Rooftop Renegade

If there’s one thing I know about the future, it’s that everybody is in a big hurry. The cars of wipEout are faster, everybody in Star Trek teleports everywhere and apparently parkour is the best way to get around, at least according to Mirror’s Edge. Hell, it’s not like Ridley Scott called his movie Blade Walker. Rooftop Renegade is the newest example of this speedy phenomenon. It’s a game where you run and slide your way through a futuristic city full of obstacles and dangers. It may not be the year’s most innovative new game, but is it fun? That’s what we’re about to find out when I review Rooftop Renegade.

This is the story of Svetlana, a hover-blading outlaw with a new pair of Chrono-Kicks and a rebellious attitude. Those are the special shoes that allow her to speed over rooftops and grind on all kinds of railings. These Chrono-Kicks also give her the ability to literally portal through time, thwarting the plans of the evil Globacorp by stealing all of their time crystals and then escaping into the future ... or the past. Who knows?

Rooftop Renegade takes inspiration from all of those side-scrolling runner games where the goal is to survive the brutal obstacles by jumping, sliding and phasing through objects. We’re given a little more control over the character’s speed than most games in the genre, but the result is largely the same. The trick is to keep going as fast as you can, otherwise you’ll lag behind and get gobbled up by the recycler that is always on Svetlana’s tail.

The bulk of the game is found in the arcade mode, where you’ll play through two-dozen increasingly challenging stages in an attempt to level up our hero and unlock new Chrono-Kicks. Although twenty-four stages may sound a bit daunting at first, they are all quick; usually lasting no more than 90 seconds. That means that you don’t have long to grab as many time crystals as possible and speed to the exit in order to earn a new high score.

Hey wait, didn’t I say something about unlocking new Chrono-Kicks? That’s right, as Svetlana levels up, she’ll earn a new pair of upgraded shoes that will give her new skills and abilities. For example, she’ll now be able to phase through obstacles or jump up to another level or railing. What’s cool about these new kicks is that you can return to previous levels and earn new high scores with your expanded abilities. This also gives you a lot of incentive to keep earning experience points and leveling up, as there are a whole bunch of new shoes and abilities to earn.

Click For the Full Picture Archive

If you’ve played a runner before, then you’re going to recognize a lot of the obstacles. There are flames you’ll need to jump over, electric fences you’ll have to slide under, platforms to navigate, railings to slide on and so on so forth. Where the game deviates is in its multi-layered approach, giving the player a bunch of different paths and options when navigating each level. These stages aren’t as linear as they first appear, and sometimes you’ll have to play them a few times in order to find the path with the most time crystals.

Beyond the arcade mode, Rooftop Renegade also offers a generator mode that will create a never-ending selection of randomly constructed stages. This is a cool idea, but the stages aren’t dramatically different from what we saw in the arcade playthrough. It’s also worth mentioning that there’s a cool multiplayer party mode that has runners going head-to-head with gunners. This is a cool way to extend the concept of the game beyond simply running, jumping and sliding, though I’m not sure this mode will keep player’s interest for long.

And that’s a problem that lingers through all of the modes found in Rooftop Renegade – no matter how you play the game, it quickly becomes boring and repetitive. The levels aren’t especially interesting, the story is non-existent and unlocking all of the Chrono-Kicks becomes a chore after a while. It doesn’t help that you’ve seen and done this all before. The fact that this game doesn’t bring much new or original to the table makes it even easier to quit. You’ll earn new kicks and abilities, but outside of the first few, there’s really no reason to use most of them, let alone replay the stages over and over again.

Click For the Full Picture Archive

It certainly doesn’t help that the game is so hard to look at. I’m not sure I would use the word “ugly,” but the visuals in Rooftop Renegade are a mess. The small characters and obstacles are bland and the neon colors are more distracting than stylish. It’s also worth saying that the game doesn’t do much with the time-bending story, especially when it comes to the backgrounds and obstacles. With the exception of the melodic drum and bass soundtrack, everything about this presentation is middling, at best.

The ultimate problem with Rooftop Renegade is that it fails to make a strong case for why it should exist. Hell, it doesn’t even make a weak case. It’s just another drab-looking runner that hits every cliché on the checklist. That’s not to say that you won’t have fun running and jumping your way through these bite-sized stages, but there’s nothing here that will hold your interest for long. I wish the first-time developer would use the time crystals to go back to the early stages of production and come up with some fresh ideas. Maybe then Rooftop Renegade would be worth playing.