Redout
When a negative g-force causes the blood to flow from the lower body parts to the head, a “Redout” occurs. Opposite of that, when the blood flows away from the head into the lower body, it’s called a “Greyout”. These are real conditions that can be experienced by pilots and to a much lesser degree in certain rollercoasters. Studio 34BigThings took this phenomena as inspiration and developed an anti-gravity racing game akin to the F-Zero and Wipeout series.
Just as in the real world you can experience both a redout and a greyout in game – taken to the extreme. The screen tints to either red or grey (duh) and you actively have to countersteer against the g-forces. This brings us to something very fascinating: the way this game controls. If you have played an arcade or an anti-gravity racer before it’s second nature to steer to the left and right with the left stick of your controller. In Redout you additionally have to regulate strafing and pitching your vehicle with the right stick. This works simultaneously – which means at any given time you control your craft with both sticks – next to turning left and right this control scheme helps you to stop grinding on curves by drifting, pulling your “nose” aka the tip of your vehicle up or down when going uphill or downhill, as well as preventing redouts and greyouts.
Even with that in mind you can still reach such high speeds that you might feel out of control for a second and slam into a curve. Getting to know the tracks helps but ultimately learning how to correctly control your vehicle is most critical for your success.
The base game offers five racing areas with five tracks each, the DLCs add seven more areas with another five tracks each. In addition to the normal tracks there are certain “boss tracks”. Those are long races where sections of the tracks of an area are stitched together with teleporters. You have to jump and fly through the air – depending if there is gravity or not you will fall or glide – dive underwater or drive near lava, take loopings, go on or through tubes and make sure that you don’t crash. Each time you collide or grind the track you loose health. It does automatically replenish when you hit nothing for a certain amount of time but believe me: not hitting anything is easier said than done, especially when you also have to use your turbo to win the gold medal. If you do get it right it looks effortless and simple and feels even better.
Here’s the thing: Redout is really easy to learn but hard to master. It eases you into the game slowly and offers four classes, each one faster than the last. For each class you can unlock a new ship from one of the 7 racing teams. These ships can be upgraded individually, colored to your liking and can also get equipped with various powerups.
Redouts artstyle is visually impressive, rich in environments, colorful and vivid. It’s surprising how different each area looks and how much you actually can feel the sensation of acceleration and speed. The shading, lighting and blur effects bring this to the next level.
On the highest setting this game looks and flows great – I play this in 1440p cranked up to max and the game almost never falls below 130fps. I do think that playing this on a higher framerate is important. My laptop can “kinda” handle it – certain areas drop to 40fps (at 1080p) which is honestly not enough for this game. If you have decent hardware this shouldn’t be an issue. You can also play it in VR, though I have not tried this myself.
While Redout does not have much of a story it offers a career mode that challenges you with various different events, taking you through all the areas from Class I to IV. Some events offer challenges – like not crashing your vehicle or not allowing the use of powerups – ultimately though it’s just one track after the other. It’s nothing special but offers enough variety to help you unlock everything.
If you don’t want to play against computer enemies you can play this either locally in split-screen or online with friends. If someone on your friend list has all DLCs (and you don’t) they can host the game for those extra tracks.
The soundtrack of Redout is a hybrid between EDM, lofi and arcade sounds. Some tracks are more trance, others have something akin to dubstep, suddenly a guitar solo starts playing. It fits the game very well and what makes it even better is that it’s dynamic. Depending on your speed, if you are underwater or in the air or if the environment changes, the sound adapts in real-time. The faster you go the more intense it gets, adding layers of different harmonies, noises and sometimes even vocals to increase your adrenalin.
The base game plus all area DLCs costs around 72 € which is a bit steep for what it offers. At a discounted price you can usually get the whole package for around 16-17 € which is absolutely worth it. I do recommend buying the DLCs since they offer some of the coolest tracks in the entire game. There also is a demo but it’s limited to one car, one track and only the time trial mode – not enough to form a conclusive opinion on the game but better than nothing.
A sequel with the name “Redout 2” has just been announced and is coming in 2022.
