Redneck Rampage Review

"All the killin', twice the humor, half the intelligence... "

Yup! Grab your girlfriend/cousin Billie Joe, pack your favorite whiskey, and get ready to open up a can of whoop-ass. Although this routine may be a little too close to home for some of us, others can get a full-on experience of what it's like to be in Hickston, the most red-neck (and fictional) city in existence. Go on, just take a gander at the "Hickston Hog," a newspaper provided courtesy of Interplay, to get a feel for the outrageous new setting of this "blood-soaked 3D killing spree." - Redneck Rampage.

. There are a lot of 3D shooters out there in the world today. Unfortunately, not all of them can keep even your average gamer awake. What makes one better than another, you ask? Well, in Redneck Rampage's case it's the setting. The plot revolves around a town full of hicks. It's like some guy said, "Uhh, hey let's make a game about a bunch of hicks with some guns, alcohol, and aliens (and guns!).." And the designer next to him replied, "What about the story?" Then the first guy said, "Umm, er...huh?." Thus evolved the game which sits before me. A clever setting with an underdeveloped story line (kill aliens that have cloned your people to save your favorite pig...wheee) and a minimal amount of enemies.

Once you get past its one-of-a-kind setting, Redneck Rampage is unmistakably similar to every single game using the BUILD engine. The BUILD engine has had a nice influence over the 3D shooter genre in many feature games today. Starting off with Duke Nukem 3D and appearing in new releases like Shadow Warrior and Blood, it looks like it is time for BUILD to hang up its spurs and "bow down" to an engine of greater superiority.

Playing Redneck Rampage is enjoyable at first, but once you get used to the comical graphics, sound and music, you get a better look at the overall picture of things: basic guns, limited enemies, boring levels. I got pretty sick of killing the same 2 enemy types over and over again (in the first couple of levels) then searching the entire level looking for the damn key. Gameplay isn't bad, just nothing we haven't seen before.

Another aspect that "makes" Redneck Rampage and almost every single BUILD engine game are the 'little' things. "Health Food n' Stuff" (as put by the newspaper/instruction manual) are probably the most clever I have seen in a game. Their basic purpose is refilling health, though there is a limit to how much to consume. Eating too much will cause difficulty in getting/sneaking around enemies due to...well...burping. For even more health, go on and take a swig of whisky and down a six-pack of beer. Whoops, don't drink too much (as indicated by the Drunkometer) or you won't be able to walk straight. Drink way too much and you won't even be able to see straight. Ring a bell for some of us? ( Note: We at Game Revolution do not condone heavy drinking...Okay, fine. You got us. We think too much drinking is super-cool!! - eDyTeR {burp!})

The weapons are cool if not unique. The basic crowbar, handgun, shotgun, and dynamite seem to be mandatory in first-person shooters today. You also have to chance to grab a cross-bow (with dynamite duct-taped to it), a machine gun, ripsaw blades, an alien arm gun (complete with the alien arm attached) and a nice little "suit" which fires much like 2 machine guns.

The comical graphics first experienced when playing this game are enough to make you laugh out loud. Everything, including textures and enemies, look superb, especially at high-resolution (640x480). Unless you have a high-end machine (P Pro, P II) you will probably have to run Redneck Rampage in 320x200 mode, but don't worry, everything still looks good.

The sound, from burping and puking to the yelling of fellow hicks, is everything you would expect from a game with the word "Redneck" in the title. Enemies seem to have a little more "personality" through use of better sounds. One of the coolest aspects of the entire game is the music soundtrack. Just pop that CD into your stereo to hear the hardest-hitting rock country music you will ever hear in your life. Yyyyeeeeeeeeeeeehhhaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

All in all Redneck Rampage is a pretty good game. Although the story might not be too developed (for some reason I like a damn good story), the graphics, setting and music will keep you in the Redneck groove for some time. Like a lot of first person shooters out there, Redneck Rampage could get old very quickly, but for the most part it's funny and entertaining as hell.