Road Redemption

Info

Name: Road Redemption
Release Date: October 2017
Developer: Redemption Road Games, Pixel Dash Studios

What I have to say

I got this game as one of the free games Epic Games has every week. I pay close attention to those. The "cover"(can you have a cover for digital games? I guess so…) for it reminded me of a comic that I like, Motor Crush(great read, highly recommend if you can find it), so I figured I'd try it out.
As of writing right now, I have not finished the game, and I also haven't played it for very long, only about 2 hours. One of my games professors always said that that was enough to get a feel for the game anyway, so what the hell. By the time I'm done writing this I'll probably play way more of it too.
Which is to say I've been enjoying it! The music didn't last long, about half my first play session, and by the end of the first play session I had also turned the voices off. Not into rock music, especially when it's as bland as that stuff, and there's only so many times I can listen to the guy tell me I had a nice kill, or the other guy yell at me for killing his guys. I don't really care.
The story so far is that some assassin killed someone important and now there's a bounty of $15mil for his head. I was kinda hoping that you'd be the assassin, John Wick style, but no, you're just after the bounty like everyone else on the road.
Anyway, you play as a biker, and you're chasing after this bounty and so is everyone else. You have some weapons at your disposal to stop NPCs from getting the bounty first. I like using the sword, but unfortunately it's weak against helmets, and most everyone has a helmet, so instead I usually use the baseball bat. You get a bit of cash, health, nitro, and EXP for each kill. Cash is used at the end of the level to get some upgrades. Sometimes upgrading your weapon, or changing your stats around, or just for purchasing refills for your health or nitro. EXP is used once you die to get permanent upgrades, making it feel kind of rogue-like.
One interesting choice I would have never made is when you die, a little prompt comes up that says "Enjoying the game? Let developer Ian Fisch know!" and then it just has a phone number. I sure hope that's not their personal number. An odd choice for sure.
Other complaints I have about the game are that upon startup, Epic Games asks me to log in. I log in, and it just stays up. I don't know what this means. Tetris Effect never makes me log in, or if it does, it only asks once. I've taken to just closing out of the log in window with no knowledge of if that affects anything. This of course is not the developer's fault. I don't think Epic makes anything quite easy to integrate and understand.
Also upon starting a new run, it gives you the story. Luckily you can skip it (as you can tell by my rough summary above I do that quite a lot), but the confusing part is after that, the game starts randomizing the run. Why not randomize during that story cut scene? You could allow the player to skip it and bring up the randomizing screen still, but it'd make the whole thing just a bit more seamless.
I also have a slight issue with the characters. There's a lot to choose from, and believe me I have not unlocked all of them yet. But you're able to scroll through all of them and I noticed something: There's only one female racer. One. And for some reason, playing as her makes the game harder? I know game devs a lot of times love to do this type of thing. Mount and Blade being my favorite example. Mount and Blade makes the game harder if you choose to play as a woman in the name of historical accuracy. It's hard to argue with, until you look at like, any of the rest of the game. If it's historical accuracy you're after, why is it so easy to jump into a kingdom and rise through the ranks by what? Faking noble blood? No one ever questions you on that? It's the type of thing that always makes me question if it was a good and logical gameplay choice, or if it was sexism in disguise. Somehow it always feels like the later, and that's really the case in Road Redemption. Why exactly would being a woman make it harder to drive a bike and swing a bat? Would her tits get in the way? Would she just get hunted down more 'cause all the male NPCs are trying to fuck her? I don't see a good answer personally.
Fortunately, the game is really good. I play as one of the helmeted bikers so I can kind of pretend that I'm some form of gender neutral, and I go crazy. It's so awesome to hit some dude in the face with your baseball bat, and watch as their bike goes tumbling off screen. The screen getting sprayed red as you hit them. Very fun, I won't uninstall this game for a good while I think.