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Redneck Revenge: A Zombie Roadtrip

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Redneck Revenge: A Zombie Roadtrip

Let's break down the word "redneck", as Will Smith did in Wild Wild West.
The first word is "red", the colour of passion, fire, and power. Then there's "neck", a word that still fails to signify anything interesting or memorable. Taken together, these definitions sum up Redneck Revenge: A Zombie Roadtrip perfectly. It opens strongly and has a lot of firepower behind it, but ultimately it fails to leave a lasting impression.

Get outta mah bar

Redneck Revenge begins when a horde of restless dead wander into a random redneck's roadhouse. Unhappy with the manners of his new clientele, said redneck reaches behind his bar to grab his trusty gun and starts firing.

The redneck, for all of his many merits (like farmin', drinkin', and cussin') is not a terribly mobile creature, so you can only move him about by adjusting his vertical position on the screen.

This allows you to select new vantage points to rain ruin down upon the undead, and keeps Redneck Revenge from feeling too static.

Shooting is handled neatly via simple taps on the screen, and you can freely switch between weapons once you unlock them.

Git er done

The arsenal at the redneck's disposal would do any Jeff Foxworthy fan proud: you begin with a pistol (referred to, bizarrely, as an assault rifle) and can upgrade to a shotgun, nailgun, potato cannon, flamethrower, and an M16.

In addition to capturing the redneck mentality perfectly, each of these weapons has a different rate of fire and effect. The spud gun is slow to fire, for example, but yields a nice bit of splash damage to sort out clumps of shuffling zombies.

This varied arsenal ensures that your redneck will be able to cope with most any situation, provided that he has the proper guns unlocked and upgraded.

Winner by a neck

Despite all of the cartoonish trappings, however, Redneck Revenge is still a basic action-shooter/tower defence game. You win when all the waves of zombies are dead (again), and you lose when they overwhelm your position and feast on your flesh.

The biggest disappointment in Redneck Revenge is that there's never a feeling of being in danger.

Each level's waves are fixed, which means that after a few play-throughs you'll know exactly where to shoot in order to hit the greatest number of zombies.

This led to my redneck having strange powers of prescience as he fired unerringly at a blank portion of the screen a split-second before a zombie stepped into frame to take the bullet full in the face.

While enjoyable and boisterous in short sessions, Redneck Revenge ultimately fails to deliver a memorable - or challenging - gameplay experience.

Redneck Revenge: A Zombie Roadtrip

Equal parts cute, fun, and insensitive, Redneck Revenge allows the current zombie craze to limp along for another few weeks
Score
Matthew Diener
Matthew Diener
Representing the former colonies, Matt keeps the Pocket Gamer news feed updated when sleepy Europeans are sleeping. As a frustrated journalist, diehard gamer and recovering MMO addict, this is pretty much his dream job.