Redline (1999 video game)

"Alright, that was those "Those Two Guys Who Live Behind The Gas Station" with Redline This, sure to be a hit here at Stadium City, because no one else has any instruments! Ha ha, yeah."
—The DJ of KRIP Radio Station

Redline, known as Redline: Gang Warfare 2066 in Europe, is a Post-Apocalyptic First-Person Shooter developed by Beyond Games (a tiny developer which made only Atari games prior to this and only Hot Wheels: Velocity X afterwards) and released by Accolade for the PC in 1999, the last game they published before being acquired by Infogrames.

It's After the End. The moon's orbit has degraded to a point where it has affected the Earth's environment catastrophically, along with inexplicably turning the skies blood-red. The world is divided between the wealthy Insiders, who live in environmentally-sealed dome cities, and the destitute, scavenging Outsiders. Some Outsiders have formed marauding gangs who kill, terrorize and steal from the less aggressive types using Weaponized Cars. The largest and most deadly of these are the Red Sixers, called as such because of a disease called "Red 6" created by Negative Orgone Energy, which heightens their aggressiveness and strength but also gives them a taste for human flesh. It also makes them turn very, very red.

The Player takes the role of an unnamed, nondescript denizen of Stadium City, one of many Outsider settlements. The city has just come under attack by the Red Sixers. Citizens are in a panic, scrambling to escape the ravenous gang. The player must use their car to fight off the Sixers and escape from the city alive. Things get more complicated after that.

The game featured online multi-player featuring a combination of on-foot First-Person Shooter gameplay and auto-combat in Third Person with a variety of armed vehicles. It was originally hosted on MPlayer.com and Heat.net, but now is hosted by Gamespy Arcade to this day.

This should not be confused with the 2010 anime movie Red Line.

Tropes used in Redline (1999 video game) include:

"Welcome to the party, chump!"

  • Bottomless Magazines: No weapon need be reloaded, you need only pick up boxes of more ammo.
  • Car Fu: Rather limited ammunition for vehicle weapons makes this the preferred way of taking out infantry.
  • Church Militant: The Templars gang.
  • Cool Car: Your character begins the game in his own garage, a personalized muscle car close at hand. It likely gets destroyed fairly quickly, but there are many more cool cars to use.
  • The Corruption: Orgone energy can go bad, resulting in the "Red 6" disease.
  • Critical Existence Failure: Characters on foot drop dead or even gib into pieces without any prior sign of damage, but vehicles avert this By having sectional armor- even if your front or side armor is shredded, you might be able to beat a hasty retreat with intact rear armor. If your armor goes and your chassis starts taking damage, your vehicle will emit smoke and flames as it nears destruction- your signal to get out and find a new one or risk going boom with it.
  • Cyborg: The Leper Gang use cybernetics to compensate for lost limbs.
  • Do Not Adjust Your Set: One of the first things the Red Sixers do when they hit Stadium City is sack the KRIP radio station. The Sixers Boss then announces that they are in control. He adds that if anyone has a problem with that, they should come to the radio station and take it up with him. Funnily enough, that is exactly what you do.
  • Emergency Weapon: Your morph gun has a mode which uses a rotary saw blade. In multi-player, this can be used to fly.
  • Frickin' Laser Beams: The basic buggy used by the Red Sixers uses a fast-firing red laser cannon as its main weapon.
  • Gundamjack: Multi-player has a weapon that allows you to forcibly eject whoever's piloting your target vehicle and use it yourself. Single-player isn't supposed to have it, but you can cheat and get it anyway. If you get into enemy cars, you find that The AI Is a Cheating Bastard and has almost unlimited ammunition.
  • Heroic Mime
  • Law Enforcement, Inc.: The Company are a gang of self-styled mercenaries and ex-military types who have protection contracts with various Outsider settlements. Stadium City hadn't been able to make payment as of late, hence their being open to a Red Sixer assault.
  • Made of Explodium: Orgone accumulators and transformers, as the energy itself appears to be quite volatile.

Liddy: Watch yourself 'round the accumulators. When they blow, they tend to make a mess.

  • Outrun the Fireball: Happens several times, beginning in the second level. You destroy an Orgone transformer belonging to the Leper gang, and have to escape the pit where it is located before it blows.
  • Redshirt Army: The Company, though not plot-wise. They are this in-game due to Artificial Stupidity.
  • Shown Their Work: Orgone energy and "Accumulator" devices were a real (so to speak) field of 1930s-era pseudoscience.
  • Sliding Scale of Villain Threat: Starting out with the Red Sixers, then the Leper Gang, then the Templars, then ancient Aliens entombed under Area 51, then wrapping all the way around back to the Red Sixers again for the finale.
  • Sniper Rifle: Your basic assault rifle can sprout a scope to become one. Its high power versus infantry is offset by its relatively rare ammo pickups.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Often.
  • Swiss Army Gun: This game makes use of Standard FPS Guns, however they are uniquely housed in a single, transforming rifle which changes out its barrels depending on the type of ammunition being used: bullets, shotgun shells, rockets, grenades, or a rotary saw blade. All you need to do is pick up the prerequisite ammo to use that gun's function, much like Accolade's prior Eradicator.
  • Tempting Fate: It's almost always a bad idea to get out of your car if there are enemy vehicles around, since it's very easy to get splattered by them.
  • The Virus: "Red 6", which turns the skin of it's victims bright red, increases their size, strength and aggressiveness, makes them cannibalistic. It even makes some people, like the Red Sixers' leader, sprout Spikes of Villainy.
  • Voice with an Internet Connection: Liddy, for the most part. Other minor Company characters chime in here and there.
  • "Wake-Up Call" Boss: The first time you fight the Red Sixers boss at the conclusion of the opening level, you may find him unexpectedly tough. Use rockets to maximize your chances of success.
  • Weaponized Car: About half the game is played from behind the wheel of these, known in-game as "Battle Rigs." It's mostly cars with the occasional motorcycle (and, funnily enough, a Weaponized Forklift), but the cars range from the somewhat plain-looking Company minivan to the bizarre buggies used by the Lepers and Templars.
  • Why Am I Ticking?: In one level, the Red Sixers sabotage your car with a time bomb and lock you inside. Your only hope is to race down a hazardous road to a Company base where one of them can defuse it.
  • Wretched Hive: Stadium City has hints of this, but it gets ransacked by the Red Sixers before we can see much.
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