Renegade Ops would have killed a
pocket full of quarters as an arcade machine.
The team at Avalanche Studios built a
game that's part NES title Jackal and part G.I. Joe. The result is a furious, top-down vehicle shooter that works well as a
kill everything, die, respawn and kill everything arcade-styled game.
The comic book styled presentation,
loose physics and the over-the-top villain make Renegade
Ops a downright fun affair. The game controls wonderfully; you
have solid control over your vehicle and you can twist, turn and
crash your vehicle through buildings with ease. The controls are
simple and allow you to worry less about what your fingers are doing
and focus more on driving and gunning your way through nine levels of
enemy troops, helicopters and tanks. You can complete the game in a
three to four hour session, but its probably best to break it up over
a couple days, so that the game's arcade qualities don't wear thin.
Renegade Ops has a few quirks, like a finicky objective arrow and some game progress bugs that prevented
levels from being completed. Losing 20 minutes or so on a level isn't
a deathblow to a game, but having it happen multiple times in the
game's closing act was enough to knock it down a bit.
The biggest mark against Renegeade
Ops is wrapped up in its very
nature. The game's repetitive arcade nature wears because of a
lack of task varieties. You either are collecting an object of value
and returning it to a base or hunting down a large enemy vehicle and
killing it, with scant other objectives types. You can only do the
same thing so many times in a row before you start craving something
different. More activities to do, or activities that required multiple players to accomplish would have given this game a bit more life.
The game's repetitive nature makes it a
bit of a grind for a solo player, but the option to take up to four
players into combat makes the game far more interesting. Grab a beer,
throw on your headset and talk about stupid things with your friends
while you shoot the hell out of everything in sight. It's probably
the best way to enjoy Renegade Ops.
Version Tested: Xbox 360
