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Rad Rodgers is a throwback that doesn’t even know what it’s nostalgic for

by Amr (@siegarettes) 

• Rad Rodgers
  
• Developer- Interceptor Entertainment (Slipgate Studios)
  
• Publisher- 3D Realms, THQ Nordic
  
• PC, PS4, Xbox One
  

[TRANSCRIPT BELOW]

A throwback platformer emulating games like Commander Keen and Duke Nukem, Rad Rogers follows the Rise of the Triad reboot and Bombshell as one of Interceptor Entertainment’s attempts to bring back the spirit of classic PC gaming.

For the first hour or two, I was on board for Rad Rogers. The opening was embarrassing to watch, but the platforming and gunplay had enough to them to make running around a level and collecting all the trinkets entertaining. But before the first world was even done Rad Rogers wore out its welcome.

The main culprit is the tone. Rad Rogers is constant in its attempts to pander to nostalgia with a barrage of tired references layered with self satisfied amusement at being a cartoon with cuss words. These “jokes” don’t are completely contextless, don’t have a unifying theme, and often don’t even know what set of games they’re nostalgic for. Just the same tired “it’s dangerous to go alone” quotes and awkward 4th wall breaking humor. It doesn’t wink at the player, it grabs the camera and shouts into it I KNOW I’M A VIDEOGAME.

And because it’s so keen (hah) to point out that it’s a game, it’s easy to start recognizing its failures as one.

Where the PC platformers it emulates often used non-linear design and collectibles to add density to a smaller space, Rad Rogers quickly introduces massive stages that feel more like containers for trinkets than engaging spaces in their own right. Worse, it makes certain collectibles mandatory for completing stages, forcing me to traverse the entire map, as if it knew exploration wasn’t rewarding.

On top of that, there are mind numbing pixel-verse puzzles where you restore parts of a stage because “the lazy devs didn’t bother to finish it”. These puzzles manage to somehow poorly communicate their rules but also be easy to stumble through, and drag down the pace even further.

As the game drags on its easy to start noticing all the other little problems it has. The platforming is muddled by the need to use every graphical effect the Unreal Engine provides, with poor separation between the foreground and background making it ambiguous what is a foothold. Gunplay has great feedback but enemies failed to do more but slow me down as I stood in one place to clear them from my path. There’s an impressive looking melee attack, but it often fails to kill even the weakest enemies, and obscures the view, which meant I often took damage because I couldn’t tell if they were dead or not.

Each of these problems increases the chance that I’ll misjudge a jump or encounter and brought me closer to having to redo another 15 minute or longer stage while listening to the same old tired one liners. Maybe it’s fitting for the studio whose previous mediocre throwback failed to secure the Duke Nukem license, but Rad Rogers feels like a juvenile effort that would have felt tired 10 years ago. It’s a tiresome game that feels as reliant on exploiting nostalgia as something like Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back.

But here’s the thing: it absolutely worked.

Even given these flaws Rad Rodgers has managed to hold a positive reputation, at least going by reactions on the usual PC gaming communities. For a lot of people, this tepid, mediocre game evoked enough memories of the games they enjoyed to make Rad Rogers a positive experience. And you know what? That’s fine. But why is it that otherwise non-notable games like Bubsy get people so mad, and games like Rad Rogers have their flaws overlooked?

In short, Rad Rogers flatters the ego of gamer. It has no core identity, but it gestures towards other games to distract from that. It uses references as a reward. It wants you to go “I got that reference!” and feel like you’re in on the joke. References are supposed to be entertainment in of themselves.

In other media there’s this thing called an “allusion”. It’s a call to another work outside the fiction, and it’s often used to draw situational and thematic parallels that enhance the narrative. Videogames are too insecure for allusions. They’re so scared you won’t get it that they have to explicitly call out the reference, then often do nothing with it.

Maybe that reflects something about the way we engage with games? After all, how can we expect deep literary use of allusions when our understanding of games history is so shallow. Too often we seek the nostalgic comfort of our childhood in new media, and gloss over the other elements that made the original material great. We see “hey this looks like Commander Keen” or “hey this looks like Zelda” and that’s enough for us.

I had a roommate who would earnestly return to the original Bubsy every once in a while. He didn’t think it was a good game, but it reminded him enough of good childhood memories to make it worth revisiting.

And if the function of this nostalgia is to evoke those memories and return you to that time, then a new Bubsy game probably provides the same thing these other throwbacks do.