RIPOUT is a first-person shooter by ‘Pet project games’ available right now on the steam store here.
Its dubbed “an online Co-Op Horror FPS that will have players fight their way through procedurally generated derelict ships filled with mutants capable of reconfiguring their alien bodies. Survive with your trusty Pet Gun companion, collect loot, and customize your character to fit your playstyle”.
Personally, I don’t consider it scary or jumpy enough to be a horror, but I guess that all depends on what horrifies you?
PLOT
The game follows a slightly cliché format. Acdystopian world where mankind has fallen after humanity has encountered a hostile alien race, in this game they’re called the spiral… But RIPOUT holds an interesting twist!
During the war against the Spiral, humanity engineered the Cell, a genetically modified microorganism designed to help soldiers regenerate damaged tissue and seamlessly integrate cybernetic implants. Unfortunately, the first version of the Cell, 1.0, was unstable. Soldiers mutated uncontrollably, causing the Cell to spread rapidly throughout human territories. This forced humanity to create ‘CEA – CORPORATE EARTH ALLIANCE’. By 2080 humanity is overrun with cell mutation and has to abandon Earth and evacuate to an undisclosed location called the Sanctuary, a haven from the rampant spread of the Cell.
Your character sets off through space in search of the ‘sanctuary’. You’ll have to explore several derelict human vessels that have been overrun with the cell mutations!
As you progress, as do the mutations! You’ll fight your way through hoards of monsters, upgrading yourself and your weapon on the journey. The most unique thing in this game is the gun, and there’ll be more on that below.
GAMEPLAY
Do bear in mind the game has just had its public release and is in in Beta so if I criticise anything specific, it’s quite possible to be updated and patched as time goes on.
We were lucky enough to be able to test out the game as a duo (myself and Lew), so we got the feel for its Co-Op mode. I’m a huge lover of co-op shooters, and it didn’t disappoint! I have just found out this can also be played as a 3 player Co-Op which is also pretty cool.
The game begins with a cutscene to set the foundations of the storyline, and rather than this being done in modern graphics to match the game, its done in this beautiful 2D animated illustrations, reminding me somewhat of borderlands.
Your then thrust straight into the game which begins at the mothership. Here you can do some basics like choose your mission, change/modify your weapons, and upgrade yourself. Theres also a small bay for collecting a resurrection. This will essentially give you a single self res during the level/mission. The scene was aesthetically pleasing to the eye, but could do with some polishing. New releases right?
Each time you start and end a mission, you’ll get inside a small shuttle ship. I found it a pretty logical way to get between the mothership and the mission vessel. It breaks the game up nicely and gives you a chance to complete upgrades and breathe before throwing yourself back into the mayhem!
So, after a quick mess about where we beat each other with our axes, lew and I picked up very quickly this game firstly has team attack on! OOPS!
UI/Layout
We were very impressed with the UI overlay in the game. Not only was it functional, but it looked great too. Your current mission is presented in the top right, across the top of the screen you’re presented with a compass which indicates your mission, bottom right shows your weapons, abilities recharge bar, and ammo, then bottom left showed stamina and health. I play on PC purely with a keyboard and mouse and found every control to be instantly familiar to any other FPS which was a welcomed asset. As for any control that was unique to the game, the UI overlay was prompting me with the correct key. Nice!
Any menu found in RIPOUT seemed well assembled. They may not have been the most visually appealing I’ve ever seen, but they were all functional and served a purpose.
Let get onto the shootin’!
The second we run off the back of the shuttle we were instantly greeted with our first victims!! A pack of rabid mutated dog looking creatures came hurtling toward us before being blown to bits. The first of many different style beasts you’ll need to fend off as you work your way through the game.
Now we need to talk about the games title RIPOUT – This comes from the gun’s ability. The gun itself is a biomechanical engineered creature, and when its special ability is triggered, a creature will launch itself at the enemy and I guess, RIPOUT its heart/brain/guts. Whatever you prefer. It does immense damage over the usual gunfire. On top of this, when you Sync your ‘RIPOUT’ attack with your Co-Op player, the damage multiplier racks up. We found this to be an exciting unique aspect of this FPS as it involved a lot of shouting back and forth and working together. Timing the RIPOUT cooldown correctly to take on the harder enemies made the whole experience more tactile. I can imagine this being even more fun with a third player. It’s a cool concept and definitely a unique USP for a horror shooter, and without it I don’t really think this game has a great deal to offer over the many similar titles.
RIPOUT has an in-game currency that’s used for your upgrades. This loot is split into 5 subcategories and will be hidden all over the vessels. Be sure to grab as much of this as you can find. There are oodles of upgrades which are buckets of fun. They certainly gave a feel of progression.
Resurrection! When your downed, you can either use your single self res, or your teammate can bring you back. Again, not as simple as it sounds. Resurrecting your buddies is hard work when you’re under attack!
Within the level, we came across an upgrade station. “OO this is cool”. To be given the option to upgrade key stats mid battle was a neat feature… Your game is almost certainly going to give a different outcome every time you play it.
There’s also these small robotic like creatures, of which can be used as your companions! Simply use your RIPOUT ability on them, and they attach to your body. We loved how there were a variety of these add-ons. Some gave a healing ability, upgrades to the gun like rocket launchers, lasers, and even this freakish bionic alien arm.
Something I found a little disappointing… After working through some of the levels I found them to be almost identical to the previous, but with a different layout. They all had the same visual aspect/format. It made gameplay feel like it wasn’t really progressing in this sense, just repeating over and over with changing enemies and upgrades.
Now we really have to talk about the guns..
It’s a first-person shooter, so it goes without saying the guns, and the shooting, are the fundamental aspects of this game. I found the experience somewhat underwhelming. The weapons lacked the oomph expected in a shooter, making each shot feel disappointingly weak.
Don’t get me wrong we did have fun shooting your usual assortment of weapon types, but if they had only ramped up the weapon power, not only would you get that exhilaration and thrill of some of the better shooters out there, but the improvements would be multiplied by upping the mob numbers and make the overall gameplay experience far more ‘chaotic’ if you like. Who knows maybe this wasn’t an oversight and it was intentionally kept this way, but in my opinion more carnage would make it a much more engaging and dynamic game. Perhaps this could be included in an ‘Insanity mode’ if the devs didn’t feel this was the style of the game.
As we blasted our way through the missions, I also found the movement to be a little slow. Personally, I feel it would be improved if the character and enemy movement was just a little quicker.
Overall the game is certainly good fun and has some familiar aspects to some of the other shooters in the horror/shooter genre, but I feel its lacking something that would put it at the top of its category. Some fine tuning and balancing across it features and it’ll be onto a winner!
GRAPHICS AND AUDIO
As already mentioned, RIPOUT has some lovely graphical touches in the game. The best of the positives being the cutscenes, overlay UI, and the fact it run really smoothly at a decent FPS with the settings on high.
The in-game graphics however were mediocre. There was definitely a lot of effort put into the guns, with the textures being highly detailed and reacted well with all the lighting and surrounding objects. The textures of enemies, environment, and interactive objects were lacking a little for a modern game. Hopefully this will improve overtime!
The audio tracks in RIPOUT really helped build a mood for the game. There is an ambient soundtrack during gameplay which is fitting for its feel, and it really did help build up some atmosphere during the gameplay. I did think it would have been improved if the intensity of this background music was ‘ramped up’ to push its intensity further when you come across a horde of beasts and get into a sticky situation.
The environment was more interactive with its sounds than it was visually. I really loved how certain things such as the heavy breathing in the suit when low on stamina, and various other futuristic sounds aboard the vessels really brought the game to life.
As I have laid out above where we discussed the guns, I feel like the power of these weapons isn’t portrayed accurately audibly. It’s a simple criticism that could be changed very easily, yet it would make a very big difference to the game. For example, the laser and rocket launcher could have ‘felt’ more powerful if the sounds were there. It would assist create immersion in a visually lacklustre space. I would have blamed my hardware here, but I tested RIPOUT with a good quality well known branded headset, and with my soundbar/sub combo, and both gave a similar result. The same can be said for the gore. If only they had thrown in a few more gory sounds, specifically mentioning the RIPOUT ability, that would have helped tick all the audio boxes.
CONCLUSION
RIPOUT certainly gave us a few laughs and the overall gameplay certainly meets that of its genre, but I’m still saying its more sci-fi than it is horror.
If you’re a fan of shooters and love a good dungeon crawler, with its procedurally generated levels, this feels like just that but set in space. We loved its RIPOUT weapon despite wanting it to wield more power.
Its storyline seemed to have a hook from the beginning, but once we got into the missions, the story was lost in the ‘go here, go there’ crawler format.
Overall RIPOUT was a good experience and worth a play through. We loved the RIPOUT ability and the companions.
I wouldn’t say its overly priced, but with a few updates it could become a whole lot more.
Thanks to Pet project games for giving the opportunity to test it out, and cheers to Lew @ Gamer hub for the run through with me. I love a good Co-Op ! Thank you also to Elena from Sandboxstrat for providing the key
RIPOUT is available now on Steam
I’ve given this title 3 out of 5 Joysticks.
