In days of old, games could get away with being completely devoid of any decent story at all while still being really fun. For instance, there was Galaga. Any plot of that game is basically surrounded around one group of aliens trying to kill another. We did not need story, we just wanted to shoot down aliens and get a high score. It was a pretty basic story but no one minded. Nowadays, a game is usually either story-filled and not fun or just plain not fun.
Enter Renegade Ops, a PlayStation Network game playable on the PlayStation 3. This game is not complete devoid of the story, but it is neither very good nor very compelling. A bunch of rag tag soldiers/mercenaries are trying to defend the area in question from Lex Luthor… I mean “Inferno”. In my defense, he looks and talks a lot like the infamous comic book villain. All I got from the story was that he was up to something diabolical and he must be stopped.
Renegade Ops is a top down shooter. Most of the game is spent driving around and completing missions that usually involve shooting stuff until it blows up. That is the reason why this game is so fun, though. It feels like a space arcade shooter but the environment sets it apart from those. Almost anything in the world can be destroyed by shooting or driving into it, which may not the complete point of the game but I found it fun. Everything looks like a rural military compound (think Area 51 without the aliens) and looks incredible in the game; from the structures to the trees.
Each character has their own unique look, but that is pretty irrelevant as you perform combat via vehicle. Each vehicle looks like a modified tank or humvee and they all pretty much drive the same. Vehicles start with the standard issue machine gun. This machine gun appears to increase in fire by killing a certain amount of enemies. It can be compared to the increase in rate of fire when you obtain a multiplier in Galaxy Wars. Besides the basic machine gun, vehicles also receive a secondary weaponry.
Secondary weapons can be picked up as large glowing cubes when defeating enemies. They range from a rail gun to a rocket launcher. The ammo for these secondary weapons is limited; you can find more when it is dropped by more defeated enemies. Ammo and weapons are not the only loot that is dropped with enemy death. Health orbs are also dropped and you will definitely need them throughout the course of the game.
There are four playable characters in the game: Armand, Diz, Roxy, and Gunnar. Every playable character has a special ability that can be used after a quick recharge.The most useful character in the game was Diz because of her E.M.P. ability. Diz’s E.M.P. disables enemy vehicle weapons and functionality so they can sit there helpless while you destroy them. It also disables aircraft that are caught in the radius which are normally a real pain if you are fighting from the ground. Armand has a shield that allows him temporary invincibility for a few seconds. Roxy’s ability is the air strike which is pretty self explanatory. Gunnar has the ability to replace the standard machine gun with the “big gun” which is more powerful.
Enemies are also vehicles and come in many forms such as stationary turrets, tanks, military car-like vehicles, and aircraft. Ships are also enemies, but the target on them are usually turrets. You are not always stuck in a ground vehicle. Aircraft are also usable; especially in missions which involve attacking a ship. The vehicles control pretty decently except when trying to go fast. Using the turbo button (wheeled vehicles only) will cause your character to swerve all over the place and make it very hard to steer. This is a time based game, so swerving can damage your accuracy when trying to get to your target on time.
The bottom line is that this game is a whole lot of fun. It is generally fun to shoot things until they blow up which is the whole premise of the game. The way guns control (with the sticks) felt like Geometry Wars and were very easy to use. The only problem was the swerving mechanic when going fast, but I never lost a mission because of not making it in time (although I did come close a few times). Renegade Ops is a must buy for arcade shooter fans, and fans of plain old blowing stuff up.
