"YEE-HAW!"
"Howdy! I'm gonna tell you a story y'all ain't gonna believe. It's about, uh, UFOs, big-rigs.. and barbecues!"
— The game's opening song by Mojo Nixon
Redneck Rampage is a first-person shooter that was developed by Xatrix Entertainment and published by Interplay Entertainment. Released in 1997, It was one of the last commercial titles to use the Build engine that previously powered Duke Nukem 3D and later powered Blood, among others. Noticeably, the game uses oversized textures and sprites, which gives a higher resolution image quality than other Build engine games.
The protagonists of the game are Leonardnote and his brother Bubbanote , who are natives of Hickston, Arkansas, where alien invaders have stolen the two brothers' prized pig "Bessie", and created killer clones of Hickston's other inhabitants. Controlling Leonard, the game has you fight through many comical enemies, including skinny old coots, feces-throwing "turd minions" and alien vixens.
Redneck Rampage was followed by an expansion pack, Suckin' Grits on Route 66, a sequel, Redneck Rampage Rides again, and a spin-off game titled Redneck Deer Huntin. Also of note is the "Cuss Pack", a very early example of a DLC, which replaced much of the game's one-liners and enemy chatter with more profane versions. Redneck Rampage also features a CD-based soundtrack consisting of licensed songs from Mojo Nixon, The Reverend Horton Heat, Beat Farmers, and other Country Music, Psychobilly and Rock'n Roll style artists.
Tropes featured include:
- Aliens Are Bastards: Ya don't meet a single nice'un.
- Alliterative Title:Redneck Rampage.
- Anti-Frustration Features: A seemingly late-added one (Since it's only mentioned in the controls) but if Leonard is highly intoxicated and the player doesn't want to wait the long wait for him to sober up/have any food, they can press a "Quick Pee" button to have Leonard piss on the spot, this doesn't leave any mess but allows you to recover a small bit of health and sober Leonard up if there's no other means to do so, the player can also via a bug use this to revive themselves after dying.
- Arm Cannon: The Alien Hulk guards carry these. Once you've killed them you can pick them up and use them, severed arm and all (the manual states they are fired by yanking on an exposed tendon of the Hulk's arm), and they are
extremely good. - Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The final boss of Rides Again is a giant bus-sized Jackalope, in keeping with the Americana roadside attraction theme of the game.
- A Winner Is You: Essentially the ending of Redneck Rampage Rides Again. See Dude, Where's My Reward?
- Badass Biker: One of the enemy types in Redneck Rampage Rides Again. Wields two sawed-off shotguns and you can sometimes meet some that are actually on bikes, the same kind of bikes Leonard rides.
- Bizarrchitecture: One of the expansions features a trailer that is twice as big on the inside as it is outside, without cutting away or passing you through a load screen to do it, thanks to the Build engine being 2.5D(this would be difficult to pull off in a modern 3D engine, by comparison). Duke Nukem 3D used similar tricks to make odd rooms.
- Booze-Based Buff: Alcohol acts as a Health Potion, and if the meter's in the green there's a small armor-like effect. But be careful not to get too drunk or your vision and controls will start to get screwed up. Eating food counters the negative effects of booze, but contributes its own negative effects when overused.
- Camp Straight: The biker clones in Rides Again are incredibly swish, but seem to be straight given that they can be found standing to appear as though they're receiving head from the cheerleader clones in several locations.
- Character Portrait: Whenever you finish a level, and shows your stats (how many enemies you killed, time you finished a level), there is always a different portrait of Leonard or Bubba supposedly hanging up on a wall in the background. It more or less tells the game's backstory.
- Clone Army: The aliens have captured a few of Leonard's fellow citizens and created an army of clones from them to take over.
- Deep South:
- Naturally. The first game takes place in rural Arkansas.
- Rides Again brings you to the New Old West for the first episode, before going back to Hickston.
- The Door Slams You: A common Build engine glitch. Sometimes if you walk to the corner of a door while it's closing, you can get crushed.
- Developer's Foresight: If you manage to completely max out the drunk meter, Leonard will vomit, preventing you from having to wait too long before being able to move normally (since several sections require platforming), though you won't vomit again if you get maxed out drunk too soon after vomitting.
- Dude, Where's My Reward?: At the end of Redneck Rampage Rides Again, there is little to no ending. Just Leonard saying "The End". Leonard briefly hangs a lampshade on this though.
- Excuse Plot: The game begins with Leonard and Bubba's pig getting taken by aliens. Even though they supposedly are trying to get him back, the pig is never brought up again. Not even in the ending.
- Exploding Barrel: The powder keg. Unlike most examples of this trope, it's listed as a weapon that you can pick up, then put somewhere else you might want it.
- The TNT crates you can use to restore your TNT ammo also counts as this, so be careful when you see one lying around with lots of enemies around you.
- Fearsome Critters of American Folklore: Jackalopes are enemies in Rides Again. A giant version also appears in some levels as a mini-boss.
- Funetik Aksent: Quite a few of the in-game messages are written in an approximation of lower class Southern American dialect.
- Yer Scattergun Shells!
- Game-Breaking Bug: In the "Ruins" level, there's a bug where trying to unlock the door leading to the exit won't work, and the door will lock itself upon trying to unlock it, if this happens the only way around it are either to make an difficult jump requiring moonshine, or use rdclip to noclip through the door.
- Game Within a Game: One level has a working bowling alley with pins that replenish and multiple lanes. Many players may miss the fact that it functions at all, but if you use the all weapons cheat early on, you will find a bowling ball in your arsenal that can be rolled as one would expect, hinting at its presence before you reach the area- the ball can also be had as a normal pickup at the alley. May lead to Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer moments, especially in multiplayer, as this existed a decade before Wii Sports.
- Ghost Town: A few stages in the game take place in small country style villages and trailer parks, and everything seems deserted, though there are lots of weapons lying around, suggesting there was a war.
- Giant Mook: The alien Hulks with energy cannons for arms are the most obvious example. The Sheriff Hobbs clones deal so much damage and can take so many hits that they qualify too.
- Gorn: Typical of a late 90s FPS, though done far more cartoonishly than, say, Blood, and closer to Duke Nukem 3D.
- Half-Witted Hillbilly: Leonard and Bubba fall on the less flattering end of this trope, but it may be appropriate given the game's Refuge in Audacity tendencies.
- Hard Mode Mooks: In the first episode, Hulk Guards only appear on higher difficulty levels.
- Hand Cannon: Leonard's sidearm is a .454 Casull revolver that kicks like a mule and even pushes him back a bit with each shot. Unfortunately, it's about as effective as a typical FPS starter pistol as far as damage goes.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: You restore your health by scarfing down beer and snack food in your inventory. There's also a hunger and drunk-ness meter, so you can get so stuffed or hammered that you can't eat/drink anymore (though at least you can piss the alcohol away).
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: In keeping with the game's hillbilly theme, the difficulty level names are based on stereotypical hillbilly speech. From easiest to hardest: Wuss/Meejum/Hard Ass/Killbilly/Psychobilly.
- King Mook:
- The final boss of the original game, the Alien Queen, is just a regular Vixen with loads more health and an added homing jumpkick attack. Justified in that all the Vixens are clones of the Queen.
- Rides Again has the Jackalope mother which appears in a few levels as a mini-boss. A larger version with more health appears as the Final Boss.
- The Load: Bubba to Leonard. The goal of nearly every level is to reach the place he managed to wander off to, and then hit him in the noggin with a crowbar.
- Locked Door: You will need to frequently find keys in order for you to proceed onward.
- More Dakka: The Huntin' Rifle (An assault rifle) and the Alien Teat Gun are both fully automatic, and the recoil of both will toss Leonard around like the stick man that he is: the Rifle has muzzle climb (and a lot of it), the Teat Gun will push him back.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: For a stereotypical redneck, Leonard seems strangely immune to the Vixens' attempts at seduction.
- Police Brutality: Sheriff Hobbs embodies this trope. Or at least his clones do.
- Post-Final Boss: The final level of Rides Again, taking place in your hometown's town square, has no aliens or clones and is mostly you dealing with a jackalope infestation after having taken out the aliens' cloning facility in the previous level.
- Real Is Brown: Unlike the colorful visuals of other Build games, this one opts for textures and sprites seemingly ripped out of photos, with generous amounts of black outlining. Seemingly invoked more for the purpose of Scenery Gorn.
- Scenery Gorn: Being set in The Theme Park Version of the Deep South, this is inevitable. Levels take place in swamps, junkyards, hick towns, factories and trailer parks, and all of it is ugly, dirty and decrepit.
- Serrated Blade of Pain: One of the weapons is a gun that throws circular saw blades. It also functions as a buzzsaw.
- Short-Range Shotgun: The scattergun's barrel chokes seem to be shaped like very wide horizontal rectangles. Vertical spread isn't bad, but the shot spreads horizontally so badly that you have to be within literal spitting distance for all pellets to connect. That's no exaggeration: if you're more than nine feet away from an Alien Hulk, easily the widest enemy in the game, the pellets at the extreme left and right will miss. Against thin enemies like Coots, Dogs and Vixens, full use of Leonard's double barrel is a bad case of melee-range business. It doesn't work in the gun's favor either, because the subpar damage and slow reload rate makes using the wide spread to hit a whole mob of foes entirely ineffective.
- Shout-Out: Several Troma posters can be seen on a few stages, most noticeable is The Toxic Avenger.
- Toilet Humor: At least half of the game's humor is toilet-oriented. There's enemies and a boss that literally throw shit at you, the toilets are usable for both purposes, and then there's the infamous Cuss Pack. Even the game's intermission screen farts when it shows your time and kill/secrets tally.
- Torpedo Tits: The Alien Teat Gun, a set of machine guns. Shooting it pushes Leonard back from the sheer recoil.
- Trailer Park Tornado Magnet: The Drive-In level has a trailer park with two tornadoes swirling around. They're needed to get a secret in the level, but it's not easy.
- Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud: Nothing seems to be affected by the tornadoes, and Leonard's only sucked up if he touches the tornado. While one trailer is shown destroyed, nothing else in the park's affected.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: Hitting Bubba with any weapon other than the crowbar will kill him, rendering a level unbeatable. Thankfully, depending on the weapon, it may not be an instant death if hit by accident.
- We Will Meet Again: The Alien Queen promises that she'll be back when you defeat her. She re-appears as the final boss of the expansion pack, where she says the same thing after being beaten.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Bessie the pig isn't so much as mentioned again after the intro, despite being the impetus for this entire game's existence.
- You ALL Look Familiar: Justified by the enemies being clones of some of Hickston's local personalities, created by the aliens.
