Redneck Rampage

Redneck Rampage, released in 1997 by Xatrix Entertainment, is a first-person shooter built on the same Build engine that powered Duke Nukem 3D, but it trades sci-fi swagger for a gleefully crude rural comedy. You play Leonard, a beer-swilling redneck defending the fictional town of Hickston, Arkansas, from an alien invasion, blasting your way through trailer parks, bars, meatpacking plants and pig farms in a setting drenched in deliberately trashy hillbilly humor.

Mechanically it is firmly of the Build-engine school: fast movement, no reloading in the modern sense, and a distinctive arsenal that leans into the theme, from a hand-cannon and shotguns to weapons improvised out of farm junk, plus the alien-mutated locals and disguised extraterrestrials as targets. A memorable quirk is the drinking mechanic, guzzling beer restores you but blurs and staggers your view, a self-inflicted trade-off that fits the game's ornery sense of humor perfectly. The levels are packed with the interactive gags and hidden nooks that fans of the era prized.

Its reputation is genuinely divided, and honestly so. Some find the redneck shtick and toilet humor grating, and the combat can feel harsh and cluttered compared to its more famous Build-engine cousins. But taken in the right spirit it has real personality, a soundtrack of cowpunk and country tunes and a commitment to its absurd premise that few shooters matched. As a cult curiosity from the tail end of the sprite-based FPS boom, it is a rowdy, distinctive slice of late-nineties PC gaming.