R.I.P.D. The game. REVIEW

R.I.P.D. for Xbox Live Arcade is a third person 2 player co-op shooter based on the comic book series and the upcoming movie starring Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Bacon.
 
The scene is set with opening titles and a movie, both presented in a comic book style, and it’s here that we are told the story of main character Nick Walker, a Boston Police Officer.  Nick was shot dead in a fire fight, and as his soul was drifting peacefully towards the afterlife, he was intercepted by a secret group of dead detectives known as the R.I.P.D. who had spotted his talents and decided they could use his skills for their purpose of bringing hordes of dead criminals known as “Deados”, to justice.
 
Nick and his wise ass partner Roy have to get to the bottom of some unusual recent deado activity, such as, their sudden interest in gold, and the fact that they have unusually started working together.  This basically involves plenty of frantic running, shooting and roll-dodging action as you blast your way through waves of armed undead crims with a plethora of different weapons.So there's no detective work here sister! No sir! Just plenty of killing, er, or un-killing.....Or whatever you do with already dead dudes.



The game plays in a similar vein to it’s stable mate God Mode, with a few differences. I’ll describe the game play elements below:

General Game play:
Players select either Quick match or Custom match. Custom match allows you to play solo, while quick match will place you in a lobby and search for a team mate. You choose a map, one of three difficulties, primary and secondary weapons and can purchase an item to use in game known as a consumable. More on that later. Each “Encounter”, as they are known, is a series of five rounds of horde type game play, with the fifth round including a boss type deado. Once you’ve filled the boss with enough lead, you can attempt an arrest by staying close to the downed villain until the arrest meter fills, while other minions rush you. This will garner after match bonuses. Alternatively, you can execute the boss which yields no bonus and takes an age anyway so there's no real point other than a related achievement.

The game clock is linked to your life count. If you run out of time, the life count depletes. Extra lives are awarded at the end of rounds. If you take enough damage, you go down and can be revived by your partner if he is fast enough, (or if he isn't too busy talking about himself, Mr Hammer)  or you can choose to suicide in order to get back into the action faster, but this will cost you a time penalty. 

There are seven maps to choose from, featuring fairly run of the mill locations, such as a public library and a subway station. There is also a terrace bar map and a Bullpen, amongst others. The maps are all a relevant size shall we say. Just right for a game of this type really.  Large enough to run away from danger momentarily, but not so big as to dilute the action.



Gold:
Gold is collected automatically from destruction of baddies and accumulates in your key meter, which is basically your progress bar through the game. You must play stages over and over to accumulate enough Gold to create the key to unlock the final encounter with the big boss “Hayes”.

Salary:
Wonga is collected from completing stages and the random challenges that are presented to you within stages. This is used to purchase new weapons and upgrade owned weapons, and also to buy consumables.

Consumables:
At the start of each encounter, you are given the chance to purchase one from a choice of items to aid your quest. These are basically modifiers, such as, flaming bullets, bullet proof vest to decrease damage taken, and ammo gains from kills etc. These are used for one encounter and then lost.

Betting:
Before the match, each player takes it in turns to choose from a list of bets, until only one remains. This will then become the active bet in the match and the winner gets a salary bonus at the end. Examples of bets are, "Most Headshots", "Most abilities used", or the gripping "Deathmatch" which pits you against your partner in a fight to the death after the conclusion of the enemy encounter.

Challenges:
Random challenges are presented to you during an encounter such as getting X number of Kills or headshots, and killing a certain number of enemies whilst standing in a highlighted area.  These provide a bit of variety and change things up a bit.  If you’ve played God Mode and other games of this ilk, you’ll know what to expect.


Abilities:
Upon increasing your kill multiplier, five abilities become available to you to aid the killing. These range from a Turret drop that automatically targets enemies for a time, and also the ability to create a clone of yourself to fool your foes!

Weapons:
Mostly the usual fare, with a couple of comedy additions. You start out with pistols, SMG, and a pump action shotgun, and as you earn cash, you can purchase an automatic shotty, revolver, rifle, grenade launcher and a harpoon gun. Each firearm has three upgrade levels should you have enough spondoolies! Once you've completed the game, a banana and a hairdryer become available which have fast fire rates and add some comedy value. I'm not sure what the relevance, of those particular items is, unless there is something in the comic books to explain it. I'm not sure.

Achievements:
The achievements are quite amusingly named. They all have some relevance to Indian food such as "Chapatti in my pants", and "I'm Cumin for you"! Groan!! Again, whether this Curry based shenanigans is relevant to the comics, I don't know.

The cheevs themselves are reasonably cool. There are 15 available for 400 Gamerscore. There are achievements for completing  challenges, winning bets and killing X number of Deados. The tough ones are going to be, completing all encounters on the hardest difficulty and purchasing and upgrading all weapons.

Summary:
R.I.P.D. is a really enjoyable game actually. I expected it to be pretty meh being a film tie-in, and although it does nothing spectacular, it provided Kent and I with some good "laugh out loud" fun. Some large enemies that appear randomly and charge you, became affectionately known as "Big bastards", and I think I was shouting, "Shit, I would help, but I'm being bummed by a big bastard", at one point. I clearly remember Kent Hammer deafening me at times with his screams at being charged and knocked over!

The action is frenetic and fast. The physics ARE a little bland. There isn't much of a feeling of power from your weapons at times. Enemies don't recoil from being blasted, and you don't get much effect from being ploughed into by a "Big Bastard", or being nailed with a gatling gun, but for an XBLA title these things can be overlooked to a degree. Also, a bit more interaction with the environment would have been nice.

The game tries to be funny sparodically, with the odd, funny piece of narrative and remark, the curry themed cheevs, and novelty weapons, but these are few and far between, and none of the enemy characters are particularly interesting. This is my only gripe with the game. Some time could have been spent developing the charisma of the game a little more, but as an XBLA game for 800 Microsoft points that is designed to provide frantic co-op action, it succeeds and there is plenty of fun here to make this a good purchase. Unfortunately, as with all arcade games of this ilk, you aren't gonna get much shelf life from the online play, unless you have friends to play with, but as it's only two player, then it's not as much of an issue on this occasion.

If you compare this to God Mode, then it's probably not quite as good but is still worth a purchase, and I'm gonna score it.......

7.5 out of ten and thank my lucky stars that Tree couldn't be arsed to score God Mode in his review which makes it a bit easier for me!  

I really enjoyed god mode...hmmm...
Nice review well done pal

Thanks dude! Makes me wanna get God Mode. Could these be the games that we finally do some online together!?

Nice review fella

Colne Crusader wrote:Thanks dude! Makes me wanna get God Mode. Could these be the games that we finally do some online together!?

There is also Halo 4 and colonial marines too. It will happen at some point surely.

Good work

I will give it an 8 out of ten 10 myself as its a fast paced fun and challenging co-op game.

Excellent review Mr Colne. I don't like to score the reviews so you folks have to read it rather than skip to the end

nice work mate looks and sounds a good game

Sounds like a Mass Effect 3 style horde mode the way you have consumables and weapon ranking etc... I'd probably enjoy it though I'd probably enjoy playing more Mass Effect-3 instead. It has to be my favourite multiplayer game ever except for some co-op campaign in the halo games.

TreeMunky wrote:Excellent review Mr Colne. I don't like to score the reviews so you folks have to read it rather than skip to the end

Thanks Tree. You know what! I'm gonna employ that strategy in future. Kent always tells me i've scored a game wrong in pretty much all my reviews anyway so why bother!!?

Colne Crusader wrote:

TreeMunky wrote:Excellent review Mr Colne. I don't like to score the reviews so you folks have to read it rather than skip to the end

Thanks Tree. You know what! I'm gonna employ that strategy in future. Kent always tells me i've scored a game wrong in pretty much all my reviews anyway so why bother!!?

 Thats just him trolling you.
I wouldn't stand for that mate.

Excellent review! I am now interested in a game I had no previous interest in!

Cheers Waggles! I'm looking forward to my next sesh on it!