Foul-Mouthed Retro!!
If the PlayStation 1, 2, SNES, Mega Drive and all them awesome retro consoles were part of your childhood then this game is probably going to be something that you’re interested. Slipgate Studios and THQ Nordic have brought Rad Rodgers to consoles after its initial release on the PC back in 2016. Rad Rodgers was yet another Kickstarter funded game, which was then backed from the folks at THQ Nordic. Powered by the Unreal Engine 4, Rad Rodgers has a large dose of nostalgic, whilst also offering having its own sense of identity…. and humor!
The humor in this game is something I really enjoyed. As soon as you start the game, you are given an option to see what setting you want to play Rad Rodgers on. You can have it as you’re playing as a child or if you’re playing as an adult. If you’re child is sitting down and getting ready to play this, it’s imperative that you make sure you pick the right option, as there is a whole host of difference. Clicking the adult mode, all throughout the game there are foul-mouthed rants, sexual innuendos and just plain filth coming out of Dusty’s mouth. I swear he looks innocent enough, but that video-console creature has a mouth on him! If you’re old enough to appreciate this however, you’ll probably laugh as much as I did. The voice-acting is a little interesting to say the least, but the script is genius and made me laugh all throughout the game. However, going back to my original point, please make sure you make sure your child picks the appropriate setting when playing this.
Back to the game itself, visually, Rad Rodgers performs quite well. It’s not the best looking platformer available on the PlayStation 4, that title for me belongs to the wonderful Ratchet & Clank. However, this is still really nice to look at, with levels having bright, colourful and have actual life to them. I do love the parts when there is a missing ramp in some parts of the levels and it goes very pixelated, which is a nice touch. I’ve already talked heavily about the audio above but on the whole, I did feel as the voice acting could of done with a bit more work to it.
To give you a bit of background on the story, it’s quite a simple tale, where you take on the role of a young boy called Rad Rodgers (hence the title!) who falls asleep after a long night gaming (we’ve all done this, right?). Rad then finds out that his console, referred to as Dusty has come alive after his TV sucks him into a vortex. After that, Dusty hands himself to Rad Rodgers to cause utter carnage and put balance back in the world.
The gameplay in Rad Rodgers is pretty much a 2.5D platform game. You can tell that the developers have tried to stay true to the original games back in the olden days with Rad Rodgers, updating it with better visuals etc. The main aim of each level is to collect 4 puzzle pieces which will then open up a door for Rad and Dusty to enter the next level. You have to find the four puzzle pieces but on the most part, the levels are very linear so you’ll easily get to find the missing puzzle pieces without any trouble.
Rad Rodgers also gets help on his way from Dusty with a gun, which can be powered up as you can collect different power-ups in order to make the gun more powerful and turn it in a quite the machine gun. However, although the original gun has unlimited ammo, you’ll often find that the power-ups you collect only have a limited amount of use to them. They’ll be a little bar attached to the end of the gun though which shows off how much ammo you have left. The enemies aren’t that hard either, I would of liked more of a challenge. As the game in very linear, it can get quite repetitive also, and you’ll definitely find yourself getting a little bored after a bit. I understand that the devs are trying to go back to the roots, but a little more variety wouldn’t of gone a miss.
There isn’t much content to keep you coming back to Rad Rodgers either. The levels will take you around 2 – 3 hours to complete, and although you can ramp up the difficulty and the ‘adult’ dialogue is always good to come back to for a laugh, there isn’t enough to keep you entertained, and I find that this will quickly be a game left on the shelf after your first playthrough.
