Redout: Solar Challenge Edition

It's nice to see a relatively new futuristic racing game with split-screen, but after playing it for a bit, I decided to try out F-Zero GX and Wipeout Fusion on emulators again and I just have to say that Redout is just not as good as those games. It looks bland and is missing the style and vibes those old games had. Also the announcer voice is so painfully boring, it sounds like siri or hey google, while the announcer in F-Zero gets me absolutely hyped. Although the speed racing in Redout is almost as good as those games, what it's completely missing is the battle aspect of the game. There's no way to crash out your opponents. For 30$ I can not recommend Redout. Maybe get it on sale, if you don't like messing with emulators, but you should know that this is still far away from being as good as Wipeout or F-Zero. Another tip for when you go back to replay those old classics: If you play on a high-rez monitor it's worth it to add a slight scanline effect using Reshade. It will will mask upscaled low-rez textures and make it feel like you are playing on your old TV ;-) It's how those games were meant to be played. When you do that then those games still look much more detailed than the boring low-poly style used in Redout.

Unfortunately to play split screen you must play/finish the campaign first because almost everything is locked - even in split screen.

At least on my system (Windows 7, 64Bit, 64GB RAM, GTX970, Xeon CPU, SSD) it crashes when playing a single track several times with no changes to ship or mode or lap number etc. This ruins the experience for me as any other games run smoothly and with max details on. The latter challenges in story mode become harder and that's fine, but I not always get managed to reach finish line with good enough placement for progression, so I need to retry. Then suddenly it crashes for no obvious reason. That's frustrating because one fights for being winner and then BOOM....FU game. If not for the technical issues, I would give 5*....but sorry folks, stability matters.

Since I didn't own any consoles, I only briefly played F-Zero GX on the GameCube, but I enjoyed it all the same. But I did own Star Wars Episode I Racer on the PC - a decent enough substitute! Redout is an excellent tribute to the hyper-speedy racers of yesteryear. The courses are very challenging, and it definitely took me a few attempts to win any given event. But I call that a positive (SW: Ep I Racer was still enjoyable, but rather too easy except for one of the last tracks). Whilst you might not get much personality from it (the only character really is the very dry-sounding female announcer), it's not a big problem for me as the gameplay is top-notch. As others have mentioned, it runs incredibly smoothly, even on my computer which is getting on a bit. The biggest plus though is the value for money - even at £30 you are getting every single DLC. And if you got it half price this weekend like me, you're laughing! My one negative mark (which doesn't quite stop me from still giving it 5 stars) is that from what I can see, you don't get the soundtrack as part of the bundle (which you do get as DLC on the Steam version and you need the full game to get it as well). So quick question to GoG and 34 BigThings: will this be added in future? But in summary: this is one of the best racing games I've played ever, and I'm sure to get many more hours of enjoyment, exhilarating racing and crashing into the side barriers from Redout!

I loved the Wipeout games from the very beginning, so much so that I developed a prototype sci-fi racer based on space-curves ~20 years ago. I didn't expect a derivative to outshine the classic -- but honestly, this game blew me away. It's even better than my dream game: tracks built around mathematically beautiful space-curves with tubes, tunnels, and every shape in between. Strafing and pitching the craft are nearly as important as turning. the music adapts to how you're racing... and it just keeps getting better as new areas unlock and the ships get faster. I'm on Class 4 now and having spiritual experiences regularly. :) The challenge is deep and nuanced, as the game is really focused on racing, with no lucky weapon draws to accommodate imbalance. You'll need to hone a variety of skills to keep up with the bots and get the best times. With each new track, you build the basics of adaptation and reflex, gradually learning the quirks of each turn until you're driving from pure instinct. Your fingers know what to do based on what you see and when, before you have time to make conscious decisions. That's "the zone", and you'll spend most of your play time there. You can't win until you earn it, and that's what makes the challenge and the victory so meaningful. A few practical notes: 1) "The Survival Guide to Redout" had some ideas that helped me get started; in particular, knowing the different ways to take turns is essential. Watch your checkpoint times as you experiment with different boosting and turning strategies. When you do it right, you'll know! 2) Use an Xbox controller -- at least, that's what I do, and I'm happy with the controls. Would be even happier if I could assign input bindings, but the defaults are workable. I mention it since some reviewers had keyboard-related issues. 3) Don't use GOG Galaxy. It was ruining my experience with frequent distractions and game-hangs. Uninstalled Galaxy and haven't seen a hang since. Redout by itself works great!