Reviewed by Brandy Shaul
Explosions. While plenty of games can be described with that single word, perhaps none deserve the adjective more than Renegade Ops on Xbox 360. The setup: a madman by the name of Inferno has taken civilians from around the globe hostage, making them slaves in his mines to create weapons of mass destruction. Hell-bent on world domination, this classic villain will stop at nothing; it’s either you or he in a fight for survival, but can he ever really die?
You’ll play as a group of renegade operatives, not content with sitting by and doing nothing, as you charge in (literally guns blazing) to Inferno’s bases in the jungles or deserts of far off lands, eventually ending in a showdown with Inferno himself (with some plot twists along the way).
While the storyline remains constant, the experience in Renegade Ops is really two different games entirely, depending on the difficulty level you choose (Casual or Normal). There are nine missions to complete, each with their own primary objectives (that are timed) and secondary objectives that are voluntary, but normally reward you with achievements.
When playing on Normal (or even the more difficult Hardcore setting) you have an incredibly challenging (to a fault) experience, where enemies, no matter how small, seemingly refuse to die, boss battles go on forever, and you have a limited amount of lives to run through in each chapter. There are incentives to playing in these modes, however, as you’ll earn experience points that help you level up and increased point bonuses to climb the online leaderboards. Again, though, these modes will be almost impossible to complete for someone that’s not used to dual-stick top-down shooters, or this hectic of gameplay in general, and will likely be incredibly frustrating for anyone else. For those unfamiliar, a dual-stick, top-down shooter has you moving with the left analog stick and controlling the direction of your shots with the right stick.
When playing on Casual, you’re given unlimited lives, and although you won’t receive score boosts or experience points, the gameplay becomes infinitely more enjoyable. This isn’t to say that the experience is perfect, as there are some technical issues that become more prevalent as you go on, but you’ll at least be able to finish the game without pulling your hair out or introducing your controller to the wall.
The gameplay setup here is incredibly repetitive, as you might expect, but there’s a fairly large variety of enemy types, ranging from on-foot soldiers to massive tanks and juggernauts (as examples) that must be systematically destroyed from the outside in before finally turning them into rubble. The maps in each level are huge, and while there are instances where you’ll need to find key cards or rescue civilians / in-game characters before moving on, these maps are open-world for the most part. This gives you plenty of freedom when moving from one part of Inferno’s base or villages to the next, as you’ll have the freedom to complete any secondary objectives (recover stolen relics, steal intelligence data, etc.) before actually finishing the main task at hand.
As for those technical issues, they start off subtle and definitely aren’t deal-breakers, but they can be a bit annoying. For one, while the game’s graphics are sharp and the lighting and dust effects are incredibly well done, the explosions themselves are so prevalent and so huge that it can sometimes become confusing to tell where you are on the screen amongst the massive smoke clouds, and therefore difficult to tell where those remaining enemy bullets are coming from. To make matters worse, the largest of explosions can also send you into buildings or against invisible walls where you’ll become lodged until you’re either killed or can somehow free yourself. There are also instances where the game’s controls can backfire, leaving you frantically rotating your right stick to shoot only to see your character’s vehicle ignore the orders. Again, these true technical bugs are fairly few and far between, but they stick out like a sore thumb against the rest of the polished gameplay.
All told, with the addition of either split-screen co-op multiplayer on each chapter, or online co-op with up to three others, there’s plenty of content here in this pretty little package. Still, Renegade Ops doesn’t break the mold, and you’ll need to accept the game’s Casual difficulty setting (without all of those bonuses), if you want to get the most from the experience in terms of pure enjoyment. Ultimately, Renegade Ops may have a heavily cliched story, but once you get rolling, you probably won’t wan to stop.
Special thanks to Kellie Parker and SEGA for providing a code for this title.