With Road Redemption, we focused on making sure its gameplay is immediately satisfying, while still offering depth and rewards for those who spend time to master its systems. We believe this should be the goal of all action game developers.
Within the first five minutes of launching the game, you’ll be knocking opponents off their bikes and kicking them into roadside embankments. We took inspiration from the Call of Duty franchise and populated the game’s first few levels with enemies that go down on one or two hits. This makes you feel powerful in these early levels; as long as a player can drive and press one of the two melee attack buttons, they’ll have a good time. Road Redemption is more than a simple arcade-like experience — the game has a lot of depth beyond those first few levels with advanced techniques that take time to learn and master.
For instance, using the correct weapon on the right enemy is extremely important. Using a sword on an enemy with plate armor, for instance, will be far less effective than using a sledge hammer. You’re far better off using a sword on an unarmored enemy as decapitations are worth a lot of health, nitro, and cash.
Taking that system to the next step, there are enemies who are dispatched using a taser to bring down the energy shield, switching to a lead pipe to knock off the helmet, and then switching to a katana for the decapitation. This is something that only experienced players can do.
When it comes to Road Redemption‘s story, we know that it’s an element that a significant subsection of gamers want to see in everything they play. To that end, we wanted Road Redemption to have strong story and character elements but present them in a way that can be mostly ignored by players who just want to play the game. Thus, Road Redemption‘s story is told entirely through spoken dialogue during gameplay, with a plot that’s easy to absorb while you’re juggling an inventory of weapons at 200 mph.
Splitscreen was a goal we had from the start and setting up 2-4 player splitscreen was surprisingly easy to do, save one thing: the audio. Setting up multiple viewpoints in different sections of the screen, with custom field of views to compensate for the changes in aspect ratios, was a snap. So, the compromise was that when a soundfx is played in splitscreen, we convert the 3D positional sound effect to 2D and then adjust its volume based on its distance to the nearest player.
Road Redemption combines solid action with unique weapon effects and a steep but friendly learning curve. Whether you’re a novice or a power player, once you jump on your bike you’re in for a non-stop thrill ride.
See the rest of the story on Xbox Wire
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Source: Xbox Blog
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