|
Have you ever wanted to kill rednecks? Would you kill them if they were evil clones of your neighbors made by aliens that have kidnapped your favorite pig named “Bessie”? These questions and more are presented to you in a humorous FPS called Redneck Rampage developed by Xatrix Entertainment and published by Interplay.
Based on Ken Silverman’s “Build Engine” which powered Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, and Shadow Warrior, Redneck Rampage crashed the party of humorous first-person-shooters that graced the late nineties with an exaggerated southern spoof. You play as Leonard, who may not be as memorable as Duke Nukem, but still delivers colorful one-liners throughout game play in a thick southern accent. Your brother is Bubba, a fat dumb redneck who actually serves as your exit from each level if you find him and hit him over the head with a crowbar. The game takes place in the fictional backwoods town of Hickston, USA. The setting is unique for a first-person-shooter and is full of atmosphere and detail that really immerse you in the heavily-wooded rural area. Crickets chirp, frogs croak, pickup trucks run over chickens on the highway, and the sky is a hazy sunset orange behind the dark tree line. Of course, the woods are just textured walls, but you’ll get over it. The game has a default resolution of 640x480, but it is possible to play the game with a resolution of 1600x1200. The max resolution even gave my AMD dual core 6000 a slow frame rate, so I suggest you not go over 800x600. The basic goal of each mission is to find Bubba and hit him over the head with your crowbar in order to proceed to the next mission. But before you can find Bubba, you’ll have to find a few keys to get into different buildings in the levels. It’s more time consuming than you expect because the levels are quite large and non-linear. Each level is more like a map instead of a narrow path, and I even got lost on the first level running around the dirt roads in the woods. Farms, general stores, houses, water-towers, and a bar are the different locations you’ll explore in only the first level. The locations vary between a sewage treatment plant, dairy, trailer park (complete with tornado problem) , downtown city streets (with a completely destructible gas station!) scrap yard, and more. Your enemies mostly consist of skinny old rednecks with pistols and fat grungy rednecks in suspenders with double barrel shotguns. Giant mosquitoes, attack dogs, and aliens also show up to give you grief throughout the various levels. If you’re not careful around the pigs, you might piss them off and they will chase you around oinking in vicious anger. Fortunately, you have access to a fun arsenal to lay waste to the backwoods creeps that includes a revolver, double-barrel shotgun, sticks of dynamite, AK-47, and even a gun that shoots ricocheting saw blades. The weapons all handle well and the AK-47 even has some strong recoil that causes your aim to trail off. For health, you have moon pies, beer, whisky, and moonshine. Eating too much causes you to pass gas and too much alcohol gets you drunk complete with blurry vision and dizzy controls. They may be slack-jawed yokels, but these rednecks don’t play around. A single gun shot from a pistol will take about fifteen points from your health, and a shotgun wound will knock about twenty-five points off your health. There is plenty of beer and whisky around, but it’s very easy to get drunk and then it’s difficult to just walk around and aim. The default key configuration is from the pre-WASD days of moving and strafing, so you’re going to want to reconfigure the keys to the current standard if you want to have a chance of staying alive long enough to finish the first level. The Build Engine was outdated even in 1997, so don’t expect graphics that match Quake 2 or even Quake 1. Redneck Rampage is full of sprites, not polygons. But on the other hand, the sprites and textures are much sharper than the blurry textures that coat the polygons in the old Quake engines of the late nineties. The soundtrack consists of “psychobilly” rock with such artists as Mojo Nixon and Reverend Horton Heat. They fit the tone of the game, but I prefer the atmospheric sounds of the levels. Overall, Redneck Rampage is a fun and humorous departure from the cliché sci-fi settings that plague so many late nineties first-person-shooters. Fans of Duke Nukem 3d and the Postal series should eat this up. Sound- 9/10: The voices are funny, the sound effects are great, and the atmospheric sounds add immersion. The southern rock soundtrack is an acquired taste though. Graphics- 7/10: It’s the same engine as Duke Nukem 3d. What it lacks in polygons, it makes up for with detailed sprites and textures. Not enough enemy variation. Gameplay- 7/10: Open ended levels with interactive environments and lots of mindless shooting. It might get boring to fans of modern shooters. Overall- 7/10: The redneck humor may not appeal to some, and game play is old school, but this country-fried shooter is a HOOT!
|
