Online Saturday - Redout 2 - It Feels Incomplete, Has A Bad Tutorial, And The Online Is Tacked On

Welcome to Online Saturday.

For today's video i'm trying the PS4 version of Redout 2 from 34BigThings. I have the original Redout game, also on PlayStation 4, but i haven't played that in many years. But i have pleasant memories from playing it. Redout 2 has recently come to PlayStation Plus so i was keen to try it as i'm still enjoying racing games at the moment. 

I'll be upfront about my feelings after playing this game, i do not recommend it. frankly, it feels like an unfinished early access game with modes tacked on. Even as a free PlayStation Plus download, it borders on a waste of time when there are far more games out there to play.

It starts with a cinematic that looks a little weird, like it's a lower resolution that the rest of the game. i wonder if the disc version of the game has a higher resolution cinematic than this. It tells some story before panning the camera behind our vehicle, then there's a lurch, maybe for a frame or two, as the graphics ramp up and we're into the tutorial. It does work well and it is exciting, but this tutorial is at full speed and adds a level of anxiety as it feels like there's not enough time to read the prompt and do it as the vehicle is still racing on the track. as we race there's an unprompted speed boost that slams us into the wall and then another prompt for strafing that also puts us into the wall as we try it.

The tutorials don't get any better. there's even an instance near the end of the video where a prompt appears just as the track loses a side wall. so in the process of reading the prompt on our screen we race straight off the track. as for the rest of the tutorials, they are more like telling us how to do something without explaining what the expected result or next step is. one that frustrated me was the rewind feature as it told us how to enter it, then gave no further explanations for all the buttons that appeared on the screen. 

A weird thing about the tutorials is that you don't need to finish them to unlock unranked multiplayer. i found it frustrating that i had to go into multiplayer to find out i can't do multiplayer, but at least it said what the requirement was to unlock unranked mode. so that's what i did, and then in multiplayer i had situations where prompts came up on the screen that i didn't fully understand. it wasn't until i went back to finish the tutorial that they were explained. I understand why multiplayer was locked, but i don't understand why it was unlocked before the tutorial we finished. that one decision made gave me negative impressions of both modes.

At best i can call the multiplayer tacked on. there is just 1 mode. Ranked mode, like a couple of other modes, is "Coming Soon". but it's almost unbelievably basic. all i can do is select unranked and wait. there's no lobby, no region, no course select, nothing. all i can do is wait and join when it's found a match. and over about half an hour to forty minutes, i only found 1 match. and even then the other racer DNF'd. after the race the messaging is unclear, as there's no tutorial or prompts or text boxes, and you're dumped back to the home screen when you leave multiplayer. i didn't want to leave it, i wanted to race again.

This whole "Coming Soon" debacle is why this game feels incomplete, almost like it's in early access. it's not just the ranked multiplayer, but even on the home screen there are two other modes with "Coming Soon" on them, "Season Challenge" and "Community". it's hard to believe that DLC came out for this game before these modes did. there's no date on them when they're coming, no information as to what they are either. Why even use up space on the home screen advertising some features that are coming later. that should be off to the side, with information about what they are and when they're coming. it's not even clear if they're DLC or a patch. The three "Coming Soon" features and not really there multiplayer really do make this game feel incomplete. i could even say that with a tutorial this bad, that also adds to it.

It's a graphically nice game, but i'm not entirely convinced the racing is that good. the tracks are great, they're interesting and the world around them is also impressive. the vehicles are unique and each one looks different. it's cool how you can parts, too. But the vehicles don't work well on the tracks, or the tracks aren't suited to the vehicles. the tracks don't feel designed well enough for the handling of the vehicles. It could be a speed thing, like maybe the vehicles are too fast.

Overall, i can't recommend Redout 2. even as a free to download game on PlayStation Plus, it's hard to recommend as ultimately it borders as just being a waste of time. I'm even starting to wonder if the first game was actually good or not. it's been soo long since i played it that maybe my memory is wrong.

Mobile Friday: Apple Arcade - Redout: Space Assault - The First 40 Minutes

This sixteenth video in the new Mobile Friday: Apple Arcade series is on Redout: Space Assault. I Played this as part of my Mobile Friday: Apple Arcade series, but the game has been out for a few years on Apple Arcade and is now out across other platforms.

When i chose to play this game, it didn't cross my mind that this game would be from the team who made the Redout racing games. I only found that out later. i also didn't go in knowing that the game was going to be as on rails as it was.

But that didn't detract from the game. in a way, it being on rails let me focus on the enemies and story. the same applies to the game taking over shooting controls. when my ship had a target locked, it would shoot. when there wasn't a ship there it wouldn't. this meant i had to control my ships movement along the path and the missile power-up. later, when i had switched to a controller, i would gain the ability to barrel roll dodge manually.

controlling the game with my fingers wasn't that bad. it was pretty responsive and accurate. the controls were also located to the side of where the main action took place so it didn't get in the way. when i switched to the bluetooth controller, initially there wasn't any change to the screen. but not long after i started trying out the buttons, on screen prompts appeared saying what some buttons did. this continued into the game and with new tutorials, too. i felt that the game did control better with a controller, i think you'll notice that i died less with a controller in comparison to not using one.

The game did have some issues. the biggest one is that the game crashed to my phone's home screen after completing the first mission. thankfully, the game had saved so when i restarted the game it was ready for me to start the second stage. i also noticed some slow down and minor stutters. they didn't get in the way of what was happening but they were noticeable. The Dynamic Island also got in the way now and then. the biggest issue was that on the right side there were often labelled character portraits. the Dynamic Island got in the way of most of the picture and the character names. 

Redout: Space Assault is a good game to show off Apple Arcade. Even tho it's an older title, it still looks great. the music is good, too. what's cool about this game is that whilst on a TV, iPad, or older iPhone it'll look better than on a newer iPhone 14 Pro due to the Dynamic Island getting in the way, it's still a great match for the phone because of how short the levels are. most i did were under 5 minutes long. Also, because the game helps with the controls, holding the phone is also easy and stable. The only downside to playing on the phone, and something i forgot to mention at the end of the review, is that my phone got hot. most games in this series get my phone to varying levels of warm. but for this game i would say my phone got hot to touch. not too hot, but still hot.