Road Rash Inspired Kickstarter

McSasquatch

The full story is on RPS, but essentially there's a newly put together kickstarter project called Road Redemption - it will be a sort of spiritual successor to Road Rash.

I'm not completely sold on the video, but at the very least it might make EA realise they have a valuable IP in their vault. The first two RR games on Megadrive were absolutely majestic and whenever anyone posts a thread asking what old games you'd like to see rebooted, Road Rash always gets my nomination (and those of many other players too).

Anyway, a modern RR should have so much scope what with modern game physics, online multiplayer etc, and Dark Seas are promising all that and more. Watch this space I guess. Or if you're convinced, pledge!

o1s1n

Guns? Samurai Swords?

Road Rash was never a death race. The chains and bats were dirty weapons, brought along on the sly to have a smash at the likes of P.E No 1.

It's interesting to see someone trying to bring this kind of gameplay back, but the footage looks crap

I'll stick with Road Rash 2 and 3!

McSasquatch

o1s1n wrote: »

Guns? Samurai Swords?

Road Rash was never a death race. The chains and bats were dirty weapons, brought along on the sly to have a smash at the likes of P.E No 1.

It's interesting to see someone trying to bring this kind of gameplay back, but the footage looks crap

I'll stick with Road Rash 2 and 3!

I agree re: the guns, but I guess they have to implement some differences in order not to have the arse sued off themselves. The footage leaked from EA a few years back looked better too. Guess I'm just getting my hopes up unnecessarily.

o1s1n

Darvich wrote: »

I agree re: the guns, but I guess they have to implement some differences in order not to have the arse sued off themselves. The footage leaked from EA a few years back looked better too. Guess I'm just getting my hopes up unnecessarily.

Well, I'd say the video is just a beta version. Maybe it'll have gone through some layers of gameplay and visual gloss by the time it hits retail. Looks like they have the funding/backers to do something interesting anyway...wouldn't lose hope just yet!

Speaking of 90s game revivals, this kickstarter has me really excited

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/896834116/the-90s-arcade-racer

Pixelbastardo

yeah, i was reading through the thread about this at neogaf... the footage looks awful, not far off ps2 graphics, and heavily scripted. They say their "focusing exclusively on high spec platforms" and that the footage is "in game"....
I read there hoping for a release in 2014,... might be worth keeping an eye on, although in that neogaf thread some people were saying to wait and back one of the lead devs from road rash 3 whos starting his own kick starter in afew weeks.

CiDeRmAn

The guns and swords suck but an awful lot of the rest of what I saw in the trailer looks pretty good.
Certainly the realism in the visuals harkens back to the original on the Megadrive and it's own relationship with the Test Drive series on the Amiga and Megadrive.
Couple that with the weapons of club, chain, fist and foot I think it could be cool.
One of the lovely things of the second one on the MD and particularly the 3DO version is the use of the Pacific west coast as the theatre of violence and competition, if they can get that right, who knows.
I do hope this takes off, given the mess EA left the franchise in with the dreadful console editions, like Jailbreak, 3D and 64 maybe they wouldn't be the best people to handle a reboot.
Perhaps an Indie release on the current gen consoles?

Steve O

I remember being sucked into road rash for the PC 15 years ago now, what a game. Great soundtrack from what I remember, was Soundgarden on the opening creds?

ShadowHearth

I played the bejaysus out of those games on Sega mega drive 2. Freaking loved that !!! Anything, that is at least has/the spirit of it is welcomed by me!

Now if those Russian boys would move on with the rock and roll racing remake, then I would be the happiest panda ever!

yimrsg

Steve O wrote: »

I remember being sucked into road rash for the PC 15 years ago now, what a game. Great soundtrack from what I remember, was Soundgarden on the opening creds?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBZs_Py-1_0

deathrider

The graphics ain't pretty. In fact, they just look bland. However, that doesn't matter a whole lot to me, because the gameplay looks incredibly intense! I'd love to get my hands on a go of this!

2round

Hopefully they reach there goal.

So many great memories playing Road Rash years ago.

McSasquatch

Goal achieved. Watch this space I guess.

Yeti Beast

New gameplay trailer here;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXf4OTAA8eE

.

Has anyone here actually backed this? I seem to remember doing so, but can't find the email for the life of me. :pac:

deathrider

Glad to see this one got the go-ahead. I've thought it looked Deadly since day one. I'll look forward to playing it.

Yeti Beast

deathrider wrote: »

Glad to see this one got the go-ahead. I've thought it looked Deadly since day one. I'll look forward to playing it.

Loved Road Rash on the Mega Drive and later PC, but thought this looked a bit "flimsy" early on. That trailer has restored a bit of confidence for me though.

Decent article on Eurogamer.net - an interview with one of the developers. I don't agree with all of it, but he genuinely sounds really passionate about Road Rash and what they're trying to do with Redemption. Not allowed link to the article because I'm a boards n00b. :rolleyes:

EoinHef

That actually looks half decent,loved the RR games years ago on mega drive. Certainly looks faithful enough to the originals from the trailer. From the way the kick looks to the way you get flung off the bike when you crash,brings back a lot of memories!

Didnt even know this existed till i saw this thread just now,cheers for updating it:)

Yeti Beast

So I managed to find my backer email, and have been playing a bit last night and today. I'll post up my thoughts later on but for now I'll say it's "okay". It definitely feels like a Road Rash game of old, but I'm not entirely sure that's enough in 2014.

Anyway, I'll have a look on their forums to see if any of my concerns have been discussed already - no point in my complaining about something if it's going to be changed/fixed etc. There's a new build only a few weeks away, so I'll post details of that later on as well.

Oh, and if a mod is reading this, could he/she change the title to include the game's name (Road Redemption)?

Yeti Beast

Right, feedback.


The Good

* It definitely feels like Road Rash!
* For a first alpha, it's very stable - I had no crashes (of that kind, heh).
* Melee combat works well - skill or timing is important.
* Visuals aren't very high fidelity right now, but animations are okay, and it runs fairly well (GTX460 here).


The Bad (but will definitely be fixed/improved/changed)

* Terrible physics - car on car collisions result in hugely ott reactions, yet it's very difficult for riders to crash (only head-on collisions with cars, driving off a bridge or melee combat can unseat you).
* Only one track, which is very short (though winning a race lets you race it again with a slightly changed game mode).
* Handling is a little off and the bike feels "light"
* No mouse/kb support at present - only XInput.
* Sound and music are fairly naff.
* Nitro is plentiful, but it doesn't have much impact.
* No cops, pedestrians, animals yet.
* Only SP for now.
* The manually moved camera is awful - slow, with no quick-look.


The Ugly (game mechanics and design decisions that I just don't like personally - you might though)

* "Unified" health bar - that is, one bar for both bike health and rider health.
* Increase your health and nitro bars in-race by dishing out punishment to other riders.
* Acquire weapons by knocking the current weapon owner out of the race, instead of grabbing them á la Road Rash.
* Rubber-banding - could have been easily avoided, or toned down at least but it's hugely ott. Just not a fan of it in racing games at all, and here it makes the nitro absolutely pointless.
* After becoming unseated, you respawn back on the road, on your bike - no running back, picking up your bike etc like Road Rash.


Now, I realise a lot of the design choices I disagree with above may be actually changed in future versions. I also know that some of them may seem fine to you yourself, which is grand of course. I will however explain why I don't like some of them;

Realism. Road Redemption includes a kill mechanic - you can "kill" a character by eliminating their health bar entirely (how this works in a season mode, I don't know). They've also introduced blood, and there's the obvious heavier use of weaponry. Unfortunately, a lot of the design choices seem to fly smack in the face of realism, so I just don't "get" what vibe they're actually going for.

As regards future changes, it's very hard to find concrete info. RR obviously reached it's funding goal but it seems like there's very little activity on the forums - seems very few backers are willing to give time to offer feedback. Devs do appear from time to time, but they don't answer all questions, and it's hard to find info as to what the future holds.

I did find some info regarding the next build though; kb support, a larger winter track, new weapons, new bike(s), new rider(s), car physics and car damage changes, new vehicles, a new mission type, new traffic systems, and more that wasn't revealed.


TL;DR?

Feels faithful to the Road Rash legacy, but some of the design choices are not what I hoped for personally, though of course many would disagree. Progress is also painfully slow - seems to be a very small team, and I could imagine interest waning from backers over the coming months/years.

Will post this over on their forums, and will update this thread regardless.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Road rash was a classic, but games back then had a lot less depth than we demand now, I worry that the likes of this and the carmageddon reboot wont live up to the memories I have of them.

TBH, this looks like something that should end up as a 15€ downloadable game. add in something like Forza 5's drivatar system to populate the A.I. and you could have something worthwhile.

Yeti Beast

That's one of my concerns with it Stone - it feels like Road Rash of the 90s whereas I want a Road Rash of 2014. But it was probably unfair of me to hope for that from a very small KickStarter project. Early days yet though.

Yeti Beast

Road Rash inspired KickStarter projects are like buses apparently.

"Rage Ride" has been announced on KS by Ironfist Games (still can't link, bleh). It's a new company, but individually they seem to have a decent pedigree working on racing games. Unfortunately, they have no proof of concept whatsoever. None!

Given their credentials, I think they could make the better game, but I just don't see this getting funded given their presentation (or lack thereof).

Yeti Beast

A new trailer featuring about 3 seconds of unseen footage for the impending Alpha v0.002.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdO9Wq23RVo

It's supposed to be with the people on Humble Bundle right now (they're handling distribution atm), so I should be able to download tonight hopefully. Here's the changelog the RR forums;

Version 0.002

8 levels
New Winter Track - it is about 3-4x as long as the desert track
Local Multiplayer - 2 to 4 players in splitscreen mode.
Mouse and Keyboard support
Improved avoidance and combat biker AI
Added Biker Police - they carry a new baton weapon that you can get by defeating them
Added additional enemy rider models
Improved vehicle physics and damage model
Improved crash mechanics - still a work in progress
Deflection Move Added to AI and Players. Deflecting an AI has a high probability of disarming the enemy. It still needs a lot more balancing to increase its utility.
New Vehicles
New Weapons - nail bat, police baton, C4, Pipe bombs, possibly more that I am forgetting.
New Game Types - Survival mode and kill enemy rider missions
Added a bunch of graphical flourishes and effects.
More realistic rider lean animations - still a work in progress
Car Rain


I am definitely leaving stuff out. There have been a lot of changes.

Potential-Monke

That's shaping up nicely, very nicely indeed! Just hope they don't drag the absolute balls out of the Alpha and Beta stages, and get a full working version out in a reasonable time frame.

deathrider

Nice to see it'll support local multilayer. Too many games leave out nowadays in favour of online multiplayer.

Generic Dreadhead

Not enough to justify a full boxed release methinks, maybe a €20 download?

Yeti Beast

Only played for half an hour this evening, but v0.002 is a huge improvement over the first version. Will do a proper write up tomorrow, but on initial inspection, it looks very promising!

Kyotokid

I've been tracking this for a while, I look forward to your write up

Yeti Beast

Won't be playing again until this evening, but here's a Let's Play from a guy over on the Road Redemption forums. It nicely illustrates just how far the game has come since version 1, but also shows how raw a lot of it still is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RVubsKTjkY

deathrider

Will this be appearing on consoles, or has there been any mention of that at all?

Yeti Beast

deathrider wrote: »

Will this be appearing on consoles, or has there been any mention of that at all?

I think console conversions were stretch goals in the initial KickStarter campaign, but I don't know if they were reached or not to be honest.

deathrider

Yeti Beast wrote: »

I think console conversions were stretch goals in the initial KickStarter campaign, but I don't know if they were reached or not to be honest.

That's fair enough. I'd love to see o it hit consoles though. It looks fantastic.

Yeti Beast

Right, played a bit more yesterday evening. My thoughts;

• Rubber-banding has been drastically reduced - races no longer feel fixed. Very positive! Also makes melee much easier to initiate.
• Handling feels a tad better.
• Lots of graphical improvements/better animations.
• The addition of cops and AI v AI melee are huge positives.
• The new map is nicely done.
• The new play modes add some nice variety, although some are still way OTT (raining cars mode) for my personal tastes.
• Physics are improved, though still need work (lots of collisions do nothing other than bounce you around).
• The debris model is much improved, though could probably be toned down further imo.
• Some weapons are great - love the sticky bomb, although it should be very limited in the final release, imo.
• The pipe bombs though are pretty crap - too hard to use. I think the devs acknowledge this too.
• Slight tweak to the controls is mixed; you can now "counter" an AI swing and disarm them which is good, but I don't like the double tap nitro activation.
• You now rejoin the race much quicker after unseating than before.
• The changes do make the game feel a bit easier now, though that should be remedied by more balancing and different difficulty levels nearer full release, as well as playing against other players rather than AI of course.

I'll add more when I get around to playing it again, but it's a definite improvement over an already solid starting point. Still a long way to go though which is probably going to be the sticking point for a lot of people - I can see progress being pretty slow given the size of the team.

Kyotokid

Sounds great, thanks for the update, go indies!

RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!

any body get a steam key yet?
or know how to get one?

McSasquatch II

urbanledge wrote: »

RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!

any body get a steam key yet?
or know how to get one?

Got mine during the week... Did you get sorted yourself yet?