Renegade Ops XBLA Review

Renegade Ops brings back fond
memories of Micro Machines V3

Renegade Ops is a top down driving game, reminiscent of the Micro Machines games I played the hell out of when I was a kid. Now take that top down slidey arcade style driving and combine it with a dual stick shooter, XP based leveling and obscene amounts of explosions and you have an addicting concoction of crazy.

Renegade Ops has you racing around spraying bullets at hundreds of foes all while dodging and causing destruction practically everywhere, it's great fun but can also be quite challenging on the harder difficulties.

Overview
Renegade Ops riffs off B-grade movie cheesyness. All the action is over the top and everything explodes. Inferno is trying to destroy the world and you're part of a renegade group of military tough guys that aren't going to back down to his demands. The weight of the world rests on your shoulders... it's killing time!

Certain levels give you access to a Helicopter, which lets you take the mayhem into the air. Nothing is safe!

You drive and skid around with the left analogue stick and can nitro boost with the A button. The right stick is mapped to shooting in the desired direction, right trigger will use a special weapon if you have one and left trigger engages your character specific special power. I played the whole game with Armand, whose special power is an impenetrable shield, which will protect you from any and all damage but while it's active you can't deal any of your own. This makes timing very important as engaging it at the right moment can save you from devastation especially at the higher difficulties.


Rational

Take that!

The driving is fast and loose, tearing around like a maniac looks and feels cool.  Different terrain even affects the handling of your vehicle, giving you tight screeching skids on roads to wild barely controlled slides on dirt paths. You can even plow through most buildings and even smaller enemy vehicles with an upgrade causing more wanton destruction. Even if there were no shooting going on it would be fun just driving around and racing to the next mission marker.

But there is shooting going on almost constantly, which can be basically plowed through on Normal with only minor worries, or end up really challenging and pushing you to come up with new tactics on Hardcore. Your own tactics will change depending on the character you picked, and with the small time I put in to check everyone out, they all seem viable in different ways. I'm a bruiser though and always pick a character that reflects that in any game I can, so Armand was my guy.

Coldstrike DLC will add some snowy landscapes and
another 3 missions to go blasting through.

Armand is your basic tank, with shields that can get you out of a tough spot. With the right upgrade they will even bounce enemy fire back towards them. This is especially useful when facing off with a tank or SAM site. Enemies that attack slow but do a huge amount of damage can be taken down in seconds with some good timing and preparation. Mess up however, and you're left reeling and in need of life support, especially on Hardcore. Each level can be made easier or harder depending on your pre-mission choice of upgrades. You can pick up to four upgrades out of a range of about 18. Each does something different and while I had some go tos, swapping one out for another depending on the mission did make a noticeable difference where I had been stuck before.

Summary
Renegade Ops may be tempting to write off as just another dual joystick shooter, but doing so would be a disservice to yourself. This is some of the best fun I've had in a while, the graphics are amazing and the explosions don't hurt either. Add to that some decent tactical variety and considerations and some RPG light touches and you've got a game that will appeal to just about anyone. Give it a go, I would recommend this to everyone.