Roundabout

Roundabout is a 70s B-Movie Full Motion Video driving/3D platforming/revolving limousine driver simulator game and it's absolutely wonderful. It was released in 2014 by No Goblin and I got it during 2016's Steam Winter Sale for only two euros and it was definitely worth the purchase.

Meet Georgio Manos

In the game you take on the role of Georgio Manos, master of nonverbal communication and the world's first revolving limousine driver and drive around an open world, pick up passengers to drive to their destinations and partake in challenges, all coated in a wonderful layer of 70s FMV cheese. It's a game with an absolutely ridiculous and silly premise and plot but with surprisingly challenging gameplay, as it turns out that driving around in a revolving limousine is not actually the easiest task out there.

There's also a skeleton

As I said, the game is roughly divided up into three parts: Open world exploration, Wacky Taxi-style passenger rides and challenges and during each of these parts you take control of a constantly revolving limousine which is controlled with the D-Pad.

During the open world segments, you're free to explore the area you're in and hunt for a variety of collectibles which can be used to buy new cosmetic upgrades and unlock new special abilities for your limousine which can be used to explore the city in new ways or help out finding collectibles or navigating safely.

Yes, new upgrades! Exciting!

When you come across a yellow star, you can pick up a passenger who asks you in a FMV cutscene to take you to a certain location or perform a special task. These tasks vary from driving over pedestrians, ramming over mailboxes or chopping grain, but the meat of the rides is taking the passenger through a series of checkpoints while collecting coins along the way and trying to minimize the amount of times your car crashes in a giant explosion.

Don't worry, Georgio definitely won't crash his limousine. Probably.

When you drive across a blue star, you can play in a variety of challenges to compete with friends or the global high score list to see how well you do. These challenges vary from a game of hot or cold, speedruns, pedestrian eliminations or good old destruction derbies.

In all these segments good play is rewarded with streaks for perfect driving, achievements for meeting certain passenger ride requirements and good scores while sloppy driving is punished with the limousine blowing up in an explosion. Mercifully your limousine instantly respawns at the nearest  or latest checkpoint and the passenger rides are generous with giving out checkpoints.

Of course Georgio has no need for checkpoints.

The highlight of the game is definitely the cutscenes though. They use a combination of Full Motion Videos obviously filmed in front of a green screen and stock footage, combined with amazing voice acting and a 70s B-movie vibe which gives the whole game a delightfully cheesy tone which does a lot to add to the game's memorability and humour. The cutscenes always give an extra push to progress further through the game just to see what figures you'll be driving around next and how the plot advances.

Seriously FMV is wonderful and more games should have it.

The game starts out rather easy, the first area you get to explore is pretty easy to maneuver, there's not many obstacles or much traffic to worry about, and the first few rides serve as learn-by-playing tutorials that explain basic movement in relatively safe environments, but as the game progresses the areas become increasingly more dangerous and some rides start having extra obstacles such as requiring you to travel over the sea, jumping through the air (yes there's a jumping limousine mechanic!) or having cars rain down from the sky.

Yes Georgio, you read that right.

Still, the game manages to stay fun throughout these challenges by knowing to focus on its main mechanic, driving around the revolving limousine, and avoids frustration by not making the player have to replay long stretches should they die. And death will happen a lot, considering you're driving around in a revolving limousine.

I would say my only issue with the game comes from the open world exploration part, as collecting every collectible becomes very hard once there's very few left since even the upgrade meant to scan for them only gives a hint if one is close. Likewise, there's not that many checkpoints in the open world bits, so it can sometimes be annoying having to respawn in a distant location when looking around for that one last collectible somewhere.

I'm sorry Georgio.

This is only a gripe if you are like me and want to do most of the open world exploration though, the player is perfectly free to ignore it and playing the game by just doing all the passenger rides alone is still a fun way to play the game by itself. Picking up passengers generally doesn't take long since the drop-off points of passengers usually end up being near to the pick-up point of the next passenger. It's definitely still an enjoyable game after all and for a very good price point considering the game comes with a big discount during Steam Sales.

See, no need to worry, Georgio.

So overall I'd definitely recommend checking the game out! It's a driving game with a twist and a memorable experience!