Recent reviews by StrikerX22

Planes mode is where it's at. Buy it for that. It's not fleshed out but there's a lot of skill expression and it's fun. Careful about going too close to the screen borders, as you seem to gradually lose invisible health. It normally seems to take 2 missile hits to die. Screen zooms in a bit at times so that messes with border perception somewhat. Up to 4 local players as well, and a good party game. This mode is not dual-stick.

The tank modes are fair, and changing the settings can lead to some interesting scenarios.

Game is good, and hard. Visuals are great and music is quite good too (and fitting). If you have questions/concerns, go to the official discord (search for redout). I can go more into that later. But, I would like to address certain inane negative reviews that are popping up. By not allowing comments, others can't explain the issues that they bring up, which is pretty unfair for the game. Hopefully this will clarify some things.

How it Runs; Crashes:
My low end 2012 computer with onboard graphics runs the game decently with the lowest settings, but the problems are mainly from when there are a lot of AI racers with you, especially on parts of certain maps. I seem to get from 28-48fps if no weapons are used, AI probably taking a few frames off. Played off and on since late 2018, a lot recently. I tend to crash when I use Repair Drone (great for new people but shouldn't rely on it) on certain tracks, and sometimes I crash during vs AI races, presumably because of them using said powerup, but this is usually rare (helps to get out in front of the pack I think). But my computer/gfx are bad, so. Download the demo. It is an old version and I think it ran slightly worse, and the physics are a bit different, but you can get an idea of how it plays, and if it will likely run well. If you're worried about crashes/bugs, ask the Discord for more details on what can happen and how to avoid issues. I am not bothered that much by most of it, and I think I can avoid most all of it (other than Repair Drone crash on some tracks).

The AI, Steering:
The AI seems to rubberband, but this is not abnormal for a racer where you don't know how good the player is going to be, and skill varies very widely. Please note that there are *3 difficulty settings* (I use default middle) and each race has its own AI difficulty (not shown, but definitely seems like it), to help keep the player motivated with an occasionally easy race (I've read something about events that are easier for that kind of reasoning). Tournaments early on in Career mode especially tend to be rather easy, and I was pretty crap at the game early on. (I'm still pretty crap now, but much better.) The AI racers you race with stay the same if you restart the race while playing, but if you exit out of that race and start again, they switch ships/powerups, which can help a lot sometimes. It does seem like racers fight each other when you don't see them, as well, in at least some capacity, so it's often better to have 2 AIs grouped behind you than 1. AI relies on braking it seems, to avoid hitting walls. This is not optimal. Each turn is different, but you generally want to start outside, turn inside, end up on outside again, so you keep your speed and don't collide. Other times you make the rear of your ship to hit the wall to bounce and get a boost (or if necessary, the side to lose less). Rarely, you use brake+accelerator to spin to do this. Otherwise, you use brake to keep yourself from dying when you play badly. Don't rely on it. Also rarely, you might want to grind the wall. Always strafe toward the inside of the turn, unless you have to adjust (you made a mistake) or you want to come in at an angle (strafing itself doesn't make you lose speed); that is, you can travel straight with a slight angle to prepare for the turn ("pre-strafing"). Watching youtube videos for each track can help a lot. Strafe more than steer. Strafe pretty much all the time.

Balance:
The ships are well represented in the top 10s of each track (measured recently). Yes, one tends to be preferred (not by me), especially for certain scenarios/tracks, but the DLC ship is the least represented by far (the DLC it comes with is good though). The 2nd-4th add up to a bit more than the 1st, so it is significant. Furthermore, each track's top 10 tends to have multiple ships in it, rather than being all one or another. These are solo times though, and races are a little different, and skill is a big part. Powerups (you take an active and a passive) do tend to vary less, as it's hard to not want Turbo Boost as an active (especially when solo), and the passive tends to be geared toward the track, but does vary in top 10 some, and especially under top 10. They're pretty strong (at least when upgraded), but I find myself trying a different ship+powerup to tweak my performance on a certain event often, to success.

Community:
The Discord community holds weekly events for fun on Saturdays, sometimes tournaments. Players are pretty friendly and helpful (I joined almost 3 weeks ago), and the Devs do show their faces there. Skill gap is wide; If you don't have a terrible attitude, it's fun even when you don't win. If you participate enough, you'll probably find people around your level, making 1v1 more interesting. Hard work pays off in this game. Some pastimes of players include finding the hidden bunnies in the game's terrain, and trying to take good screenshots of the scenery, as well as sharing their good performances.

Difficulty:
You're bad. You get better with time. Accept this and it'll work out. Whining about "literally" not being able to get a gold by "doing everything perfectly"and not accepting that you're missing something important will, surprisingly, not help you. I was very bad and still managed to get all golds for Class I and II and most (89.96% gold/platinum) of III, doing even better on IV so far (52% through). Refer to the AI and Steering paragraph. Try to focus on remaining straight, or you'll lose speed as you wiggle around. I hear that if you simply "complete" a career event, you can move on to the next or something like that(wouldn't know, I got in the habit of golding each challenge mostly in order). Keep in mind that all ship stats go up each class rank, including steering. If you're not good at going fast (like me), it can actually surprise you at how much better the ship steers. Also note that you can play any track the host has, including DLC, and can play any ship in multiplayer. Multiplayer also allows better players to handicap themselves by using a lower class ship than other players. Skill and knowledge are important, so don't be surprised if a Class I top player beats a Class IV new player (I can do this, even).

Controls:
Most active top players use keyboard apparently, but the the usual best player (Zeph; is on Discord) uses gamepad. There are only a few gamepad control schemes and one for keyboard (2 layouts, qwerty and azerty), but players use AutoHotkey to customize things (I personally have used gamepad so far). There may have been a solution for customizing gamepad as well, but I don't remember [Edit: I hear you can change controller settings in Steam's Big Picture mode, which I don't use]. Ask the Discord. Either way, I got used to one of the gamepad schemes and they say the keyboard scheme feels good after a bit. You are strafing more than turning, btw. Pitch is also important for speed (and control, I believe).

Comparing to Other Racers:
It's not F-Zero. It's more like Wipeout without direct weapons, but it is significantly different. It's been a long time since I've sunk my teeth into another racer, so I can't say much from memory, but other players agree that Redout is unique. For details, ask on the Discord.

Tracks are Thin:
Yes, I noticed it felt this way when I started out. Going back to those courses later on, they feel wide. It does vary from track to track. The width can have significant impact on which method you should use to optimally turn on it, but too wide means wall bounce is not great. I dislike a particular couple of tracks that each have a very wide, long turn. The above hints on driving should help here, but it's also a lot about timing / track knowledge. As for not hitting the walls while driving straight, you get better, but remember strafing is very much your friend.

[Edit: typos, clarifications, few extra details. Added an issue addressed by another neg review. Steam Big Picture.]

*** PLEASE NOTE *** If the game doesn't start, unplug any controllers, and try starting again (edit: then replug controllers). If that doesn't work, look at this guide:

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=824977863

Game is hard to master, but interesting and fun so far (Dec 2018; will try co-op later). First boss leaves a good impression. Dodging/countering is important, and looking for animation startups to attacks (often red flashing, or response to your combo, or listen for voice line). Tutorial can be paused to read a wall of text near the end about "Rank", which is important.

Here's a bit of what you can expect from the game:
Good multiplayer chance game, with strategic elements (especially the cards: you can put a quarter of the 40 cards in the deck). Pretty fun, pretty anger inducing, mostly for single-player where the game is rigged to make it more challenging (bad method, in my opinion). With the latest 1.7 update, things are looking pretty good, with some character customization (visual), difficulty levels, more drop-ables in multiplayer, saving decks per character, and other fixes. Game could definitely use some pop-up help info on some things, but you'll get it as you go anyhow. Those who are less-skilled definitely have a chance at winning, which is good news for some, and according to one self-proclaimed such person, chance makes it less anger-inducing when they lose, so your mileage will vary on that. At least 11 characters not counting enemy/boss playable characters (Final boss is bannable) make for some decent variety, each with dice-roll-altering stats, and a special "Hyper" card that individualizes to them on draw (though if hands get randomized, shenanigans can happen). Seems fairly balanced, though I'm still relatively new (I've beat 2/4 campaigns and 1/4 "extra" stages at this point, multiplayer level 11). Play at a higher game speed for mplay, as the timer currently runs out while your character is moving around and such, and the timer is unaffected by the speed. Get the 4-pack, as it's great to have people you know involved.

[Compatibility: One issue with this latest patch is that the user.dat file format has increased in size over 10x, probably making it no longer compatible with non-steam versions (I have both) via transferring to the old non-steam version. I was previously bringing that file with my profile in it over to the old version to play with someone who apparently has difficulties with the steam mplay user interface.]