Besides Captain Falcon’s butt-kicking antics in the Super Smash Bros. series, Nintendo hasn’t done anything with the F-Zero series for almost 20 years. However, Nintendo’s racer has inspired games like Redout to come racing out of the shadows. The newest sequel in that series, Redout 2, is an intense, lightning-fast, frustrating entry that’s pushed me to improve and overcome. Buckle up, and get ready; here is Sports Gamers Online’s review of Redout 2.
Redout 2 Review: The Fast, The Furious & The Frustrating
Developer 34BigThings refers to its anti-gravity racer as the fastest racing game ever. This is a rightful claim; Redout 2 is lightning quick and focuses on high speeds, hitting boosts and keeping your ship healthy. Controlling your hover ship to hit corners at blistering speeds is only half the battle. You must keep an eye on overheating and compete against challenging AI.
The game encourages you to do the tutorial trails first to get a good look at your skills. From here, the game will adjust settings to fit your skill level, but you can change this at any time. Changing your game difficulty will determine how intense the rubber banding is in races. You could use a hyper boost, hit a track boost, and still manage to get passed up by an AI racer seconds later. This causes the game to feel extremely frustrating at times.
However, Redout 2 is so fun and so satisfying when you finally reach your goals and complete trophy challenges. I think the dopamine rush you get after winning an intense race makes me want to keep going. There is a lot to go through in this game, especially in Career Mode.
Career Mode Stands Out
Career Mode is the meat and potatoes of Redout 2′s content. This mode is broken into five leagues that get progressively harder and introduce challenging race types. While races are fun on their own, time attacks are my kryptonite. The object of time attacks is to finish the race in a set time, which is challenging; one small swipe of a wall or poorly executed jump will result in a 3rd place finish. However, other race types like Last Man Standing and Boss are also challenging and fun.
You will be rewarded with upgrades for your hover ship as you win races. Upgrading your ship is fairly linear; it doesn’t allow for player choice. You are just getting upgrades one by one and applying them to your hovercraft. Usually, games will have some kind of currency or point system that you can invest in different areas to make your ride more unique. Unfortunately, Redout 2 doesn’t, which is a minor letdown.
Control, Control, Control
Redout 2 is considered a twin-stick racer, so using the right analog stick becomes essential in this game. When you use the right stick it’s called strafing, which maneuvers your hoover ship from left to right; It’s like sliding or drifting in other racing games. Many times you will have to use both right and left sticks to strafe around corners which will help you retain speed. The result is a smooth racing experience and increases your chance of maintaining leads.
34BigThings created some unique tracks for this sequel. Many of them contain massive loops and slopes, and just like strafing, there are ways to help you maintain speed when racing. Pitching helps maintain speed by holding the left stick up or down. This all depends on if you are racing up a loop or down a slope. Failure to do so will result in lost health and a massive decrease in speed.
Arcade and Multiplayer
So far, Redout 2 still needs a few more features to be a complete game. Season Challenges, Community, and Solo Redout Racing League (SRRL) Ranked races will be coming later. So, outside of Career mode, you have Arcade mode and unranked SRRL multiplayer races.
Arcade mode lets you race on any track with any hover ship you want. You can also pick the number of participants and race type. I like this mode because it lets me try out hover ships that have high stats, and you can try out everything Redout 2 has to offer from the start.
Unfortunately, unranked multiplayer doesn’t offer the same race options as arcade mode, but hopefully, ranked races will be worth our time.
Conclusion
Redout 2 is one of the fastest racing games I’ve played. The game is stunning, with diverse tracks and unique hover ship models. Controlling hover crafts are smooth but take time to master. This game will break you down and test your willingness to come back. The rubber banding from AI competition will make the game frustrating but overcoming those obstacles and winning races is so satisfying.
34BigThings provided Sports Gamers Online with a Redout 2 review copy.