CalBear:
Redline uses the Daedalus engine - an in-house brew from the developers at Beyond Games. Like many modern engines, the Daedalus requires a 3D accelerator. It seems like this is the wave of the future folks. Those of you who have been hiding from the 3D revolution are going to have to leave your caves now - games like Redline, Tribes 2, and Quake 3 all require hardware acceleration. Anyway, enough editorializing: how does this game look? I'd say the game looks pretty good. The jittering problems that I complained about from the demo seemed to have been eliminated in the retail version.

The weapons and objects in the game give some beautiful colored lighting effects that can really show off what your video card is capable of. The designers were not shy in their use of the color palette when it comes to your weapon effects and lighting. There are also a variety of nice touches included in the game. As you shoot up vehicles, they will show varying amounts of damage depending on how hard you hit them and on which side of the car you were shooting at. For instance, if you concentrate fire at the hood of the car and the driver side, these will show damage in the form of dents, cracked windows, etc. The sides of the car that you didn't shoot will remain undamaged in look. When a car is about to blow, smoke will pour out of the side that's just about toasted.

The sound effects in the game were OK. Particularly chilling was the sound of the bone saw weapon, which gives a satisfying whine somewhere in between a chainsaw and a circular saw. The grenade launcher sounds were kind of weak, but everything else seemed to blend in well with the game play. There was nothing really extraordinary, but also not a whole lot to complain about either.