Renegade Ops

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"Ready for some serious action, Renegades?" - Bryant

Renegade Ops is a top-down Twin-Stick Shoot'Em Up developed by Avalanche Studios, creators of the Just Cause series and published by Sega. It was released on Playstation Network on September 13th, 2011, and on Xbox Live Arcade the following day. After a series of delays, it also came out on Steam for the PC on October 27th. As the story goes, one day Avalanche were toying with the idea of depicting Just Cause's over-the-top action and vehicle combat as a top-down shooter. The result was apparently awesome, as they decided to make a game out of such.

It's the present day, or maybe Next Sunday AD. A power-hungry madman by the name of Inferno has firebombed defenseless Catalonia City- and promises to an assembly of world leaders that he will torch other cities if control is not ceded to him. The leaders want to negotiate. But one General Bryant believes that Inferno is not the sort of man to be negotiated with. The leaders shut Bryant down, so he decides to take matters into his own hands, tossing his medals onto a desk in disgust.

Enter The Renegades: A team of four paramilitary specialists, each armed with a distinctive, heavily armed combat vehicle. Acting outside the bounds of international law, Bryant leads this team on a mission to stop Inferno's mad scheme and smash his military machine, one gratuitous explosion at a time.

The game can be played alone, or in two-player split-screen or four player online co-op. You earn Experience Points as you play, even if you do not complete a mission. A Level Up grants Upgrade Points, which are then spent on a series of upgrades that affect the offensive, defensive and tactical abilities of each character's vehicle. Up to four upgrades can be equipped at any one time.

Downloadable Content was released on December 19th, 2011. One pack contains two new characters, the other a new, three-level campaign featuring Evil Overlord Coldstrike.

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Renegade Ops provides examples of:

• Animal Motifs: Inferno's logo is a phoenix.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Damaging certain enemies sufficiently, like the Tanks or Juggernauts, or Inferno's personal APC, will reveal a glowing weak point that can be attacked For Massive Damage. In particular, hitting a tank's exposed core with a rocket is a One-Hit Kill.
• Attack Reflector: Armand's "Rebound" upgrade causes his armor shell to reflect bullets and rockets back at enemies.
• Awesome Personnel Carrier: Armand's and Crystal's vehicle of choice. Inferno also has one... though his is quite a bit bigger. And armed with four flame turrets. There are of course regular Inferno APCs... but they aren't quite as awesome. Except when they explode.
• Badass
  • Badass Crew: The Renegades. They're also:
  • Badass Drivers
  • Badass Longcoat: Blazemo.
  • Badass Moustache: Bryant, and how.
  • Four-Star Badass: Bryant doesn't take shit from anybody.
• Bald of Awesome: Armand.
• Bald of Evil: Inferno.
• Battle Amongst the Flames: Given the Inferno group's Weapon of Choice, this can happen often. More to the point of the trope, though, The Final Boss fight against Inferno himself is this.
• The Cameo: The Steam version of the game features guest driver Gordon Freeman! He drives the junked Charger from Episode 2 (with some upgrades- it now sports a machine gun turret) and can summon a mob of Antlions as his Special Attack. His car behaves much like Roxy's buggy, fast but lightly armored.
• Competitive Balance: Armand's and Crystal's APCs are Mighty Glaciers, Roxy's buggy and Gordon's charger are Fragile Speedsters, and Diz's van, Gunnar's jeep and Blazemo's buggy fall somewhere in the middle.
• Car Fu: Armand's "Ram Plate" upgrade allows him to destroy small enemy vehicles on contact and not lose speed when crashing through buildings.
• Charged Attack: The railgun sub-weapon can be charged up to deliver more damage.
• Color Coded for Your Convenience: Anything belonging to Inferno is red, Coldstrike stuff is blue. Things belonging to the Renegades are generally black.
• Collection Sidequest: A small one in many levels, such as rescuing hostages or collecting relics stolen by Inferno. Completing one typically nets you an achievement.
• Combos: You have a "Damage Streak" meter, a measure of how much damage you've inflicted in a given short time. It's hampered by damage you take. Maxing it out nets you an achivement.
• Custom Uniform: The Renegades. Not being an actual military organization, this is probably justified.
• Death From Above: Many missions have you going after Inferno mortar trucks, which in the meantime will try to rain down shells on you... foretold by a glowing red crosshair. In addition, Inferno also has attack choppers and later, rocket choppers.
  • Coldstrike has all that, plus the ability to air-drop groups of deployable Sentry Guns.
  • Roxy's special attack is an aerial strike
• Deflector Shields: Crystal's special ability.
• Downloadable Content: Done in a surprising way - if you bought the game before the DLC launched, you get the Reinforcement pack, containing two new renegades, AND the Coldstrike campaign for FREE. - whether this trend will continue, or it was a sort of "feel good" sort-of-christmas present, we don't know.
• The Dragon: Surprisingly, Inferno is one to Natasha. And she is someone else's Dragon!
• Easy Mode Mockery: Playing on "Casual" difficulty gives you unlimited lives, but reduces your score and prevents you from getting Experience Points and using upgrades.
• Evil Is Burning Hot: Inferno's favorite motif is fire.
• Evil Is Deathly Cold: Coldstrike.
• Expy: Inferno's Mooks of Cobra ones, right down to the red uniforms and flanged helmets. To a lesser extent, the Renegades of G.I. Joe themselves, given their preference for high-speed, highly customized combat vehicles.
  • Coldstrike's Mooks take this up a notch, adding gas masks to the look. This in turn makes them somewhat resemble Cobra's Elite Mooks.
• Elevator Action Sequence: The final battle, culminating in a duel with Inferno's personal APC.
• Evil Laugh: Inferno would like you to know he finds your antics rather amusing. Except when he doesn't.
  • Coldstrike is less prone to this, though is not above a Psychotic Smirk.
• Evil Plan: You don't find out the extent of it, but Stage 1 was gathering slave labor to mine some type of glowing ore in Africa.
• Gas Mask Mooks: Coldstrike Mooks. Blazemo has the kind that only covers the nose and mouth, and couples this with Goggles Do Nothing.
• Genre Savvy: Most of the characters in the game, some bordering on Dangerously Genre Savvy - but, of course the baddies always lose.
• Goggles Do Nothing: Blazemo again.
• Green Rocks: Red Rocks, to be exact. Some type of strange ore that powers Inferno's "LVA" weaponry. Coldstrike of course, has a blue version.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: For obvious reasons, Inferno's forces love these. Specifically, there are flame infantry and flame trucks that like to chase you around, trying to get you in range. There's also the "Smelter" tanks, which lob fiery mortars at you. You can respond in kind with the Flamer sub-weapon, which Roxy's buggy can be upgraded to spawn with. It has the unique quality of degrading an enemy vehicle's armor in addition to inflicting burn damage over time, meaning that an enemy set alight takes more damage from your machine guns.
• Foreshadowing: In the second-to-last mission, you pick up various Inferno intel files. You don't get to actually read them, but their titles are enough. Mixed in with one about Inferno himself are ones named "Coldstrike" and "Shadowhunter". Other Evil Overlords, perhaps?
  • Confirmed with the Coldstrike DLC. That leaves out Shadowhunter as a threequel hook.
• Heel Face Turn: In the second mission, you rescue a woman named Natasha, an apparent ex-Inferno scientist who vows to help you defeat him. At least, that's what she wants you to think...
  • It gets worse: Turns out that Natasha is Coldstrike, this wasn't some lowly mook infiltrating the renegades... this was a bigger bad than Inferno himself!
• Heroic Mime: The player characters don't do any talking. Bryant has that pretty well tied up.
• Homing Projectile: The Rocket Launcher can do this with the "Advanced Arms" upgrade installed.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Inferno winds up falling into the lava in his volcano base, while Coldstrike ends up crushed in the depths of the earth when her Panzer Wyrm malfunctions.
• Horde of Alien Locusts: Gordon's Antlions. You can take advantage of their suicidal dedication to munching Inferno Mooks by upgrading them to drop health pickups on death... or explode.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Bryant, in the ending - of both campaigns no less. With vibes of Drowning My Sorrows, because of the loss of Natasha - then again, he had a front seat view to her death at the core of the earth... not pretty.

"Let's go find a bar, Renegades. I'm buying!"

• In the Back: What happens to Bryant when Natasha reveals herself as a Heel Face Mole.
• Infinite Supplies: The "Auto Reload" upgrade allows you to regenerate ammo for your secondary weapon.
• Kill It with Fire: With a name like "Inferno", this is expected for both him and his Mooks. Blazemo is a more heroic proponent of this.
• Kill It with Ice: Coldstrike's A.K.A. Natasha's specialty. Like Inferno, this extends to the Mooks.
• Left for Dead: Twice, in quick succession. Natasha, as part of her reveal as a Heel Face Mole, shoots Bryant In the Back and leaves him lying there. She then triggers a landslide, seemingly burying the Renegades in their vehicles. You can't keep a good Renegade down, though.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Armand's shield ability, as well as Gunnar's "Riot Shield" upgrade, though that only protects from the front where Armand's is all sides. Blazemo also fits in here, as his flame wheel protects him from incoming damage while active.
• Mercy Invincibility: Of a sorts. The "Second Chance" upgrade allows you to survive what would have been a fatal hit, but only if you can find a health pickup within the next ten seconds- less difficult then it sounds, as health drops are common.
• Man Behind the Man: Or rather, woman. Natasha has been pulling the strings from the beginning, and even she isn't the real Big Bad. Who that is, we aren't told...
• Magnetic Weapons: The Railgun sub-weapon, of course. One of Diz's (and Gordon's) upgrades allows her to spawn with one.
• Military Mashup Machine: Inferno's Juggernauts certainly count- massive war machines armed with multiple rocket turrets and riding on four separate tread pods.
  • Coldstrike gets in on the action with Golems, which in addition to lots of missiles are escorted by groups of Attack Drones.
• More Dakka: You begin each level with a machine gun, which can be upgraded via a Power-Up with a second and then a third barrel for extra dakka.
• Nitro Boost: Every vehicle can engage an infinite boost. It's mostly useful for traveling around a map faster, as you cannot fire any weapons while boosting. However, you can get a boost upgrade that allows you to use a quick, even faster boost to evade enemies or put out flames on your car.
  • Not to mention that Blazemo can upgrade his buggy to let him boost while his special is in effect, the only thing worse than a car on fire coming at you is a car on fire that's coming at you fast.
• NGO Superpower: Inferno's organization, in the finest tradition of classic evil organizations. Coldstrike's forces as well.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Inferno.

Politician: "The best intelligence agencies in the world, and we don't even know this madman's real name!"

• Outrun the Fireball: The Renegades open a prison box, hoping to find Genawi... and instead find a live LVA warhead. With no time to disarm it, their only option is to drive like hell across a collapsing bridge to escape the blast.
• Power-Up: Pickups found in-game include health, upgrades for your main gun, sub-weapons, ammo for said sub-weapons, and mission-specific drops like keycards or prisoners.
• Press A To Beat Up Some Mooks: In many levels, you will need to enter certain buildings and rapidly press a button to make something happen, like raising a bridge or planting charges on a key building, or you know... ramming an aircraft carrier into a sealed off lair!. A little panel shows up when you do this, depicting your character beating up a bunch of Mooks and then performing the action.
• The Quincy Punk: Roxy. I mean, check out that radical hair, man.
• Ramp Jump: Conveniently-placed ramps can be found throughout most of the maps. Often, these can be used to drop in on an Inferno outpost.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Genawi, the president of the unspecified African country you visit partway through the game. In return for rescuing his wife and protecting him and his people from Inferno, he lends some intel and resources to your cause.
• Recurring Boss: Inferno himself, apparently a proponent of the notion that Evil Overlords can't really trust their minions to defeat the heroes. Not that it does him any good. His Phoenix gunship is itself another example, which is fought three times in one level and reappears later as a Degraded Boss.
• Red Right Hand: After defeating him for the first time, part of Inferno's face gets badly burned.
• Regenerating Health: Not normally, but certain upgrades can provide a semblance of such. "Auto Repair" restores some health when you are low, and Armand's "Guarded Repair" upgrade causes him to regenerate while his shield is active.
• Sand Worm: Coldstrike's secret weapon is the snowbound, mechanized "Panzer Wyrm", which Bryant makes fun of, calling it the "pansy worm" (which happens to be the name of the achievement for destroying it). It proves rather detrimental to her health when the brakes fail and it speeds down into the crushing depths of the earth.
• See You in Hell: Inferno's Last Words.
• Sigil Spam: The Renegade and Inferno logos abound. The Renegade one is a simple gray shield with a big black "R" on it, and Inferno's is a stylized phoenix.
• Special Attack: Each character has one.
  • Armand's APC can deploy a segmented armored shell, negating all incoming damage. It drains quickly, however, and is best used as a timed block to intercept strong attacks, like missiles.
  • Diz's van can deploy an EMP, disabling nearby enemies momentarily.
  • Roxy's buggy can vertically launch a cluster of rockets that severely damage anything in her vicinity.
  • Gunnar's Jeep can deploy itself, becoming immobile but bringing a nasty autocannon to bear. Among other abilities, it can be upgraded to fire explosive rounds.
  • Blazemo can turn his buggy into a flaming pinwheel of doom - and said flames protect him from attacks. You can't use weapons while it's active, but you don't need them- you're an invulnerable, flaming, unstoppable juggernaut. Briefly.
  • Crystal can drop a Forcefield at her location. Your teammates can shoot out of it and through it, but all enemy attacks are blocked.
  • Gordon can summon a pack of Antlions, which Zerg Rush nearby enemies. In addition to upgrades previously mentioned, you can increase the swarm's raw size, as well.
  • While in the Helicopter, your Special Attack is replaced with the ability to drop flares, spoofing incoming missiles.
• Shock and Awe: Diz's EMP can be upgraded to damage enemies in addition to stunning them.
• Shoot the Bullet: Gunnar's Heavy Gun can be upgraded to be able to shoot down incoming rockets.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The Game. The rocket launcher sub-weapon facilitates this. Armand and Gunnar's vehicles can be upgraded to spawn with one.
• Tank Goodness: Inferno likes to send huge combat tanks after you, armed with anything from a basic cannon to missile launchers to flame mortars. They all dwarf your vehicle, but are in turn out-sized by Bryant's awesome Renegade tank, seen in Mission 7.
• The Rival: Possibly. Inferno seems to know Bryant, though that fact isn't expanded upon.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: "The Furnace", Inferno's mountain headquarters in Europe.
• Timed Mission: Techinically, all of them, but the time limits are so lenient that they don't even display the timer unless you're slow about shooting what you need to be shooting. A few times, it decides not to screw around, as when you must Outrun the Fireball.
• The Unfought: Natasha... but only because Bryant beats you to the punch!
  • Resolved in the DLC where you face Natasha A.K.A. Coldstrike and her 'pansy worm.'
• Travel Cool:
  • Cool Boat: Inferno's carrier... and one hell of a Chekhov's Boomerang.
  • Cool Car: all the Renegade rides. And maybe Genawi's limousine.
  • Cool Plane: The Renegade's transport plane, and also the attack helicopter you get to use on occasion. Co-Op Multiplayer means there can be four of these things swarming around a target.
  • Cool Train: Inferno's armored cargo trains, bristling with static defenses.
• The Unexpected: Wait, Gordon Freeman?
• Vehicular Combat
• Video Game Lives: How many you have depends on the difficulty level. You can occasionally find one in-game, and the "Extra Life" upgrade allows you to begin with... well.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Bryant, and later on Natasha.
• Weaponized Car: Armand's and Crystal's APC aside, the other Renegade rides fit the bill, as does Gordon's Charger.