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Renegade Ops Review for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Renegade Ops Review for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Let’s Get Those Terrorists!

When you were a kid, if you ever gathered up all of your Hot Wheels in one place and start crashing them into each other, making gunfire sounds and pretending that they were awesome battle vehicles with roof-mounted turrets and under-the-hood missile launchers, then you know exactly what Renegade Ops feels like. If you didn’t, then you were probably a horrible little soulless child without any imagination. Either way, Renegade Ops is that type of car crashing, explosive fun.

The game opens by telling its story through a motion comic-style cutscene. The evil Dr. Inferno (I don’t actually know if there is a Dr. in front of his name, but he somehow sounds more menacing if I call him that) is out to blow up cities because that’s just what evil dictators do. He threatens the U.N. in some vague and undefined but still bone-chilling way. The U.N. is ready to cave in to his demands until General Bryant steps up to say “No!” Of course, the U.N. is filled with girly men who don’t believe in Bryant’s “shoot everyone until the bad guys give up” philosophy, so Bryant is forced to resign from the nameless U.S. analog country’s military. He then chooses to round up a band of crazy mercenaries to go after Dr. Inferno themselves. Since this is a video game, where protagonists have diplomatic immunity from the foreign policy fallout that would occur if a band of mercenaries went rogue to kill an evil dictator, this is obviously the best course of action.

Renegade Ops Screenshot

Something tells me that the design team for Renegade Ops just took everything good from every other dual-stick shooter and put it in a blender until they got a Michael Bay explosion smoothie. You take control of one of four armored vehicles with turrets on the top. You drive with the left stick and shoot with the right stick, and this is the basis of most of the gameplay. You press the X button to activate turbo, which lets you drive super fast but makes it harder to shoot, and you press L1 to activate your special ability, which can do anything from calling in an air-strike to granting temporary invincibility. You can activate your special ability any time your meter is full, and the meter just recharges over time.

You start with a measly little pea shooter of a gun, but as you tear apart the enemy, you collect power-ups that increase your gun’s fire rate and spread area. You’ll also pick up secondary weapons like grenades and missiles, which you can fire with the R1 button. You’ll also earn experience as you go through the game, and earning enough experience allows you to level up. Leveling up earns you upgrade points which you can then spend on pimping out your rig. Each character has three totally different upgrade trees for you to choose from. So while different characters play similarly at level 1, at level 20 each character is firing different weapons, driving at different speeds, and using unique skills that no other character has access to.

Renegade Ops Screenshot

When you drop into the game, you are immediately given an objective by Bryant through motion comics that pop up over the action. Your objective always tends to be something along the lines of “blow something up,” “avoid dying,”or “bring cargo from point A to point B,” but every objective has a time limit. As the clock ticks down, the action will go black and white and dramatically slow down to let you know you’re taking too long.

Now, normally I would criticize this style of gameplay for being shallow and repetitive, but Renegade Ops mixes it up by giving you multiple objectives at once, each with its own time limit and win conditions. Different colored arrows point to these various objectives, and you will routinely find yourself juggling many missions at once. You’ll be hammering on the turbo button to get to checkpoints, blazing through enemy fire, and making daredevil jumps off cliffs, just so you can complete your objectives on time. It’s fun, and it really gets the adrenaline rushing.

Renegade Ops Screenshot

This is why multiplayer in Renegade Ops is so much fun. You can either play in local two-player split-screen or online in four-player rooms. When multiple people are playing the game at once, they can split up to handle multiple objectives. You’ll find yourself barking orders to your friends to go handle the approaching mortar teams while you attempt to rush survivors to the safe haven of a church. Tackling a single objective together can make things easier, but splitting up allows you to tackle more of them at once. It’s a risk/reward system that is unique to the multiplayer mode only, and it rewards teamwork and well-planned strategies. Even though online co-op through the story is all you can do (there are no vs. modes or any other online modes outside of the leader boards), it’s still a well-implemented feature that gives the game tons of replay value.

Renegade Ops Screenshot

If I had to choose one thing to gripe about in Renegade Ops, it would be the controls. Yeah, the dual-stick formula has worked out fine in the past, and I have nothing against left stick to move right stick to fire. However, you are controlling vehicles in Renegade Ops, not people, and, believe it or not, this game engine has actual vehicle physics. So if you are going fast, you’ll find yourself making wide and reckless turns that cause you to crash right into enemy missile trucks. Turning around in particular feels awkward, as your momentum comes to a near stop in order to let your vehicle make a U-Turn. In fact, movement is so loose that it’s nearly useless in the middle of a battle. You can’t really strafe or dodge missiles with any sort of accuracy. Instead, you just drive up to an enemy tank and hope your guns kill it before it kills you.

That being said, Renegade Ops is still a lot of fun if you are into this sort of thing. There are bullets, missiles, and exploding vehicles everywhere. It feels a lot like you are playing “The Expendables” in top-down shooter form. In my opinion, the game is definitely worth a try, and it only gets better once you add your friends to the mix. Download the demo and give it a shot. If the 2.5 GB download doesn’t turn you off, the gameplay surely won’t.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 3.4 Graphics
The motion comics are great, but it is actually kind of easy to lose track of your character among the carnage. 2.8 Control
Unfortunately, massive armored death vehicles tend to skimp on the steering, breaks, and transmission. 3.7 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
It’s a cheesy story filled with cheesy dialogue and over dramatic voice actors. That’s exactly how it should be. 4.2 Play Value
Get four guys together online and try to beat the game on hard mode. You’d be surprised how little it frustrates you. 3.9 Overall Rating – Good
Not an average. See Rating legend below for a final score breakdown.

Review Rating Legend
0.1 – 1.9 = Avoid 2.5 – 2.9 = Average 3.5 – 3.9 = Good 4.5 – 4.9 = Must Buy
2.0 – 2.4 = Poor 3.0 – 3.4 = Fair 4.0 – 4.4 = Great 5.0 = The Best

Game Features:

  • Players have the choice to fight alone in single player mode, team up offline with two-player split screen or join the dynamic 4-player online co-op experience.
  • Blast your way through enemy lines by working together, or compete for achievements as you and your friends aim to top the online leader boards.
  • Defeat enemies across a range of stunning environments using a wide variety of vehicles, from tanks armed to the teeth to fully loaded helicopters.
  • Unleash your full arsenal of weapons and destroy anything that stands in your path as you battle to protect the free world in any way possible.

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