Redneck Rampage

• Release Date: August 01, 1999
• Genre: Shooter
• Style: First-Person Shooter
• Similar Games: Descent (Macintosh), Marathon (Macintosh), Descent (IBM PC Compatible), Descent (PlayStation), Duke Nukem (Game Boy Color)

Game Description

Hickston, U.S.A. is the setting for Redneck Rampage, a tongue-in-tobacco-wadded-cheek shooter that features 14 levels of barnyard and backwoods mayhem in a world besieged by aliens, mutants, and eccentric locals. Hostile entities include deadly mosquitoes, chickens (target practice), cows, pigs, Turd Minions (alien fecal matter come alive), alien hulk guards, and vixens. Adding to the challenge are dozens of alien-induced clones of Billy Ray Jeter (an inbred mountain man), the urban-legendary Skinny Old Coot, and Sheriff Hobbes, the county lawman.

Players keep their health at tolerable levels by downing CowPies and pork rinds while swilling beer and whiskey. Equipment includes offbeat items such as hip waders, a vacuum hose, welding goggles, keys, and moonshine (stomach-settling staple), and the arsenal features a crowbar, .454 Casull pistol, rifle, shotgun, dynamite, crossbow, rip saw, alien arm gun, powder keg, and a mystery weapon. Two scales (Drunkometer and Gutometer), each with four levels of effectiveness, are used in measuring the player's health.

Redneck Rampage contains colorful language (a "cuss pack" is available separately) and a soundtrack featuring The Reverend Horton Heat, Cement Pond, and Mojo Nixon. Multiplayer action includes deathmatch action for up to eight players.

Roots & Influences

Duke Nukem was a ground-breaking pioneer of the first-person shooter craze. Following its success of and similar games such as Marathon, many companies produced first-person shooter clones featuring those 3D engines. Redneck Rampage was developed by Xatrix Entertainment for Interplay using the 3D Realms Game Engine, which was used for Duke Nukem.

Review: Overall

Yeeee-hawww! Pop the clutch and pass the ammo, we got some alien varmints ta shoot.

If you want politically correct, do yourself a favor and go somewhere else, because Redneck Rampage is not for you. Honestly, sometimes you city folk just don't understand good ol' fashioned fun. The game's marketing slogan is "All the Killin', Twice the Humor and Half the Intelligence." And that catch phrase hits the chicken right on the head.

Based on the Duke Nukem game engine, Redneck Rampage is a blood-and-guts, first-person gore festival in the tradition of the Quake, Descent and Marathon series. What sets it apart is humor. The action is the same as any of the first-person shooters but the tongue-in-cheek (or perhaps "chaw-in-cheek") humor makes blowing things up more fun than ever. From the opening scene in Hicksville, in which you witness a beat-up pickup mow down a flock of unfortunate chickens, you know this is not your older brother's shoot-'em-up.

The targets of your high-caliber attacks shout invective that simply can't be repeated here. The term "foul language" is an understatement. To say Redneck Rampage has a bit of vulgarity is like saying Jeffrey Dahmer had an urge for "unusual food." The game is a festival of swearing and poor grammar seldom found outside a Klu Klux Klan meeting. Redneck Rampage even comes with a "Cuss Pack," a folder full of extra-special swearing dialogue in case you enjoy that kind of thing (I loaded it but didn't enjoy it, I swear).

The sound track is really, really good. Cranking tunes from Mojo Nixon, The Reverend Horton Heat and Cement Pond had me wanting the songs on a CD to play in my car (of course, I'd have to look for some chickens to run over...). The "psychobilly" soundtrack is a great change of pace from the droning, moody ethereal scores found in most first-person shooters.

All things considered, if you have even an iota of a sense of humor or if your daddy married his sister, this is the game for you.

Review: Enjoyment

Good-old fasioned inbred fun.

Review: Graphics

3D models are fun but very repetitive after the first few plays.

Review: Sound

Please, please, please don't play this game where your mother can hear it.

Review: Replay Value

You can only shoot so many pigs before it gets old.

Review: Documentation

No documentation included with review copy.

Production Credits