Sunday 20 May 2018

PC Game Review: Pinchcliffe Grand Prix - The PC Game


GAME: Pinchcliffe Grand Prix (Flåklypa Grand Prix)
DEVELOPER: Capricornus Computer Game Productions AS
PUBLISHER: Caprino Video Games AS
RELEASED: 1999 (Original), 2003 (Gold Edition)
AVAILABILITY: PC (no longer sold or supported)

It's probably kind of difficult to bring up the subject of "The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix" to most non-Norwegians as the movie is kind of a Norwegian phenomenon and isn't that well known outside of our borders, but to most Norwegians, the movie is a national treasure on par with cheese slicers and lutefisk. Originally released in 1975, directed by the famous animator Ivo Caprino, and based on a popular series of comic strips, books and other published material by Kjell Aukrust, "The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix" takes place in the titular town of Pinchcliffe named after a mountain upon which our three main characters live. Theodore Rimspoke is a bicycle repairman and hobby inventor living with his friends Lambert, a shy and quiet porcupine suffering from crippling anxiety, and Sonny Duckworth, a magpie who is the polar opposite of Lambert, an extroverted daredevil who gets things done but also tends to get himself into trouble. One day they spot one of Theodore's old apprentices, Rudolph Gore-Slimey on TV boasting about his new invention that will revolutionize motorsports. Failing to mention that the invention actually came from Theodore, having stolen it from him while working at his garage. Sonny encourages Theodore to challenge Rudolph to a race with his own self built car, the Il Tempo Gigante, going head to head with Rudolph's Boomerang Rapido in a legendary race. With the help of an Arabian oil sheik funding his project, Theodore sets off to build his dream car and the rest is history. The movie is considered a landmark animated movie in Norway, featuring entirely stop motion animation, and at times using rear projection to attain really convincing effects. It was a technical marvel of a movie at the time and directors such as George Lucas paid close attention to it, using the race as inspiration for the pod race in Star Wars Episode 1 among other things (which, let's be fair, was the best part of that movie).  The movie has remained popular in Norway to this day and is annually broadcast on TV on December 23rd (the day before Norwegian Christmas eve). So around 1998, Ivo Caprino's son Mario took the responsobility of getting a team together to make a PC game based on the movie. And that's the game I will be looking at today.

As a warning, a lot of the screenshots are of the Norwegian edition of the game and while I have enabled English subtitles, a lot of text will be in Norwegian.

One of the game's scenes. Each scene starts with a brief cutscene before you can go wild with the mouse cursor.
It's hard to really put the Pinchcliffe game into any set genre but the easiest way to describe is that it's a point-and-click activity center game, though it still has a plot and goal to it so it's also not just an activity center. The main game consists of various scenes based on the movie where you can interact with certain things in the scene, and the main goal of the game is to gather parts for the Il Tempo Gigante race car so that you can build it yourself and race Rudolph in a racing game (more on that later). Stuff you click on will reveal different things based on what icon is displayed when you hover your mouse over it.
An encyclopaedia icon will reveal a factoid when you click on something, often related to what you are clicking on (clicking on a bowl of fruit for instance will reveal some facts about fruit). A lot of these are fun to read and add a bit of an edutainment aspect to the game since they're not really in your face and it's entirely optional to read them. However discovering all of the factoids in a scene will net you a reward of a car part so the game does reward reading up on stuff.
A marionette icon will play an animation, and often clicking multiple times on the same spot will actually play different animations each time, showing a rather impressive attention to detail and it makes the game a lot of fun to replay in case you've missed some animations you've never seen before and such.
A dice icon will launch one of the game's multiple minigames. Most of these are based on classic arcade games and are fun to pick up and play, but can get really difficult on higher difficulties (more on these later).
A checkboard icon will launch an activity. Activities are a little different from the minigames in that most of them don't really have set goals but can be more just simple timewasters such as jigsaw puzzles and playing chess or colouring pictures.
When you are done in a scene you can right click to bring up the navigation panel to either move to the next scene, go to the previous one, bring up the Help menu or head back to the main menu.

The apple harvest is one of the minigames in Pinchcliffe and can get pretty hectic on higher levels.
One thing I wanna mention that I find hilarious, is that the game proudly states its lack of violence on the box, and to me this feels really redundant. I mean, I don't think there's any Norwegian who doesn't know the movie and as much as I admire that the game makes it clear it's a family friendly affair, it's kind of like placing a "for girls" sticker on a Barbie game. For anyone who's seen the movie, it would be kind of out of place expecting the game to be something like a first person shooter. I mean, as interesting as it would be seeing Sonny grab a tommy gun and blast the hell out of Rudolph, the likelyhood of this happening is really microscopic since the movie doesn't really have any violence in it. I think the closest the game comes to any violence is the treatment Sonny receives when sneaking into the sheik's tent, but even that is so cartoony and slapsticky that it's not even worth mentioning.

As previously mentioned the minigames make up a big chunk of the gaming experience in Pinchcliffe as you will be spending a lot of time playing these to earn car parts for Il Tempo Gigante. Pretty much all of these minigames feel really arcady and the game also has leaderboards built in to keep track of high scores so competing with friends and family is a real thing in this game.

There's a mail sorting minigame where you have to sort letters from all over the world and place them into respective bags. It gets pretty hectic but throws enough variation into the mix to make it possible to develop a strategy and get really good at the game.

A variation on Snake is included where you guide a caterpillar around the side of a tree, munching on ants and mushrooms (just make sure you don't eat the poisonous ones) and growing bigger. Once the score limit has been reach you advance higher up the tree. There is a time limit though so make sure you get enough points in time.
The sock closet game is a variation on memory where you have to match pairs of socks. The apple harvest (screenshot above) is based on Oil Panic and you have to catch falling apples and deposit them in Lambert's basket so he can make some delicious apple pies with them. The more apple pies you make, the more apples come falling down (I guess the smell of that apple pie really makes them wanna grow faster).

There's a Simon Says esque game where Lambert has to mimic Solan's steps in a Hopscotch game, obviously inspired by a small adorable scene in the movie where Lambert (who really looks up to Sonny) is trying to mimic his Hopscotch skills and fails miserably.
The sound machine is another memory type game where instead of matching socks you match sounds by pressing buttons on the machine Sonny is using in the beginning of the movie. This used to annoy the crap out of our parents when I was a kid and of course, we all loved playing it. The amount of sounds and how similar they are to each other gets bigger and bigger the longer you play. Apparently if you get far enough you can complete some kind of invention that will shoot a piggy bank though I've never actually managed to break the piggy bank in this game.

The word game is a simple typing game where you type words that fall down the screen before they reach the bottom. Balloon Hunt is a game where Sonny gets a gyrocopter and flies around the town gathering balloons. It's a fun flying game that reminds me a little of Pilotwings or the training stage from Star Fox and uses some simple 3D graphics (which is kind of jarring as the rest of the game is in 2D). There's a game where you feed maggots to birds (watch out for the squirrel though, apparently feeding him maggots is not okay).
 Lambert's Maze is a Pacman style game where you travel around a maze gathering wooden sticks, berries, mushrooms and honey combs while avoiding bees (NO, NOT THE BEES)... ...(I am not sorry).

Theodore's Repair shop is a game where you repair bikes by scrapping bad parts and replacing them with new ones. Very simple but like the mail sorting game gets really intense on higher levels since you not only have to manage the bikes but also the new parts that are constantly delivered and have to be put on the shelves or the bikes.
Sonny also has a sidescrolling racing game where you control him as he goes down Pinchcliffe, gathering coins and avoiding hazards on the way. The higher the difficulty, the more hazards you will encounter but your score multiplier is also higher so it's a risk vs reward thing.
There's a Pipe Dreams kind of game where you connect oil pipes, a game where you collect butterflies (avoid the insects) and also a game where Emanuel Desperados, the sheik's pet monkey, challenges you to a game of cups.

Hmm... don't remember that from the movie :P

What really strikes me about these minigames is that while they're all not particurarily original they all feel inspired by the movie and its characters and story elements and thus all feel like they make sense. They're also really well made and provide plenty of challenge for adults as well as a really generous learning curve for younger players. In all of the games you earn medals based on your performance where a Platinum medal is the best possible result. You don't necessarily have to be great at the minigames to earn car parts though as even a silver medal will net you a reward and in most of the scenes there's a hidden Retometic Distributor (the invention that Rudolph stole) and finding these will net you an instant reward of a car part. This means that you can approach gathering car parts in a lot of different ways and the game offers plenty of different challenges so if you're not good at one thing, chances are high you'll still eventually gather all the car parts to complete the car.

Speaking of, it might be time to discuss the final game, the racing game. You don't really need all the parts for the car to play this as you only need level 1 of the car finished to be able to race (which doesn't make much sense but makes it easier for you to get into the racing game early on). However continuing to upgrade your car and finishing it makes it faster for each level of completion and thus raising your chances in the races. The racing game can be accessed from the main menu by clicking on the racing flag icon and from here you can access any tracks you've earned in the game and any additional cars you earn. The iconic "dirty tricks" button from the movie is here and with this mode turned on, the game will spawn powerups you can pick up to mess up the race for other players or give yourself an advantage. As far as racing games go, it's more akin to something like RC Pro AM or Death Rally as it is a top down racer instead of a 3D racer. It's still a fun little minigame to play, especially with friends and the AI is fairly competent.

The car builder is where you assemble the iconic car from the movie and level up your car.
The game is also full of various activites to do if you want a break from the main game or just want something to sink some time into. You don't really see these kind of activity center games anymore, mostly because a lot of these activities can probably be done with apps and other programs these days. But they still have a lot of charm to them and are worth dabbling into, if anything for just the variation they provide.

The character gallery provide some information on the various characters in the game and movie's universe, there's a game where you put flowers in a vase and can print these flowers (I'm not quite sure who this would appeal to, or what it's based on but... it's there), there's a music activity where you can compose pieces of music or just play existing pieces of music using a simple single-instrument keyboard. It's a little simple but it works nicely as a way to teach music to children (once again kind of adding that edutainment aspect to the game). There's also a drawing activity where you can draw your own things or colour existing drawings and print them (based on scenes and characters from the game). There's also a jigsaw puzzle, Mah-Jongg, Checkers, a puzzle game where you have to eliminate gems from Solina's gem box, a slide puzzle (I HATE this game cause I suck at slide puzzles), Chess (which actually has a really good AI that loves to fuck with you), a movie projector where you can actually watch unlockable clips from the movie as well as clips that at the point of this game's release had never been seen before, and an activity center where you can make simple presentations and birthday cards and other nice things. It feels like a little oudated concept nowadays for most of these things, but like I said, they have plenty of charm to them.

The Gold edition of the game also adds some new content to the game in the form of a quiz where you have to test how familiar you are with the game by matching sounds to scenes and facts to scenes and such, a number machine where you solve mathematic problems (again kind of an edutainment aspect) and a word machine where you have to solve anagrams. The most notable and, kind of gimmicky addition to the Gold edition is the addition of 3D content. The game comes with some fancy 3D glasses and these can be used to view special 3D scenes as well as new 3D pictures and 3D jigsaw puzzles (which I don't see the point of to be honest but it's a nice addition to have more puzzles to do).

The attention to detail in the scenes, character models and textures is amazing, each scene painstakingly recreating the environments from the movie.
Graphically this game is amazing and the production value shines through in everything. While not using any kind of real time 3D, the game uses mostly pre-rendered static scenes and animations. This means that they could put in a staggering amount of detail on their 3D models without requiring any kind of 3D acceleration to run the game. A good example is the fur on Lambert's body which for the time looks on par with something you'd see in a Pixar movie. The animation is done by hand which means that it at times doesn't look that great compared to newer movies and games done with CGI, but all in all it has held up surprisingly well. The game's pace is a bit slow and might be a bit boring to some kids who just wanna jump into some games, though you can skip all of the animations and cutscenes in the game and once you have discovered an activity or minigame in the scenes, you can access it from the main menu without even having to go into the main game which to me is a brilliant thing.

As you can probably tell from the screenshots the attention to detail in this game is definitely on par with what you'd see in the movie and it's still a gorgeous game to look at. The kind of retro mix of a typical Norwegian mountain town with all of its gorgeous nature mixed with the kind of DYI home made look of Theodore's inventions and technology sets the tone for the game's visuals and it's still a really charming style to look at. The main menu looks a bit like a dashboard from the car with a 9-volt battery in the bottom corner and lights and switches all over the place. It's just an aesthetic that has so much soul to it.

The game's most violent scene. BEWARE! Sonny getting turned into a football. :P
On the audio side I can only really speak for the Norwegian version of the game. It's amazing that they actually got the original voice cast to redo their lines for their roles, with the exception of cast members who had passed away before the game's release where they either used an impersonator (who does a really good job mind you) or archive voices from the movie. That being said I am not 100% happy with the cast's new deliveries. You can definitely tell that they're much older and lacking a lot of the energy they had while dubbing the original movie. The most jarring example being Sonny who just kinda lacks the energy his character is supposed to have. The new music added to the game is also a bit bland and doesn't really feel like it matches the style of the original soundtrack (lots of generic orchestral style music that feels a bit out of place). Some of the rearrangements work though, but feel a bit lacking.

One last thing I also wanna discuss is the game's copy protection. This game has never been re-released on any kind of digital storefront like Steam or GOG, and the ONLY way to play it is either by pirating it or somehow getting your hands on a physical copy. The game ships with the CD-Cops and DVD-Cops copy protection which physically scans the disc when the game is inserted and if the disc is wrong or not inserted, the game will not launch. It matches the disc to a unique serial number printed on the game's manual, and without this serial number you're screwed. This copy protection is also notoriously difficult to crack. And I have numerous issues with this kind of copy protection being used on a game.

For one, it means that if you lose the game disc or something happens to it, you're screwed. You can no longer play the game you paid for. It also means that you cannot make backup copies of the game since they most likely won't work. It feels like a really hostile way to treat your consumer, and I honestly feel like the game treats me like a potential criminal. On one hand, this kind of makes sense given the huge personal investment the Caprino family put into this game, and this is a really efficient way of ensuring profit. But to me it's inexcusable that they to this day haven't released this game digitally. Sure, there was a DS remake released in 2010 but this game is very different from the original PC game in a lot of ways, and there are iOS versions of some of the minigames from the game but only 4 of them. As of today, the game is no longer being sold or supported at their website and thus obtaining the game means you have to buy it used and prices are NOT dropping for this game as its rarity increases and it remains highly sought after due to its cult status in Norway.

Despite this, the game remains one of the biggest success in Norway and has sold over 500,000 copies in total (which on a Norwegian scale is a massive success). It received rave reviews from every publication on release, though despite this, Caprino never made any more games based on their movie IP's and instead focused on continuing support for the game up until 2010. The game will work fine on Windows 7 but will not work on Windows 8 or 10. It also requires that you run the game in 16bit colour mode so it sadly has a lot of compatability issues with modern OS's. So if you do decide to track down this game, just be aware of this.

Nothing about this game is dang'rous :P
All in all, Pinchcliffe Grand Prix the PC Game is an amazing experience and remains incredibly faithful to the movie. It's one of the rare instances where the game was developed with the same level of care and attention to detail as the movie, by people who worked on the movie itself. And it's sad to see the game no longer being sold or receiving support because in my opinion, the game remains as much of a national treasure as the movie is and I really hope it will be re-released digitally for modern OS's at some point but it seems Caprino has no plans for this when I asked them about it. Oh well, with a 3D remake of the game on the horizon coming to Steam and Switch, it at least seems we haven't seen the last of our pals at Pinchcliffe...

STORY: 9/10
GAMEPLAY: 8/10
GRAPHICS: 10/10

SOUND: 8/10

TOTAL SCORE: 9/10

Saturday 19 May 2018

A Call of Duty Retrospective


So with the releases of Call of Duty WWII and now the announcement of Black Ops 4, I have reached the sad conclusion that I will not be buying either of these games, after getting each annual Call of Duty game for about 5-6 years now. And to properly explain why I have decided to not get them, I think it's time I gave a proper retrospective look on my relationship with the Call of Duty franchise. It will be less of a review of these games and more just a look back at the franchise and the memories I have with it. Those of you who hasn't should probably check out my reviews of the older games on this blog to get some perspective but here we go.

For about 5-6 years now I've been borderline obsessed with Call of Duty. It's been not only my go-to multiplayer game but also surprisingly games that I would buy for the single player campaigns. And while my interest in the zombie modes have never been that great I have dabbled into them too.

My first experience with Call of Duty was buying Modern Warfare 3 in 2011. I had recently built a new gaming PC so in many ways 2011 was the first year that I really got into current gen gaming as my previous rig up until that point just couldn't handle modern games beyond Half-Life 2 (which I had to run at 640x480). The jump in resolution, quality and so forth was extreme for me and it really felt like I was jumping a generation ahead. This PC that I built, which is the same PC I'm using today and will soon retire from gaming as I am planning on building yet another PC, was built to last at least 5 years into the future so in a way, this PC has been the PC I've enjoyed the entire Call of Duty series on.

I had never really been into Call of Duty as my interest in WW2 shooters and generally more realistic shooters was never that great. While others were playing multiplayer games like Counter Strike and Call of Duty I was kind of on the sideline of it all as I was never really that into multiplayer as most of the places I lived at never had stable internet or I was not allowed to use it for multiplayer gaming. So MW3 was really my first venture into online multiplayer. And most shooters I had played up until that point were mostly sci-fi shooters like Quake 4, Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, shooters that I played more for the single player campaigns than anything else. At heart I remain a single player gamer but this all changed with MW3.

Aside from the campaign, which I really loved, I found myself addicted to the multiplayer part of the game. Around this time my boyfriend had also gotten Steam so he could chat with me online and one of the first memories I have of chatting with my boyfriend on Steam was doing so while playing Modern Warfare 3. This game got a lot of bad criticism from gamers who had been long time fans of the series, especially seeing it as a clone of MW2 and I think this was just the point where the series was being criticized for essentially releasing the same game over and over. Ironically this was the point I got into the series so my perspective was entirely different from most fans of the series. I had never played the first 3 games, nor had I played much of MW1 and MW2 and thus I didn't have the same bias and I really enjoyed MW3 for what it was. It was and still is a rock solid shooter and I felt really enamored by the slightly futuristic tech in the game. Of course being a sci-fi geek I was over the moon when Black Ops 2 was unveiled in 2012.

Black Ops 2 was the point where my love for the series grew bigger than before. I was actually really craving a Call of Duty that was more futuristic so when Black Ops 2 came it felt like a game more tailored to my taste. It also had actual colour as opposed to the drab grey and brown tones of Modern Warfare 3. And the multiplayer was probably one of the best in the series, introducing the new point build system which introduced even more flexibility in class creation. What had really drawn me into the multiplayer was the custom classes and the freedom that came with that. MW3 and BO2 were really made to suit YOUR playstyle and whether you wanted to play defensively, offensively or any other combination, chances were high that as you leveled up and got more gear you could really find a combination that worked really well for you. I absolutely adored this and playing around with different builds became one of my favourite things to do in these games.

Then Call of Duty Ghosts came and while I was a bit disappointed it didn't entirely continue in the futuristic direction Black Ops 2 had taken it was still an amazing experience. It brought a really engaging single player campaign and mixed it with the first time you could actually play as female soldiers. Once again it felt like the developers had read my mind and knew what I wanted from the series. While it wasn't perfect and I had some issues with it, Ghosts was still a great experience but then they revealed Advanced Warfare.

It was 2014. I had just moved down to a new city and moved into a new apartment. I wasn't in a particurarily good place mentally, struggling with a lot of anxiety and it didn't help I was starving myself to lose weight. But it didn't really matter cause when Advanced Warfare came out I was beyond excited. It had jump jets, lasers, a futuristic setting, everything was made for exactly what I loved to see. Innovation, and most of all, just sheer fun! Advanced Warfare remains my favourite CoD to date as I had immense fun with it, so it's a bit sad that nobody really plays it anymore and it received very lackluster reception from a lot of people. I didn't care, I enjoyed every second of it and I once again felt that same excitement I had when playing Modern Warfare 3 for the first time. It felt new, refreshing and unlike anything that was on the market with the possible exception of Titanfall. And I loved Titanfall so seeing the Call of Duty series take some notes from it was not bad in my book. It still felt like Call of Duty to me and even better than the older games. There was no way I could go back to playing Black Ops 2 or Ghosts at this point. This game blew everything out of the water. And the campaign had a ton of really great moments and setpieces, with everything from sneaking into places to mountain climbing and even piloting a jet. It felt just like a CoD campaign should, like an interactive high budget action movie and with the new amazing technology behind the game providing life-like facial capture and motion, it was even more into that area than ever before.

2015 rolled around and Black Ops 3 came. While not impressing me as much as Advanced Warfare, it was still immensely fun playing the campaign co-op with friends, and the multiplayer is still something I enjoy today as the game still has a healthy amount of people playing it and it's really fun to pick up once in a while especially seeing as the game continues being supported by Activision with new modes like the newly introduced Prop Hunt mode being added 3 years after the game's release. It once again continued the futuristic direction of the series, which while a lot of people disliked, I was all for and it felt just slightly different from Advanced Warfare in some ways so I still loved it enough on its own. And apparently despite what people felt about the game's direction, a lot of people are still playing it.

2016 would see the release of the final game of the series that would follow in this style, Infinite Warfare. For some reason this game was almost universally hated when it came out and I failed to see why. The campaign was really strong and it was actually really refreshing seeing a Call of Duty set in outer space. In a lot of ways it didn't even feel like a Call of Duty game anymore and felt more like something from Mass Effect, especially in how you approached missions as you had side missions and story missions and could choose which to accomplish. The multiplayer also wasn't amazing or anything but it got the job done and was a lot of fun. Again, I still don't know why people were so negative towards it. People kept screaming about wanting games like Modern Warfare back and wanting the series to go back to its roots. Yeah, this was the SAME fanbase who just a few years back had been screaming for the series to innovate and when it actually did they just wanted it to go back to how it was? To this day I absolutely fail to see what's so wrong about the innovations they did cause they ultimately made the franchise way more enjoyable and more fun. Call of Duty has never been about realism, it's always been about arcady shooting, about high budget experiences and more seeing where warfare could go and what it could become in the future rather than focusing on realistic scenarios.

But people had their voices heard and 2017's WW2 certainly proved that. It stripped the series of its futuristic direction and went back to a WW2 setting with one of the most bland and uninteresting trailers I've ever seen. Nothing about it felt interesting or exciting and it even looked really grey and drab and for that reason I just skipped on it. It wasn't MY Call of Duty and it seems... neither is Black Ops 4. Yea, surprisingly they are going back to a "boots on the ground" gameplay which to me is flabbergasting. The devs of the series have prided themselves on the innovations they've done and how much fun they have made the games and now they're just stripping away those elements. And yeah, call me negative but I don't see how a freakin' Battle Royale mode can replace a single player campaign. I mean, I get it's not meant to but seeing as they scrapped a single player campaign in favour of Zombie and Battle Royale modes just disappoints me on so many levels.

At this point I'm just done with the series and it feels really sad and almost kind of melancholic for me. This is a series that have delivered annual releases that have excited me, inspired me, captivated me and kept me addicted to the series since 2011. And now I'm just not feeling that excitement anymore. I get that things change and sometimes these changes aren't always for the better. It seems Call of Duty is no longer made for me and so I guess it is my time to sign out for good. It's really sad cause for years now Call of Duty has always been this annual thing I've been excited for, always safe bets for me cause none of them disappointed me. I am happy for those who wanted these games and wanted these changes but man... I just can't share your joy. And with a new PC coming, it's also time to retire my old gaming beast. Times are changing indeed...

Alyxx out.

Friday 11 May 2018

Build Engine Retrospective Part 3: Redneck Rampage



GAME: Redneck Rampage
DEVELOPER: Xatrix Entertainment
PUBLISHER: Interplay
RELEASED: 1997
PLATFORMS: PC


It's that time again, kids. No... not THAT time. No, it's time to look at yet another game using the famous Build engine and today we're taking a look at one of the more... quirky games to use this engine. Yeah. Quirky. I think that word perfectly sums up this game. 

Imagine, for a moment, if you will, that you're a redneck named Leonard living with your brother of... questionable intelligence, in the fictional town of Hickston, Arkansas when suddenly one day aliens invade and steal your prize pig Bessie and your town fills up with clones of an old Coot and a fatass named Billy Ray. Yeah, that's kinda what you're dealing with here. A full scale alien invasion in the heart of southern America. And just like any self-respecting 'murican you of course go on a rampage. A... redneck rampage if you will.

Several questions come to mind. Why is there a car driving in circles, why is everyone trying to kill me and why the f*** did the chicken cross the road?

So yeah, this is where I normally get the story bits done with and start discussing the gameplay. Now, being a build engine game you'd expect the game to play basically like Duke Nukem 3D right? Well... kind of but remember how I said this game was quirky? Yeah... For starters let's discuss the weapons...

The weapons don't really handle like any other shooter I've played. Your starting gun is the revolver which feels really powerful despite its lackluster damage. It doesn't really work that well against most enemies but it has its uses for sure like shooting switches or smaller enemies. But you quickly replace it with the double-barreled shotgun which fires one barrel if you tap the mouse key, and both barrels if you hold it down. It's kinda strange to see shotgun firing being implemented like this, but you kinda get the hang of it after a while. It's a good close quarters weapon but does less damage over distance. After a while you pick up some dynamite which has an insanely short fuse (seriously, you can blow yourself up WAY too easily in this game), but has a ton of use in the game for blowing up walls and such in classic build engine fashion. The "huntin'" rifle is probably the coolest weapon in the game though it feels less like a hunting rifle and more like a bloody AK-47 with an insane amount of recoil and sounding like an automatic sniper rifle. It does have really good range though, and firing in short bursts is really recommended... The crossbow doesn't really fire arrows cause... why would you do that when you can use it to fire dynamite at enemies. I mean, it just makes more sense, right? The ripper saw I never used mostly cause it's just... kinda useless. Or I just suck at using it. Whichever you prefer. The alien arm gun is... an alien arm gun. You pick it up from fallen aliens after blowing them up. It shoots what I imagine are lasers at your enemies and is honestly one of the most powerful weapons in the game and you'll probably need it a lot for that reason during the later levels of the game where you'll be facing a lot more of the more powerful enemies. The powder keg is probably one of the most useless weapons in the game next to the ripsaw if only cause it's more likely to blow YOU up than the enemies. Even more so than the dynamite.And then there's the alien teat gun. You strap on machine gun titties. I'm not kidding. Sadly these only show up at the very end of the game so their addition is a bit wasted. To sum up the weapon selection I think it goes pretty much how the rest of the game goes. There's a lot of cool ideas and they feel really unique and memorable to use, despite their quirks and flaws.

Now with the weapons out of the way we can get to the really fun stuff. How you stay alive in Redneck Rampage. You see... in Redneck Rampage you don't heal via medkits or stuff like that as in more traditional shooters. No, you heal by consuming alcohol and food. Here's the thing though... these things affect you negatively. The more alcohol you drink, the more inebriated you become until you eventually can't walk straight. And the more you eat, the more bloated you get until you get really explosive farts that propel you forwards. This really adds a very unique dynamic to the game's entire flow where you are really given incentive to not get injured too much as in order to stay alive you have to do things that could make the game more difficult if you soak up too much damage. So playing the game like a trigger-happy amalgamation of Rambo and Arnold Schwarzenegger with a murderboner is actually kinda not recommended given you take damage very easily and it's more important to be aware of your surroundings and taking it slow. At least in my experience. Alcohol typically comes in the form of whiskey and beer, with food being pork rinds (which you consume directly when picking up), cow pies (comes in packs of 6), and Goo Goo Clusters, which is probably one of the weirdest product placements in any video game ever. I mean, I get the connection. They're rednecks and Goo Goo Clusters is a candy from Nashville. But seeing a real life product in a game where all the other consumables are not branded, it just feels strangely out of place. In either case, Goo Goo Clusters function largely like the nuclear health from Duke 3D and boosts your health beyond the maximum 100. There are also other items that affect your ability to survive such as the moonshine which for a limited time boosts your speed and resets your alcohol and gut meters upon finishing and using toilets in the game will empty your gut and make you fart free until you stuff your face again.  Like I mentioned earlier, this does add a lot of strategy to the game regarding how you stay alive as food will lower your alcohol meter slightly, but alcohol can often be more potent. You also have mainstay items like the "vacuum hose snorkel" which lets you breathe underwater and the "hip waders" which allows you to effortlessly walk through mud or... mud-like substances.

Seems legit.
The game's enemy roster leaves a little to be desired. For like 50% of the game you're mostly fighting the same two clones of the old coot and Billy Ray, with the occasional space hulk and space vixen thrown in. The old coot just shoots at you with a revolver while spouting to "get off his land", Billy Ray will attempt to get rid of you using his trusty ol' shotgun while being generally impossible to make sense of what he's saying (I think he asks how I'm doing at times...). The space hulk will generally just shoot lasers and throw mines at you until you die (which is pretty quickly if you don't dodge his shots). It's important to blow him up since he will get back up if you don't. And doing so allows you to pick up his arm gun. The space vixens are some of the nastiest enemies in the game and will try to lure you in with a sexy voice and laughter that just made me cringe a bit. I don't really get the humor behind these and I'm pretty sure they're just there as an attempt at having some adult humor but in all honesty they just make me really uncomfortable but... well... then the game decides to give them machine gun titties and I'm totally on board again, so it's cool. You also have enemies like the poop imps (yes), which throw shit at you. Is it their own shit? Are they throwing their own flesh at you? This is raising way more questions than I dare to think about and they all involve feces so let's just swiftly move on...
Another enemy that kinda made me cringe a bit was the rabid dogs. When you kill them they let out a really sad whine and it made me feel really bad for killing them. I am glad the game didn't shy away from this but it does feel a little fucked up to be killing someone's pet. Then again, they are rabid so hopefully I'm doing them a favour...
You also have the occasional mosquito to deal with but other than that there really isn't a huge variety to the enemy roster in this game and it does make it feel extremely repetitive at times. I'm thinking they did this to have more non-hostile entities in the game like pigs, cows and chickens. Cause... I guess the aliens were only interested in YOUR pig.

The level design is simultaneously some of the best I've had the pleasure of playing and some of the worst I've encountered with probably the worst example being the sewers early in the game. This level almost single-handedly killed the entire experience for me as I was stuck for HOURS upon HOURS trying to find the way out until I caved in and resorted to a walkthrough (which didn't help much in all honesty). This level is just designed by a complete twat who expects far too much from the player. I think there was a similar puzzle near the end where I was completely stumped and I have no idea how they expect players to even be in the mindset for stuff like this. At times the game relied entirely on the player completing infuriating jumping puzzles, solving switch puzzles from hell or going through mazes. But then again you have so many memorable locations like an insane asylum, a meat packing plant, aforementioned sewers (like it or not, I will never forget them), a trailer park, a drive-in theater, a huge ass mansion, old ruins and so forth. This game really nails having memorable levels and I definitely feel like I remember more from this game than I do from Shadow Warrior. If anything cause a lot of the levels use exclusive textures that helps give each level its own unique tone and feel. So when the game wasn't making me pull my hair out I was legit enjoying the level designs.

For the love of god, NEVER think jumping puzzles belong in a first person shooter...
Graphically, Redneck Rampage looks really good for its time. There's an insane amount of detail in the textures, to the point that at times it's almost an early example of a photorealistic look. It has a very muted realistic palette that kind of offsets the cartoony designs of the models. And as mentioned, a lot of the levels feature unique textures and atmospheres that help give the game a ton of graphical diversity. I don't think I ever was bored playing this game and I was always looking forward to what I would see next.

I also really love the sound. The voice acting is superb with lines like "your ass is grass and I'm the lawnmower" really legit cracking me up and the weapons all sound powerful and beefy. The soundtrack is also incredible featuring a nice selection of psychobilly artists like Reverend Horton Heat and Mojo Nixon, with the latter easily having my favourite songs on the soundtrack. My only real gripe is the 8-track limit to the game's soundtrack but given the songs are really good and fit the mood of the game it can be excused. I am eternally grateful to this game for introducing me to the amazing thing that is "You can't kill me" by Mojo Nixon.

Now that's a guy I wouldn't mind making my chicken.
So... all in all Redneck Rampage is a bit of a mess. But it's an insanely quirky mess and it was REALLY hard to put down once I got into it. Some of the stuff in it like the space vixens and rabid dogs sat a bit wrong with me and left me feeling a little confused as at times the tone is a bit all over the place and I'm never quite sure if it's satire or just the devs putting something in for the sake of it being redneck-related, but for every time it does something that doesn't quite fit in, it succeeds in making you feel like it never takes itself too seriously, very much like Duke Nukem 3D. If I could compare it to anything I would compare it to being at a convention. Sure, it may be infuriating at times and testing your patience, but at least you're surrounded by pigs in shit.

STORY: 5/10
GAMEPLAY: 7/10
GRAPHICS: 8/10
SOUND: 9/10

TOTAL SCORE: 8/10