Redline Crooks is an isometric combat racer roguelite that wears its inspirations on its sleeve, taking inspiration from games like F-Zero and Nuclear Throne. Taking all the right lessons from the rogues before it, the game is pure chaos and fun.
You’re a Criminal
You are an escaping convict speeding away from an onslaught of police forces and interested third parties that are hellbent on throwing their entire arsenal at you to ruin your attempts.
Your goal is to cause as much carnage as possible as you slam into unsuspecting civilian cars, gun down police forces, and blow up whoever else might be on the randomly generated roads.
Occasionally a shop appears, allowing you to buy abilities to upgrade your car to become an unstoppable force of destruction. It’s simple, fast paced, and insanely addictive.
The Arsenal
There are nine characters to choose from who are all surprisingly creative to play with. There’s John Carna with his classic F-Zero spin attack, but on the other hand you have Big Tuna who drives a boat that uses harpoons as grappling hooks to fling yourself into enemy vehicles. One of my favourites is the eagle, Abe, with his rocket-launching hummer.
Redline Crooks’ items are all interesting changes to your gameplay rather than cookie cutter stat upgrades. Most choices can be boiled down to circumstantial advantages such as granting cars ahead of you vulnerability or chaotic abilities like shooting lasers out of your car.
The Little Touches
There are a lot of little nuances and mechanics going on as you race through the destruction. On the bottom left of the screen there’s a meter to worry about reminding you that it is indeed a race, as letting too many enemies get ahead of you lowers your remaining time to exit the level.
Taunting enemies with your horn works as both a way to drag vehicles from behind you closer and to stop melee attackers from hitting you.
Game difficulty is directly tied to your performance, so the more chaos you cause, the harder it gets. There are also a ton of ways to customize the gameplay, with badges that change game rules and difficulty ascensions to go through.
Redline Crooks looks, sounds, and feels great. The crunchy hit-stun of slamming into vehicles combined with the clang sound of getting a combo while jamming to catchy, upbeat music work in unison to create a silly but aggressive experience. The game also features a good amount of accessibility settings in addition to full key rebinding.
Birth of a Sub-Genre?
I love Redline Crooks and will be playing it far into the future. Vehicular combat is a newer idea in the roguelite genre, and I’m glad to see it executed so well!
Redline Crooks is out now on PC (Lin, Win) and I played the game via access provided by the developer, Alexander Golke – thank you!
