Auf Wiedersehen, Pet - A Look At RIPOUT Early Access
Titles are important. After acknowledging the name, does it have any meaning besides gaining your attention? RIPOUT Early Access (so many SHOUTY titles) isn’t clickbait: you’ll literally rip out body parts out of assailants, then wear them as a hat. That last bit I made up.
Look at the first and second content updates for RIPOUT.
Being visible in the FPS ocean is hard work. Do you go full retro like Project Warlock 2? Shoot for an arty aesthetic in Kingdom of the Dead? Or a massive online historic battle in Hell Let Loose? Pet Project Games have opted for a modern approach; well, presentation-wise, it’s like Doom 3 and Dead Space.
Published by 3D realms (who certainly know a thing or two about the genre), you play a space-age gold rush type where you skim the galaxy seeking your next haul. RIPOUT Early Access is a looter, but that’s not its primary focus as there’s a teeny bit of a story there, and what’s vital for me in this sort of game is atmosphere and variety.
RIPOUT Early Access
An online co-op shooter, which I opted out of as I work alone [insert 80s cop movie quote], you’ll select from various missions, jump into a shuttle and land on an abandoned spaceship to complete some objectives, bolster your inventory, and blast some baddies.
That story bit is cliche. You’re searching for humanity and employing your skills by nicking everything. Great representation of the human race there, pal. Some shit’s gone down in RIPOUT Early Access, and there are monsters galore, but predominantly the former space crews have been mutated as if a bio-mechanical Meccano set. These chimaera bastards fuse before your very eyes, too.
As it’s in Early Access stages, I ignored the slightly barren options and mission objectives. There wasn’t much in the way of handholding, and it needed to be clarified how to start a mission. Intuition tells you to select the challenge and then ‘start’, but nothing. Instead, you highlight where you want to go, then head to a separate shuttle.
Generate This!
As a recovering cinematic fan, I was surprised I didn’t miss the lack of storytelling outside the brief animatics, as it meant getting into the gameplay. And, while I’m not suggesting that RIPOUT Early Access is any better than Halo Infinite, I’d rather play the former at this moment in time.
Having little to say about an FPS other than the given ‘run and gun’ mechanics, it’s easy to jump straight in. At the start of each level, there’s the option for a perk, plus loads of shards to unlock and upgrade your guns and gear. We’ll slip over all of that because what matters most about RIPOUT Early Access is your pet gun.
This Giger-esque tool of destruction is brilliant. A living creature sits on the end of your gun, and bringing up a targeting HUD allows you to scan the area but, more importantly, set the dog on an enemy by launching it at them. Like a feral gremlin on meth, it rips apart the creature, tearing off a limb or two while you shoot from a distance.
Aye, Pet
The pet element is very cool but has a cooldown (that can be upgraded). Shooting in the game is standard, featuring a decent arsenal of a pistol, rifle, long-shot rifle and shotgun very early on. With the jumpsuit-clad crew approaching you with their brain pals attached to their heads, it reminded me of the glory days of Half-Life. Yes, the original.
Visually, it’s excellent. The ambience is spot on with just the right amount of terror, dim lighting that makes it hard to see but doesn’t penalise movement, and some wicked silhouettes that approach, which end up being some big-bastard Krang-like turkey ready to rip you apart. Should you die, you can immediately respawn with a token, or if playing co-op, revived by your bestie. RIPOUT Early Access is hard, though.
In its current state, RIPOUT Early Access is wicked, if repetitive, as all space stations look similar. That said, the layout changes, the variety of enemies and their ‘modular’ components are great on the fly as they give you more excuses to throw your pet at them and then rip them apart. I’d like more variety in missions, perhaps some more dialogue and handholding for the first mission or two, but other than that, it’s looking good.