Be Rash: Road Redemption Alpha Out Now

Road Rash spiritual successor Road Redemption wants it all, and it wants it now over a long period of time in which it will slowly but surely build out its feature list, eventually culminating in an open, procedural United States full of gangs, vehicular mayhem, and presumably roads. For now, however, you can scream down a desert highway while bludgeoning men with shovels and the like. The American dream, in other words, if you're a lunatic or a very frustrated gardener.

So that's Road Redemption's alpha. It's pretty barebones at the moment, but it's something. Problem is, you have to pay $40 to access it if you didn't back its Kickstarter, which is a somewhat unattractive proposition at this point.

Granted, you'll get access to all future versions of the game as well, but that's a lot to ask when the game still looks a little... questionable. All the vehicles seem weirdly glued to the ground, and there doesn't seem to be much to it other than racing around and bonking brainless men even more brainless until they fall down. There are tweakable settings, but it seems less like a game and more like a quick and dirty test bed. I mean, this is an alpha, so it's kinda par for the course, but fair warning: you may not get what you paid for. Not yet, anyway.

Personally, I plan to watch and wait, but I do hope Road Redemption realizes its grand, sociopathic vision. That way, I can make a cowboy mod and call it Road Dead Redemption. Also, you know, for reasons that aren't a really terrible punchline.