"Alright, that was those "Those Two Guys Who Live Behind The Gas Station" with Redline This, sure to be a number 1 hit here at Stadium City, since... 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 multiplayer 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, before being hosted by Gamespy Arcade.
This should not be confused with the 2007 movie Redline or the 2010 anime movie Red Line.
Redline provides examples of:
- Always Chaotic Evil: The Red Sixers, a gang of marauding, mutated cannibals.
- Applied Phlebotinum: Orgone energy, a potent power source, a near-monopoly over which gives the Insiders great power. Due to it being something akin to Life Energy, it's also stated as the only reason that the Lepers are even still alive, much less in one piece. It can also be corrupted.
- Artificial Stupidity: The AI in this game was not exactly top of the line — civilians and your Company allies tend to get slaughtered. Fortunately for you, the enemies, though more numerous, are just as dumb.
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: Liddy gets killed near the end of the game, throwing The Company into disarray. Since the player character is their best remaining fighter at that point, he gets named the Company's new boss, and even inherits Liddy's Hover Tank.
- Bald of Authority: Well, he isn't bald, but Liddy of The Company fits the rest of the trope. He's a bit of a Jerkass, though. He drives a heavily armed Hover Tank.
- Badass Boast: At the intro to the final level "Showdown", Liddy says there won't be enough room in Hell for all the Sixers they are gonna send there today.
- Badass Bystander: Some civilians are seen trying to fight off the Red Sixers, but due to Artificial Stupidity, they usually end up getting mowed down right after the ones that didn't.
- Boss Banter: The Red Sixers' boss."Welcome to the party, chump!"
- Black-and-Gray Morality: While the gang you work for (The Company) can hardly be considered good, being basically a futuristic version of The Mafia, they're a lot better than the enemy gangs, who are either mutant cannibals, zombie-like people who are falling apart and kill other people for body parts, or doomsday cultists following a Scam Religion.
- 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.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Rant, the boss at the end of the first level, retreats after you do enough damage and seemingly just disappears. He comes back at the game's final level to serve as the Final Boss.
- 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 multiplayer, this can be used to fly.
- Energy Weapon: The basic buggy used by the Red Sixers uses a fast-firing red laser cannon as its main weapon.
- 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.
- Magic Countdown: In the level "Boom", you have a Time Bomb attached to your car and have to reach a garage so they can cut you out (as the doors are sealed shut so you can't just get out) before the timer runs out. Even if you pass the "end goal" point of the level with only 1 second left on the timer, you will still get out in time, even though there are about 30 seconds between the start of the end of level cutscene and the car exploding (after you've gotten free, of course).
- Noodle Implements: If you die in the "Freakway" level, Liddy will say "Damn, kid died before I could tell him my tapeworm joke". If you survive, he never does tell you the tapeworm joke, although he may have been alluding to this.
- 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.
- Red Shirt 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.
- A Taste of Power: When you get the Company Tank back at the end of level 3, you find it is by far the most powerful vehicle in the game, and even has a BFG, which shoots giant blue energy blobs which not only can One-Hit KO almost anything, but can blast through the huge steel doors in the way to allow you to get out. Unfortunately, you only get it for about a minute or two (or more, if you want to kill everyone you (probably) missed on the way out) and never get to drive it again.
- 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.
- Tsundere: Liddy seems to be a non-romantic (or
maybe not) example: while he tries not to show it, he does care about the protagonist. At one point when you die he says "damn, I was starting to like that guy… in a distant, hands off sort of way". - Unique Enemy: The aliens, and their weird turrets only appear in the basement of Area 51. There's also a weird alien gun that shoots green stuff that is only found there.
- The Virus: "Red 6", which turns the skin of its victims bright red, increases their size, strength, and aggressiveness, and makes them cannibalistic. It even makes some people, like the Red Sixers' leader, sprout Spikes of Villainy.
- 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.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Liddy, for the most part. Other minor Company characters chime in here and there.
