"In a World… where a voice from the Heavens tells you to 'cut loose'."
Whiplash is a 2003 Platform Game developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Eidos Interactive for the PS2 and Xbox. You play a genetically altered weasel and rabbit who are handcuffed together and trying to escape an animal testing facility. You directly control Spanx (the weasel) while Redmond (the rabbit) is dragged along and used as a bludgeon.
After breaking out of containment, Spanx and Redmond follow the advice of a mysterious voice in the computer system to try and escape from Genron while freeing other test animals from cartoonishly cruel experiments. A running secondary goal of the game is to smash stuff. There's actually a running counter at the bottom of the screen showing how much money the company has, and a little is deducted for every fire extinguisher you break. The platforming is relatively generic, but much of the fun of the game comes from the simple fact you're destroying a large corporation by bashing it with a rabbit.
Not to be confused with Fatal Racing, which uses the same title inside the States, the 1960s Australian western, or with the 2014 film starring Miles Teller and J. K. Simmons.
Whiplash contains examples of the following tropes:
- After Boss Recovery: When you defeat the giant spider-bot boss at the end of the Power department level, you are rewarded with tons of Genron hypersnacks, which causes Spanx and Redmond to level up a bunch of times in a row!
- Animal Testing: The whole game revolves around this. The humans subject animals to over the top cruel experiments.
- Bad Boss: Franklin D. Mann is prone to firing people at the drop of a hat.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: The whole plot of the game is freeing animals from the cruel people of Genron, who perform heinous experiments on animals.
- Bald of Evil: A good large portion of the male Genron employees are bald.
- Balloonacy: Inflating Redmond with helium makes you float upwards. Spanx can speed up the process by spinning his tail like a propeller.
- Big Bad: Franklin D. Mann, the CEO in charge of Genron and resident madman.
- Big Good: Two. Enos and The Master. Both are leading the animals in their attempts to escape.
- Bland-Name Product: The Genron Corporation is named after Enron Corporation, a real-life energy company best known for an accounting scandal.
- Blasphemous Boast: The ad for the Robo Weasel enemy in the first level states "The Robo Weasel is mankind's greatest invention since God".
- Breath Weapon: The mad scientist enemies will drink potions to gain the ability to breathe fire at you.
- Cartoon Creature: Spanx is officially a long-tailed weasel, but is mostly a thing. Redmond speculates wildly on what he is."You're a bad, BAD weasel...Or whatever you are."
- Circling Birdies: The enemies will have stars floating around their heads when they are stunned.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Mann runs a company that is based entirely around animal abuse.
- Crapsack World: The game must take place in a world where animal cruelty isn't a crime, considering Genron outright advertises what they do to animals, and Carol Ann is working as an undercover agent instead of just going to the police.
- Cyborg: Polanski becomes one at some point in between his first defeat and his second encounter. Lincoln is a cyborg owl.
- Dark Action Girl: Most of the female Genron employees, with the exception of the female scientists, are very athletic and skilled in martial arts.
- Deadpan Snarker: Redmond makes up for his helplessness by lampshading everything he can.
- Dissimile: At one point, Redmond says "Hey, this is just like water skiing. Except it's on concrete, I'm flat on my back and it's REALLY PAINFUL".
- The Dog Bites Back: Whenever you free animals, they will attack the humans who mistreated them.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Spanx first appeared (sans Redmond) in a foot-racing game for the Xbox launch called Mad Dash Racing.
- Elite Mook: The Hazmat Hunters. They are the most powerful of the enemies and are considered Genron's elite force.
- Enemy Mine: It is repeatedly discussed how weasels and rabbits are supposed to be enemies. Redmond certainly comes to despise Spanx at the least. By the end however, they have become Fire-Forged Friends.
- Epic Flail: Spanx attacks enemies by using Redmond as one, via the handcuffs that are connecting the two of them together. Redmond really hates this.
- Evil Genius: Genron scientists are incredibly skilled creators, inventing technology that far surpasses modern times. Too bad it comes at the expense of animals.
- Evil Old Folks: Mann, the main villain, is 64 years old.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Redmond spends most of the game not liking Spanx. During the final boss fight however, sfter being freed from the chain, Redmond comes back and reattaches the chain to help Spanx. They end up leaving the building as friends.
- For Science!: Most of Genron's experiments seem to have the singular purpose of tormenting animals.
- Game-Breaking Bug: In a demo of the game, there is a nasty glitch present that makes it literally impossible to complete. In the actual game, there's a glitch at the point where you're supposed to free some alligators- sometimes it won't register that you've freed all of them which prevents the next area from being unlocked.
- Gameplay Ally Immortality: When you free animals and they start attacking humans, the animals are essentially invincible due to the fact that the humans never fight back against them.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Mann has three claw marks over his left eye.
- Grappling-Hook Pistol: You use Redmond as this by deliberately tossing him into an electrical pod that shocks him and swing while he gets stuck on it.
- Gravity Screw: One room has a bunch of chimps being used to test anti-gravity devices. You are supposed to reverse the effects so the chimps are brought down and the scientists in the room are brought up.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Poor Redmond, hitting enemies with him is ninety percent of the gameplay.
- Harmless Electrocution: Spanx can electrify Redmond and use him to non-fatally shock humans.
- Harmless Freezing: If you don't finish off the enemies after hitting them with nitroglycerin and freezing them, they will thaw out and be fine.
- Hated by All: Rusty the surgeon isn't liked by humans any more than animals. In the cutscene before his boss fight, it's revealed that the men who were supposed to observe his operation on an animal actually left cardboard cutouts of themselves in the viewing windows and snuck away.
- Heroic Mime: Spanx never speaks due to his brain being long-fried by electricity.
- Humans Are Bastards: Carol Ann is the only good human in the game.
- I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: One of the quotes the mad scientist enemies will say is "I'm a doctor, not an animal catcher!"
- Jerkass: The humans aside from Carol Ann are all this. They are shown to be at best indifferent to the suffering they cause animals and at worst outright sadistic about it.
- Kaiju: One of the bosses is a giant garbage monster.
- Kick the Dog: Some of the experiments appear to be done For the Evulz, a notable example being the hamster cannon, which Enos notes is "just plain mean".
- Killer Gorilla: One gorilla will attack a scientist after being freed. Another serves as part of The Master's group.
- Kill It with Fire: You can set Redmond on fire and use fire as a weapon against enemies.
- Kill It with Ice: You can dunk Redmond in nitroglycerin and then use him to freeze enemies.
- King Mook: Several of the enemies have boss versions. There is the head janitor, the head Hazmat Hunter, and Rusty, the head surgeon.
- Made of Iron: Redmond has been modified to be indestructible. Feel free to beat security guards over the head with him and jam him in gears to stop them. Or set him on fire, or dunk him in toxic waste...
- Mad Scientist: Tons, usually tormenting chimps in humorous ways until you show up. Notably, the game has two different types; "regular" scientists which can be either male or female and are The Goomba, and the more dangerous "mad" scientists, which are always male, throw potions at you, and drink potions to breathe fire at you.
- Meaningful Name: The second chimpanzee launched into space by NASA was named Enos, and here, Enos is a chimpanzee who was the first animal to be experimented on by Genron.
- Mutants: Spanx, Redmond, and several other animals have been mutated by Genron. A group of them serves The Master.
- Noodle Incident: Redmond knows Polanski and seems to hold a personal grudge against him for some reason.
- Obliviously Evil: Franklin D. Mann honestly believes he is bringing meaning and purpose to the animals. The official strategy guide describes him as more demented than evil.
- Playing with Fire: Setting Redmond on fire increases the damage you can do to enemies.
- Radiation-Induced Superpowers: You can use radiation to increase Redmond's attack power temporarily.
- Rewarding Vandalism: It's the secondary goal of the game to rack up the debt.
- The Scream: Redmond lets out a big one when he realizes the elevator he and Spanx took did not lead to freedom.
- Sequence Breaking:
- After adding the Electric powerup to the Multi System, you can immediately backtrack to Endurance and obtain the department’s security card and the Ice powerup earlier than you are supposed to.
- The same situation applies to the Robotics card. However, it is possible for you to obtain it even before you reach the Power department by climbing on certain objects.
- Shout-Out:
- Skewed Priorities: During the boss fight with the head janitor, you can distract him by causing a mess that he will stop to mop up, leaving him open to attack.
- Sound-Effect Bleep: Used twice. Once during the fight with the head janitor, and again when Franklin D. Mann describes The Master (a living being made of fecal matter) as a "man covered in <Bleep>"
- Static Stun Gun: The Skinny Rent-a-Cops use tasers.
- Sweet Tooth: A guard is obsessed with chocolate. You have to dunk Redmond in chocolate so the guard will mistake him for a giant chocolate bunny and activate the hub elevator bridge so he can try to get to you.
- Take That!: Roman Polański (or a Genron employee with the same name as him) is a minor villain in this game.
- Talking Animal: Averted for most of the animals. Played straight with Redmond, Lincoln, and Enos. Lincoln and Redmond can talk because of the experiments performed on them, while Enos uses telepathy.
- Talking Poo: The Master is a living glob of poop with eyes. He doesn't actually talk though.
- Unstoppable Rage: By hitting things/people enough, Redmond goes berserk and automatically sics himself on anything nearby.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can outright kill enemies with nitroglycerin tanks if you throw Redmond in one. This will allow you to use ice powers and freeze foes solid before smashing them, leaving only their equipment behind.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Many of the puzzles involve sticking Redmond into something.
- Wicked Weasel: Not Spanx, but the Robo Weasels are enemies.
- Yes-Man: One of the types of enemies are called this in the official strategy guide. They are perpetually smiling men in business suits.
