Off-Road Redneck Racing Preview

One of the more unusual first-person shooters to date is Interplay and Xatrix's Redneck Rampage. The humorous, deliberately tasteless game was developed at Xatrix and was designed using the Build engine popularized by Duke Nukem 3D, which was already showing signs of age as far back as 1997. The game featured a pair of characters from the backwoods of America who were trying to recapture their beloved Arkansas town from a group of body-snatching aliens. Redneck Rampage didn't take itself seriously, and in spite of its dated technology, it was a welcome change from the dark and moody action games of the time. What other first-person shooter offered a supplemental cuss pack, which filled the game with excessive foul language? Since then, Xatrix went on to develop the graphic first-person shooter Kingpin, and shortly thereafter, changed its name to Gray Matter to work on the forthcoming Return to Castle Wolfenstein for Activision and id Software. Xatrix's passing doesn't mean the end of the Redneck games, however. Through the help of Rage Software, Interplay is bringing the hilarious series to the driving genre. But unlike Redneck Rampage, Off-road Redneck Racing will take advantage of the latest in 3D graphics technologies. The game is being developed in England using a modified version of Rage's Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising engine, and it is scheduled to release on our shores in early March (Hostile Waters itself is actually still in development, too). We recently traveled to Interplay's Southern California headquarters to take a look at Off-road Redneck Racing, and we've brought back some brand new screenshots and some early impressions of this lighthearted racing game.

Off-road Redneck Racing is actually a localized version of a game simply called Off-road that's being developed for the European market. That game is also being developed by Rage, and unlike Redneck Racing, it is a straightforward racing game that puts you behind the wheel of various fictitious off-road vehicles. The changes between the two games are mostly just cosmetic, so while both games will have the same exact physics model, modes of play, and so on, Off-road Redneck Racing will have certain visual additions to give it a distinctly squalid look. For example, the European version of the game features a helicopter that flies above the track, filming and monitoring the progress of the race. In Off-road Redneck Racing, that helicopter is piloted by the loud-mouthed sheriff from Redneck Rampage, and he'll be chasing you down while yelling at you through a bullhorn.

The game will be split up into three separate modes: time trial, challenge, and driver's championship. The challenge mode will let you participate in a single race on a course that you've unlocked in the time trial mode. The driver's championship mode will undoubtedly be the meat of Off-road Redneck Racing. In this mode, you'll start out the game with a relatively weak vehicle, and gradually work your way up through the game's four divisions. In the process, you'll unlock up to 16 new trucks, pickups, dune buggies, and other increasingly outrageous off-road vehicles. Each of these handles differently, and has unique characteristics for top speed, handling, power, and overall performance. Additionally, you'll be able to toggle between three different paintjobs for all the vehicles in the game. But there's even more to it.

The Tracks

The driver's championship actually seems pretty robust for such an offbeat racing game. As mentioned, you'll start out in the lowest division, driving the slowest vehicle in the game against relatively incompetent drivers. If you do well in the first few races, you'll be approached by various sponsors and teams who'll be interested in giving you a racing contract if you meet their criteria. Signing with sponsors will give you more money, which you can use to buy upgrades--like nitrous, gearboxes, engines, and wheels--for your car or truck. Additionally, partnering with some of the teams in the championship mode--teams like the Hog Riders, Sling Blade, Polecat, Possum Hound, Skeeter, and Wolfpack--will grant you access to some hidden cars. The racing seasons in the driver's championship will include sprints, endurances, and other types of races. Once you accumulate enough points by consistently placing in the top three, you'll graduate to a higher division, where you'll be privy to even more powerful vehicles--but of course, you'll have to compete against even wilier opponents. If you reach the end of a season without enough points to qualify, you'll be forced to start the next season in the same division. Once you manage to finish all four divisions, you'll be crowned the champion.

Naturally, doing so will be easier said than done. The courses in Off-road Redneck Racing are spilt up into six different environments, each of which has four variations. While some of these tracks are purposely designed to be easy, most of them are extremely challenging. This is largely because all the vehicles in the game are so fast that you'll need equally fast reflexes to avoid some of the obstacles that'll get in your way--including other drivers. Furthermore, your opponents will get progressively more aggressive as your performance improves. They'll even start looking for and taking shortcuts whenever possible, and they'll even swap paint with you and try to put you into a wall. For variety's sake, you'll find that the different races take place during different times of day, have varying numbers of laps, and even changing weather conditions, the latter of which plays a very important role in how your vehicle will behave. Snow will drastically reduce your vehicle's traction, while rain will impair your visibility. There's even the slight chance that your vehicle can get hit by the occasional lightning strike, which will temporarily stall your engine. We were able to drive across all six of the different terrain types--here's a brief rundown of each:

Everglade encounter: These are the novice tracks, and for the most part, they're relatively free of obstacles and have plenty of shortcuts for you to take advantage of.

Backwater chase: These courses are challenging because of the amount of mud strewn across key parts of the track. You'll find yourself getting bogged down and losing traction often in the four backwater chase tracks.

Slaughter yard run: Redneck Rampage fans will remember the slaughter yard levels from the first-person shooter series. You'll be racing in and around a number of high-density feed lots, factories, and assembly yards.

Red rock canyon: These tracks are littered with craggy rock outcroppings that can put a stop to your race in an instant.

Campy crystal lake: Like backwater chase, campy crystal lake is especially tough because of the amount of mud and water obstacles.

Dead man's drop: Easily the most difficult of the six courses, dead man's drop runs straight down the face of a mountain. On these four courses, you'll be able to reach speeds that were previously impossible.

Read on to find out what makes these tracks even more interesting.

Final Thoughts

Off-road Redneck Racing is certainly not an exacting simulation of driving, but it still boasts a physics engine that feels realistic, despite the breakneck speeds your vehicles are capable of reaching. The suspension of each vehicle is modeled separately from the actual wheels and chassis, and its tires will bounce from each jar and hug the terrain in a realistic manner. Different terrain will also affect your vehicle's grip, so you'll be forced to ease off the gas when you roll over terrain such as mud, sand, or water. In general, though, controlling the vehicles in the game is relatively easy, especially if you use a gamepad. As in many arcade-style racing games, the only controls in Off-road Redneck Racing are gas, brake, steering, emergency brake, and nitro. Of course, if you opt for a manual transmission, then you'll also need to shift up and down. Additionally, there will be multiple camera angles, including an angle that lets you see what's coming up behind you.

The graphics in the game are quite impressive; even though it uses the same engine as Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising, Off-road Redneck Racing looks much different and in many ways much more detailed than Rage's 3D real-time strategy game. The car models boast a lot of detail and a high polygon count--even the drivers are modeled in 3D. Cars kick up dirt and mud when they spin their tires, and their turbulence picks up leaves as they zoom by trees. The music will undoubtedly prove to be one of the funniest aspects of the game, since the soundtrack will resemble something out of Dukes of Hazzard, only sillier. Banjos, kazoos, fiddles, and harmonicas will be heavily used to create appropriate-sounding getaway music for the game. Off-road Redneck Racing will let you share the fun with up to five other players over a network, and Interplay is considering adding an Internet component as well.

Even though it was only recently announced, Off-road Redneck Racing has been in development at Rage Software for nearly two years. It started off as a fairly straightforward arcade-style racing game, but soon segued into an off-road game. Interplay saw the potential of the project, and massaged it to fit its Redneck Rampage license. The game is only a few weeks away--in fact, it's scheduled to land on store shelves as early as March 8--and a demo will be released by Interplay shortly thereafter. The designers at Rage are still optimizing the code to lower the game's system requirements as much as possible. The machine we played it on was a Pentium II 500MHz with a GeForce video card, but Interplay anticipates the minimum requirements to be a Pentium II 266MHz with a Direct3D-compatible video card. Incidentally, the European version of Off-road won't be out until sometime in April--weeks after Off-road Redneck Racing's already crossed the finish line. Be sure to look out for our full review of the game in the coming weeks.