Renegade Ops is a fast paced top down driving game that will have you taking turns at break neck speeds and destroy everything in your path. With a right stick firing system like Contra and others before it, it can get hairy from time to time but if you have good coordination the shooting shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The story is about a mad genius named Inferno who is trying to destroy the world unless his demands are met. A General who has had it with all the red tape you have to go through decides to go rouge and forms his own army to take the mad man down. You play as one of these soldiers.
When you start the game you have the choice of four different soldiers to choose from, all with different vehicles and abilities. Armand has an armored, almost tank like car that has the ability to cover its self in a layer of hardened armor but the only draw back is you can’t fire a weapon while the ability is active. Next is Diz the fem fatal that drives an A-Team like van and has the ability to shoot out an EMP burst that disables all enemy vehicles in the area. Roxy has the slightly faster dune buggy and she has the ability to call in an air strike good for taking out a cluster of enemies or airborne enemies. Last but not least, you have Gunnar. He drives an old military style jeep that has a huge turret on the top. His special ability is a heavy turret that does great damage, but you can’t move while firing the turret.
With the visuals your brain will think that you have made some mistake and have paid full retail price for a disk based game, but in reality it’s just an arcade game, but with the lush green environments and destructible environments, this game has some of the best visuals that I’ve seen in a while.
With tight driving controls you will be spending most of the time in boost mainly because it gets you there faster but also just because it’s just plain fun and the dust trail your car kicks up is also amazing to watch. You can get upgrades here and there like machine gun upgrades that fire 4 or 5 bullets at once, you can also get rockets and other assorted goodies but when you die you lose all the upgrades. After taking out a tank here and there the game will have you pull into buildings and preform button mashes to plant bombs and just destroy bad guys spirits. Each level has it’s own lay out and none of the levels feel rehashed or clones of other levels only with jungle instead of a city scape.
With great boss battles that vary every time you really get enjoyment from this title. With a Michael Bay inspired music track, the gun and car sounds are very, very well done. The voice acting is mostly the same old over the top bad ass cliche that come one right after the other but it doesn’t take any fun out of the game. In fact it adds a certain comedic charm to the whole thing. It’s like a playable 80’s action movie. Action movie buffs, Contra fans, shooter fans, and even Twisted Metal fans should all give Renegade Ops a try. You might find it addicting. For everyone else I’d say: Give it a try and see if you can put it down. With the inclusion of online coop Renegade Ops really stands out in the Xbox Live Arcade. Well done.
