against foes with helmets. Using a blade, on the other hand, will barely hurt a helmeted foe, and it can be difficult swapping to another weapon while barreling down the road at insane speeds with an enemy trying to kill you as well. That extra risk carries a great benefit however, it will double the cash, health, and nitro you gain from killing someone. Yes, you regain health and nitro by offing an enemy. There are icons that can heal them, though since Road Redemption has a rouge-lite aspect to it, you may not even see any on a given map. Getting proficient with using a blade will help always keep you in top shape and becomes especially important later on when enemies use energy shields that are resistant against blunt strikes.
The power of a simple kick should not be underestimated. Activating this primitive but effective attack will target the nearest enemies bike, and with the force of the kick will cause your foe to slightly spiral out of control. That is incredibly deadly when racing near traffic, near a cliff’s end, or simply containing anything that can ruin his day. Since it is auto-targeted unlike the rest of your attacks, it will occasionally go for someone you didn’t intend for, which does limit its effectiveness against more than one foe. Then you have guns ranging from a shotgun to a grenade launcher. As you may imagine, trying to aim one of these is quite the task while focusing on the road, but are extremely deadly. Each has their own limited amount of ammo to keep some order to the madness, with the only way to get more is via a pickup on the track that will only be added until your next race.
Those are just the basics, I’ve failed to mention there being multiple lengths for your melee weapon to trade swift strikes for a longer reach, pipe bombs to toss behind you, and much more. Your road to the assassin will feature many levels, with all of them containing randomized objectives that you should make your priority to see through. The two most common ones you’ll see are a simple race in where you must finish at 3rd place at the very least and one where you are given a set of targets to kill before they reach the end. Failing an objective will see you losing a whopping 25% of your overall health, making future hits or crashes that much deadlier. Losing multiple times will really hamper your chances as the foes you’ll face only get tougher and more advanced as you go on. Winning, on the other hand, will net you quite the pretty penny which you can then use to buy perks or upgraded weapons from the store.
Everything in that store is randomized after each race, so there may be times when there is nothing you want and are forced to pocket some cash hoping for a better selection next time, if you can survive until then. The perks available offer things such as 5% more damage, more overall health or nitro, and increased ammo capacity. They are simple, straight upgrades to your stats as are the upgraded weapons that are different visually, though have no other variations or quirks to them. If you are in a real pinch, you can buy some health or nitro as well. All of these benefits will cease to be as soon as you die and start a new run. What remains will be the Experience Points which you use upon death to permanently upgrade your stats, gain the ability to start in later levels, or unlock new bikes. Some are pretty interesting like regaining health when using nitro and in general, this XP system will allow anyone to eventually beat the game. Just make sure to use your points as they are gone as soon as you leave that menu.
If you are wondering, no, grinding is not an absolute necessity to beat the title. What ultimately matters are the skills of the player and their knowledge of how to properly use all of the game’s mechanics. On the other hand, that is the only way to unlock new bikes which is annoying. You’ll be stuck with the same few bikes for quite some time, each having slightly different stats for acceleration, top speed, and the like. Reaching further levels or even finally managing to take out that assassin will unlock new racers, so your efforts aren’t all for nothing. Each racer has significant differences between them. Some can’t use guns, others have less health but gain much more money, with some flat out making the game harder. There is a decent amount of wacky characters to unlock that will affect the way you play. Which brings me to the randomized portions of the game. These will in fact not add replay value and actually harm the game.
We’ve talked about the store that may not even contain anything you want and the few variations to the objectives. The only other modifier to sometimes shake things up involves it literally raining cars, which is an amazing sight at first, but quickly grows annoying as you notice that the AI opponents move around them unnaturally to avoid ever crashing and only you are affected by it as a result. Most damning of all is that neither the tracks nor the order you play them in are randomized. As such, it will quickly grow repetitive and brings forth the question of why they even added the rouge-lite element in the first place. All they did was retain all of that genre’s faults in the form of an unbalanced experience and received little in the way of benefits. The racers added enough replay value to the unchanging tracks and static level order, throwing a random car on my head and artificially keeping me from upgrading my weapons doesn’t add to the fun.
In the grand scheme of things, the randomization while unneeded ends up being more of a minor issue than anything. A large portion of the time you’ll be spending all your attention on avoiding receiving a shovel to the face instead of the tracks themselves, and memorizing the levels can be quite helpful for future playthroughs. There are nice theme changes throughout to vary things up from the starting desert. You’ll soon find yourself racing on top of skyscrapers, through snowy mountains, and more. Usually, a zone ends on the border of a gang’s territory, in where you have to face the big boss himself. They have more health than regular bikers, seem to have a faster attack rate, and do make use of the kicking ability, unlike most others. You are in for quite a fight if the racer you choose can’t equip any guns to shoot him them in the back.
Combat is just a blast, with nearly every button on your controller containing an action to accomplish some epic levels of over the top violence. There is a ton of room for experimentation, all while trying to focus on the road in case you find yourself crashing right onto incoming traffic. Fighting and darn near everything to do with it has been masterfully fleshed out and will be the driving force behind it. Now the actual driving is another story entirely. I’ve spoken about how our crummy bikes can’t keep up to the competition and you need to make use of your nitro to eventually catch up. Its main flaw is in its rubber-banding when you are in the lead. This is one of the most extreme cases in recent memory. Every single biker in the race will always be immediately on your heels, despite kicking them off the road moments ago and draining your nitro meter to get some distance.
I get that the game is centered around fighting, and nonchalantly breezing along in first place removes that chaotic nature, but the way it accomplishes this is too heavy-handed. It doesn’t matter how many racers you cold heartily murder, leaving even one alive will still result in this fly-like AI always buzzing around you, waiting for you to make a mistake. And if you do, none of that rubber-banding will benefit you. They will continue in the lead at breakneck speeds and you will have to claw your way back. The AI are very mechanical in nature and will never crash as they pull off unnatural movements a split-second from any traffic, so you can’t rely on luck to help you catch up. You know what else you can’t rely on? Shortcuts. These narrow deviations from the roads are quite a risky gamble to take. Not due to any natural challenge mind you, it solely stems from the loose controls that are really ill-suited for any kind of precision.
The controls work perfectly fine on the wide open roads, as they let you maneuver all over the place with the slightest nudge on your analog stick, yet that is a determent for the lean shortcut passageways. Every second counts as you desperately try to catch up to the competition and a long death animation of you falling to your doom is hardly helpful. It is not impossible to make use of a shortcut, however, it becomes a far simpler task when you have the track memorized to know exactly how to navigate their windy routes. Thankfully, the races through the skyscrapers sections are handled much better. Steering off too far from the center in them is the perfect way to fall and there are plenty of sharp turns as well, though they are wide enough for the loose controls. They are the parts where your actual driving skills matter most, and the sheer madness of having every racer in such close vicinity to one another is wonderful. Add in the manually activated jump jets that saves someone from a fall last second, now you have something truly memorable.
It never gets as creative as the early skyscraper section again which is a shame. All future tracks simply feature a visual change and far more vicious, well-equipped bikers. That works well enough to keep one engaged nonetheless, you truly need to get to terms with how the game functions to emerge the victor. A good upgraded weapon and a ton of permanent upgrades for your character helps, but it still comes down to skill at the end of the day. The RNG implemented in Road Redemption can hinder you, though you will never face an impossible run nor will any form of progression keep you from winning. Speaking of, there is a separate progression system to the multiplayer. In that mode, you are put into either a red or blue team. I’ve only been able to get a few matches containing more than a single other person in them and they are a ton of fun. It is a bare-bones experience in terms of options and matchmaking, though a more than welcome addition.
You can also bring some friends along for the ride in your campaign via four player split-screen. This is an exceptionally rare feature nowadays, especially for the PC, that one can’t help but applaud whether or not you ever actually use it. There is another bizarre mode called Campaign Plus once you beat the original at least once. All it does is randomly scramble up the level orders, the tracks stay the same. When all is said and done, Road Redemption may seem like a simple game at a glance, though is far more involved than you likely imagine. The combat is second to none and the visceral feedback of defeating an opponent ensures that you are unlikely to ever get bored of doing so. Stick some C4 onto someone, chop off heads left & right with a machete, or merely unload your sub-machine gun into someone foolishly ahead of you in a race. While the driving leaves much to be desired, you’ll usually be too busy rampaging your way to victory to even care.
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