RIPOUT doesn’t have much in the way of a story, or at least a unique one. The story of the game is that you’re a soldier, either alone or with a squad; tasked with taking down the alien hordes on abandoned space ships to save humanity.
The way that RIPOUT plays is rather unique but at the same time is a detriment to itself. The game is your typical FPS style game but with a hint of survival horror. Think of Duke Nukem with a splash of Dead Space.
Your tasked with missions that you can take on as they come up. You gather a specific item, weapon, or kill a specific enemy, then you return to your ship and move on. You start the game out on a large spaceship and once you accept a mission, you board your smaller ship and head to the mission that is always on a larger ship like the one you start out in.
You’re given a pistol, a PET gun, and an ax to start with. The ax and pistol are pretty straightforward weapons, but the Pet gun is pretty awesome. The gun is an alien that is alive that lives on your arm. You can pet it which is a nice touch, and use it to scan enemies to locate them or add information about them in your journal back on your ship. You can augment these weapons to make them more powerful and you can also pick up alternative weapons to these along the way as well. Augmentations can be performed either by using the materials you gather during your missions or by unlocking modification terminals that you can find that will either aid with defense or offense, depending on what you feel best suits you.
I mentioned before that the game is a detriment to itself, and what I mean by that is that it centers around multiplayer. I bet you’re asking yourself while reading this, how is that a detriment to the game if it’s meant to be a multiplayer experience? Well, you can play the game single player and it’s a blast to play single player. The downside to this and the only negative aspect to the game I’ve run into is twofold.
First issue with this is the fact that you get a resurrection token at the start of each mission. If you die, you can hold a button to resurrect yourself. If you don’t have a resurrection token, you get placed back in the large ship you start out at with no option to restart the mission. The idea is that your teammates will come back for you and resurrect you, allowing you to return to the mission to take down the alien horrors that brought you down in the first place. If you’re playing this game solo, you are stuck here with no way to return. You are forced to quit to the main menu and then start a new game. This forces you to lose all of your progress and makes for a very unforgivable and negative experience.
The second issue with this is that because it centers so heavily on co-operative mechanics, the enemies will very easily overwhelm you and kill you pretty quickly. The idea is that you have more than one player working with you to take down a large group of enemies. It’s not so difficult if you have one or two, but get three or more and you’re doomed to an eternity of being on that tomb of a ship with no way to return without starting the game all over again.
This is not to say this game is a bad game. Quite the opposite, it’s a lot of fun and has a lot going for it. The creepy atmosphere of the ships you land on, the enemies you encounter, the random placement of enemies, level layout, and items make for a very fun and entertaining experience that keeps you guessing and fearful that your run can end at any given moment.
RIPOUT is graphically impressive. The atmosphere of the ship features fog, space dust floating around, slime covered portions give the environment you’re in a sense of foreboding; like you really shouldn’t be there. The lighting in the game plays a big part with deep dark shadows that give a nice flare to the over all experience. Though the game is graphically impressive and pretty to look at, it comes at a cost of performance if you don’t have a PC that is able to run it. I personally had to bring everything down to about high or medium to get a smooth experience with the resolution down to almost minimum, with an FPS lock of 30. Higher end systems can bump this up to it’s max settings and get that much more of an impressive look and performance to the game. My performance was something I was very happy with and allowed me to enjoy the game the way it was intended for a single player run.
RIPOUT has an impressive soundtrack. You have the background music that sets the tone for each mission that compliments very nicely. Then you have the environmental sounds that do a phenomenal job to keep the player on their toes. The subtle footsteps of an enemy scurrying nearby or just behind a door, the creak of the metal ship around you, the sound of your own footsteps on the metal floor, the clatter of a grate slamming to the ground from an enemy bursting out of it. All of this gives the player a sense of dread, a sense of will I be able to make it through this mission alive, or will I die here in this metal space coffin?
RIPOUT has an impressive attention to detail that I really wasn’t expecting. I was expecting a run of the mill shooter that was sure to disappoint. I am glad that I was proven wrong. Should it have been Duke Nukem you play as instead of a generic soldier? Yeah, I think that would have brought the fun factor up ten fold and cranked it up to eleven in the ass-kicking category. But this is coming from a fan of the king of FPS games, which may not appeal to everyone. So I get why they went in the direction they did with this game. Yes, the multiplayer focused aspect of the game definitely is an issue, but not a game breaking one. It’s just something you have to be fully aware of going into each mission, and very carefully method in your execution of the enemy hordes before you. Everything in this game comes together in a beautiful package.
If you’re a fan of FPS games, do yourself a favor and pick this game up, it’s totally worth it! Though, you may want to convince some friends or some strangers on discord to pick up the game and join you in the fight, if you truly want the best experience.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.