Last year there was the pleasing news that Road Redemption had reached its crowdfunding goal and, in the process, been confirmed for the Wii U eShop. The work of Dark Seas Games and with an estimated release target of August 2014, it's been described by the developer itself as a title heavily influenced-by and carrying the torch of the iconic Road Rash franchise.
Gamers of a certain age may go misty-eyed at that possibility, and new footage of the upcoming release aims to show how the project is progressing. After concept screens of previous times showing a zoomed-in camera and hand-to-hand combat — adding credence to those Road Rash comparisons — this video shows a rather distant angle and plenty of gun-play. Range attacks seem to be the focus of the new footage — showing the guns to the world — but those weapons and the perceptibly light mechanics seem a far cry from the apparent source of inspiration.
This is still early footage, naturally, but check it out and let us know what you think.
Comments 36
August is a while a way, so I give them benefit of the doubt. Not much variety in the video.
im not too sure what i think after that...
i was really looking forward to this but this footage is pretty disappointing compared to the trailers.
Looks bad...and not in the good way.
Looks kinda... Well, you know what they say about nothing beating the original
An important lesson. Don't get excited when a kickstarter game claims to be inspired by one of your favourites. It has no bearing on it's quality.
@Peach64 In this case it's more like, "don't get excited when a Kickstarter has a gameplay video that looks amazing, because it might not be actual gameplay".
I was excited for this, but never for the claim alone.
Not saying it can't still turn out cool. It's just a development video. But it's a far cry from the pitch video.
Now guys, keep in mind this is just a development video. And August still is a ways away, so I too give 'em benefit of the doubt. I'm still excited for this game and look forward to it!
Steering your bike and aiming your gun by moving the camera at the same time always felt a bit awkward to me in games like GTA, so I wouldn't want want to buy a game that revolves entirely around that concept.
I'd say simplify it and keep the camera locked behind your character, and have a bit of auto-aim applied to your shots. The player only needs to control whether they fire left, right or straight ahead, and time it right so they don't lose ammo (the guns should be temporary power-ups that your character tosses away once the clip is emptied...I suppose you could drive into ammo crates on the sides of the road to reload).
Two basic button layout ideas:
A to accelerate, B to brake, R or ZR to shoot right, L or ZL to shoot left, L + R or ZL + ZR to shoot ahead.
R or ZR to accelerate, L or ZL to brake, A to shoot right, Y to shoot left, X to shoot ahead.
Using the right analogue stick to shoot twin-stick style might also be fun if there were a bonus mode with a Micro Machines style overhead camera and more enemies swarming around you...of course all these ideas sound like I'm stuck in the early 90's.
@ToneDeath: Maybe you should try their forums or something closer. Indie devs are usually open for feedback.
Anyway, great video. I'm looking forward to this game. Just tell it's going to have couch multiplayer and we're done!
Looks fine to me, i'll be picking this up if it turns out to be fun.
@vattodev: I was just thinking out loud...with a rather bloated comment; sorry guys.
You've given me another idea though! A Wii U exclusive co-op mode where player one controls the main character and his bike with a Pro controller, whilst player two controls a character that rides on the back using the Gamepad. They CAN move their camera around to assist with taking out the extra enemies the mode throws at you, even ones driving up behind you. An alternative method would be to have P1 steer on the Gamepad and P2 shooting on the TV with a Wiimote & Nunchuk. Also, the P2 character should be a female with long hair so we can see it flap in the wind, just like Outrun.
Oops, there I go again!
Road Rash 64 was a blast and this looks to go the same way. Graphics are still on early development, it seems
Looks pretty fun. I hope the controls are WiiMote to point and shoot, nunchuck to steer.
Never really played the 16 bit Road Rash games much or at all but I did own the Road Rash released on the Panasonic 3DO and RR64. I really enjoyed those games very much and always wanted new titles in the series but if a successor is all we're going to get I hope they can pull it off.
Once again people judging a game in development.....
Looks like it's still in development, but that's expected from a game more than 8 months away. These indie devs are excited to show what they have been working on to see the feedback, and they see people prejudging a game deep in development. Can we wait until it's almost ready to release before slamming it? Are you expecting a AAA experience for an indie game price?
Are you guys judging the game because of the lack of AA? I mean post processing effects are some the last touches to go on a game to clean up the jaggies. Seems unfair if that's what you are complaining about.
It looks like they have their engine built and the base of the game running. They just need to expand on the concept add more assets like tracks, cars, obstacles. Looks like it will be fun indie game.
This looks pretty fun
The guns ruin it for me. Road Rash was all about clobbering weapons, not shooting.
Not fond of the shooting at all. That said, drive-by shooting feels really good with a Wiimote+Nunchuk and fairly sloppy with dual analog. You know what that means... (This game needs Wiimote support and almost certainly will fail to include it.)
Noooooo, they've turned it into road avenger!!!
Go back to melee only, that was one of the best bits about road rash. If I'd pledges through kick starter for this I'd be very pissed off right now
this will be awesome
I dont like the shooting at all, I'm not surprised some are asking for no guns in the game. The concept does catch my interest though, it would just need a lot of online and splitscreen modes to get a sale from me.
Some people are WAY too negative here...
If you look at the original video it is not worse than before:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darkseasgames/road-redemption
The environments even look better now and the bikers and so on look EXACTLY the same, except like @element187 already said, this new trailer is more than likely without post processing, that is why it still has some rough edges. The kickstarter trailer probably was cleaned up, to show the game off, but other than that it is still the same game. And as the trailer mentions update: ranged weapons, I strongly suspect it to be additional, not in place of close range weapons. And the guns were already in the first trailer too. Looks like a fun game. And the original wasn't that deep either, so I'm hardly worried that this'll be worse...
What's with the white dots on either side of the bikes though?
Not bad for a work in progress.
@everybody. Heh, I'm hearing that the guns are going to be OP. I'm betting that it ain't going to be the case.
@thesilverbrick Same here. It was much more satisfying to whip out the bat, chain, or whatever else you had, and just slap them off the bike.
Guns make it way too safe since you can shoot from any position, while in Road Rage, you hat to look out for all kinds of obstacles while closing in.
@hiptanaka yeah, this looks nothing like that original video! I don't know how they managed to get worse as they go along, instead of better?!
If this is recent footage, there's no way they're going to make August with a quality product. Six months is nothing in game development time.
Also, not sure I understand releasing footage in such a raw / prototype-like state.
Backed this and proud of the work that's been done. They're insistent on getting the game running right before giving the graphics a serious coat of polish. Guys, be a little patient on the look.
@BertoFlyingFox @ACK @thesilverbrick I hear you guys on the shooting — bear in mind this video is showing off that guns have been implemented into the game. This isn't meant to show off how the game will actually play. Go through the dev blog or the board and you'll see the guys making the game are even hesitant about putting in guns. By all accounts the game will be largely melee, with guns as a high risk/high reward option.
It's like when you go to a new restaurant for the first time and you believe it's the greatest one you've ever eaten at, and then you keep going after that. And with each visit the quality of the restaurant gets worse and worse...
@TheRealThanos white dots looks like its to show the center of balance. More as a reference point in the process of game design. Probability of that being in the final product is pretty low.
@TheRealThanos rofl, I just looked at the video you linked to.... it's the same game... This new video doesn't have the post processing effects in it, the white dots show the center of balance of the biker and won't be in the final product.
Wow, people blowing up at this project for no reason. Let the developers do their thing, judge the game on the final product.
Am I the only one that got 4x4 Evo vibes off of that terrain? I just wanted to cruise off the road and soar over those big hills.
This looks alright. But it's gonna have to get alot more attention if it wants to sway me away from all the other indie games.
@ToneDeath "Steering your bike and aiming your gun by moving the camera at the same time always felt a bit awkward to me in games like GTA..."
You should try it in Real Life some time =)
@element187 Exactly. Some people... Just saying...
Good point on the purpose of the white dots, didn't even come up in my mind.
Looks fine to me. This is development footage afterall, not a release trailer.
It's to show the backers that they are indeed working on the game.
I used to love playing Road Rash back in the day & so looking forward to playing this. When is is coming out on the Wii U eshop?
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