The Dull and the Tedious
This is the second in a short lived series of racing games that began with Street Legal Racing and while this one improves on the lacklustre original, it still isn't exactly top notch stuff. The clear inspiration here is movies like the Fast and the Furious and games such as Juiced and Need for Speed: Underground, with players getting involved in the shady world of underground racing. You start out by building your car, which is done in highly detailed fashion and should please hardened gearheads. You can tweak pretty much everything in your car, from cranks to pistons and everything in between with extra fine-tuning opportunities available too. You can customise the exterior look too, with fancy paint jobs and decals to make your ride stand out. The racing itself is divided into two styles, day and night. Day races feature random courses while night ones are quarter miles duels where you can win money or your opponent's car, while police chases are pop up occasionally. Redline isn't exactly the finest racing game in existence, which is partly due to the nature of its distinctive style. The quarter mile races are fairly dull on the whole and although the day races liven things up, it's not enough to save the game. The tweaking opportunities should please hardcore car fans but if you just want to get on and race, then this is likely to prove fairly tedious stuff. The visuals are pretty decent on the whole, with a good sense of speed but at the end of the day, the driving just isn't that fun.
