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PreviousRogue Trooper Review
Xbox Review by Kristan Reed
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After the unfortunate Dredd Vs Death debacle back in 2003, the world hasn't exactly been waiting with bated breath for the next 2000 AD spin-off to roll off the Rebellion production line. But, with some harsh lessons learned, the one-time starlet of the UK development scene (back in the Alien Vs Predator era) has turned things around, with several decent games under its belt (notably the award-winning - yet generally under-rated - WW2-based Sniper Elite). Following on from the gradual return to form, the swaggering arrival of the slick action-adventure that is Rogue Trooper underlines the growing confidence within the Oxford-based developer-cum-comic-publisher.
Based on the famed graphic novel series, Rogue Trooper is a simple, unpretentious third-person shooter where you follow the adventures of Genetic Infantryman, the Rogue Trooper, as he seeks to track down the traitor general who sent his "brothers in arms" to their death. It's generally undemanding, short and sweet, slick, polished and boomtastic from start to finish. It's not going to change anyone's world, but Rebellion deserves credit for coming up with a technically admirable product that's true to the comic spirit and full of great moments.
But before we get underway with the nitty gritty, just why is the Mohicaned Rogue Trooper so pissed off anyway? Ok, so the general of the other biologically engineered clone troops has been a traitorous swine and was responsible for the betrayal and subsequent massacre of his entire regiment. But let's take an unreality check here: they're clone troops with encoded bio-chips that house their digitised personalities. Why not clone some more (surely the idea), plug in the chips and get after this rubber-lipped goon?
Prepare a welcome for the "genetic freak"
Rogue has a lightbulb moment.
Instead, we're supposed to feel his righteous indignation and tackle the brutal Nort war machine (on Nu Earth, you understand) on the way to kicking the butt of the nefarious Jagger mutation behind all this skullduggery. It's vengeance a go-go, which in short means another opportunity to upset your neighbours with endless gunfire and huge explosions.
Right at the heart of all this clone trooper warfare is the ability to plug personality chips directly into the bodies of any clone. You might imagine that plugging in multiple chips into a single trooper would confuse the bejesus out of it, and be the source of much unintentional split personality comedy. But, instead, Rebellion has used it as a cunning upgrade system, meaning that as you discover more of your fallen clone buddies, you can swipe the chips from their stricken torsos, plug it in somewhere else on your body and - presto - new specialist abilities.
Being a typical third-person run-and-gun extravaganza there's plenty of security to override, so it's no great shock when you gain Helm's hacking abilities (in your helmet, naturally). Also, seeing as you're expected to be a bit of a one-man army for most of the game, you also get a helping hand (or arm) of sorts, with the ability to set up Gunnar (imaginatively) as an intelligent sentry gun while you scurry off and do something else. But it works in other areas too. Bagman, for example, is a salvage expert, and his personality chip makes it possible to gather up all the best bits of the assorted junk that's left over from all the scrap metal you create in combat, giving you a currency with which to buy ammo and the various upgrades with later on.
Come get some
Rogue in pensive mood.
A few levels in, you're even blessed with a handy Holo Decoy, last seen 10 years ago in Duke Nukem 3D, and every bit as useful as you place a distraction somewhere to draw the fire of the numerous sniping gits stationed way up high. It's all pretty intuitive, too; a quick tap of the B button brings up a four-way menu, enabling you to quickly select whichever aid you require with the d-pad.
In fact, the controls are one of the strong points of Rogue Trooper. Underpinned by the regular two-stick system for camera/movement, a context-sensitive system (similar in flexibility to Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter) allows you to pull off many otherwise fiddly commands with ease. Combat commands, in particular, benefit from the decision to be able to quickly and easily wall-hug any appropriate cover points and either 'blind fire' over the top, or go for a slightly riskier aimed shot that still gives you a fair chance of dispensing a volley of lead on target.
It's not all good, though, with Xbox owners forced to use the dreaded black and white buttons to fire grenades and mines (why oh why). Meanwhile, changing weapons is handled badly, with the player forced to manually select their weapon by cycling up or down a text menu with the d-pad and hitting confirm before they can swap over. Not only does this cause unnecessary confusion in the heat of battle, it's a completely inelegant system that could have been avoided entirely if the weapons simply changed over automatically when you hit the up direction. The added need to confirm is the last thing you need when half a dozen Norts are busy raining death down up you.
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Comments: 1-47 of 47 in total
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asphaltcowboy
27/04/06 @ 10:49
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Prepare a welcome for the "genetic freak"
Prepare a welcome for the "generic freak"? Sorry. |
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kangarootoo
27/04/06 @ 10:50
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"the blue skin is kinda off putting"
Must... supress... bishop and actress... joke. |
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kangarootoo
27/04/06 @ 10:55
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Ooh, I'd forgotten about Sniper Elite. I do believe I saw it on the 360 compat list too.
Off to eBay I go with a skip in my step. |
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"should have called normal 'easy', and hard 'normal' because that's what it felt like "
This goes for more 'n more games. I guess the idea is to make sure chav's & obnoxious american kids don't feel inadequate about their gaming. And a 6? SOunds like a 7 from the review to me. Well above 'average' but just a few niggles shy from being the reaches of an 8 'good'. It certainly sounds a whole lot more positive then say, the review of geist did. |
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kangarootoo
27/04/06 @ 11:14
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"Hum, what B button"
The red one, with B written on it. Next to the A button. |
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kangarootoo
27/04/06 @ 11:15
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@Chtulie
Why do you have to turn a perfectly reasonable point about difficulty scaling into a childish xenophobic rant? |
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Six? I'd go for an eight. One of the best games of this year so far, polished & exciting. Don't know about the Xbox version, but on PC, it's simply gorgeous (especially Nu Paree and the abandoned satellite dish). Plus, the stealth element works very well, rather than being just slapped on for the sake of a PR blurb.
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el_pollo_diablo
27/04/06 @ 11:49
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"Meanwhile, changing weapons is handled badly, with the player forced to manually select their weapon by cycling up or down a text menu with the d-pad and hitting confirm before they can swap over."
Oh dear. This was the one thing that *really* annoyed me about Resident Evil 4. Oh, and the fact that I couldn't pick up coins and ammo just by walking over the top of them. I had to press a button, and then again to confirm that I'd just picked it up. Game developers - sort it out. Erm... Still, this game looks fun. |
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Triggerhappytel
27/04/06 @ 12:52
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This review sounds like the score should be a little higher, maybe a 7 or even an 8?
Anyway, I can safely say that this game is sinking without a trace. Without the marketing budget given to other recent releases (like Eidos' own Tomb Raider Legend) this game is not known well enough to sell lots of the 2000 AD licence. Shame, because it does look rather good. I might do a 10-day 'trial' from Game this weekend ;) |
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It's probably worth adding that the score's also influenced by what I gave other games. For example, it's not as good as Sniper Elite (7), not as ambitious as GRAW (7), nor as exciting as Tomb Raider (7). In magazine speak, it's easily a 7 or 8, but not for me or for EG.
Ultimately the piss easy difficulty and all-too-brief length and lack of replay value docks it a mark. |
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@kangarootoo
"Ultimately the piss easy difficulty and docks it a mark." The same happened to quite a few Killer7 reviews. And there's probably more. Games who've been scored lower because somewhere in the process of making the game, someone decided that it'd be for the best to name the designed normal mode hard, and call the easy mode normal. 'tis very annoying. Imagine this happening to for instance, timesplitters, a game where the diffirence between easy and normal is more then just difficulty, but where easy is actually a reduced version of the game. Imagine how that game series would've scored if easy would've been labelled normal. |
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Am I the only one who thinks short games are a good thing? Lots of people these days don't have time to play baldur's gate for 200 hours, what with having jobs and so forth. At least this way you can be pretty sure you'll finish the thing and know you've enjoyed it in it's entirety, and be ready to play something else.
Also, I don't really mind if a game is easy, I don't want to play something where I die repeatedly just to feel some sort of achievement for 'beating' it, surely the point of a game like this is to enjoy the story, the setting and the characters? Sorry, it just kinda pisses me off when reviewers mark a game down because it's not aimed at people who have shitloads of time and can finish ninja gaiden with their eyes closed. Lastly, has anyone properly played the multiplayer rather than giving up cos no one was playing it within the first few days of it being on sale? Some of the modes sound rather good. Overall, the whole thing looks rather polished with no major bugs or show-stopping grievances. 7 or 8 def. |
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absolutezero
27/04/06 @ 15:48
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I really loved the online segment, its just refreshing to have a good co-op online instead of just getting shot by someone with an obnoxious name repeatedly.
Its a really nice game, being a huge Rogue Trooper fan, I most likely enjoyed it alot more than someone not familar with the title. Gunner yelling "Take that Norties!" still makes me smile even after Ive heard so many times. |
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nickthegun
27/04/06 @ 15:48
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A monthish ago, I was wondering where this game was. I remember seeing a preview for it years ago on that show on sky one with the annoying kids and the two black guys........the one where they used rate things in G's.......Then lo! they started to pimp it in the breaks between BSG and Star Trek.
RE: The Difficulty level, I wondered if it was just me getting more manly, but I generally put a games difficulty on Hard by default (unless its a fighting game where ive got to learn a new fighting system. Getting perpetual beats is no fun for anyone). Its actually quite interesting to read what Itagaki had to say about being forced to put a Ninja Dog difficulty in NG: Black. He said that anyone should be able to finish it 'normal' and, hilariously, treats the player like a total bitch for choosing the lower difficulty level. There are some clearly very derisive things if you pick Ninja Dog. You can almost here Itagaki laughing at you (not that i'd know, im a ninja master ;)). Anyway, i appreciate that implementing different difficulty levels is, logistically, time consuming, but there should always be at least three. One piss taking, one piss takingly easy and the other bang in the middle. |
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Making a game hard is an easy thing to do - the danger is making something too hard.
Getting a game that's got a lot of elements in it balanced so everyone can play it & enjoy it... well, that's a fair bit trickier ;¬/ Mostly people on the forums seem to think this ain't too bad. I guess Kristan is just a bloody good gamer (as you'd expect from a reviewer :) PJ's review.. now there's something worth waiting for. -pingy |
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After seeing a couple of other reviews I was a bit resigned to maybe picking this up on PC just because of the Rogue name and 2000AD world. Review's nicely positive though, so I'll be picking it up with a bit more swagger in my step. Must be sure to start on "hard" though.
Anyway, I can safely say that this game is sinking without a trace. Without the marketing budget given to other recent releases (like Eidos' own Tomb Raider Legend) this game is not known well enough to sell lots of the 2000 AD licence. Yeah, seems like a real shame considering the subject matter's rich and all. Although, presumably Rebellion have been pimping the game for a while in 2000AD. Dunno what the readership of 2000AD is nowadays, but surely there'll be a fair number of generated sales from the "faithful"? It's telling though that I'm thinking more in terms of reasons it won't be a flop, rather than reasons for it to be a success :/ |
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kangarootoo
27/04/06 @ 16:17
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@Chtulie
I agree with your points, like I said it was a valid issue you raised regarding difficulty scaling. I don't much mind what the various settings up being called but I do think it is important to provide enough options to entertain all players. In that respect we agree. My issue was with your use of "chav's & obnoxious american kids don't feel inadequate about their gaming". It was vitriolic and unnesccesary, and if anything just overshadowed the point you were making. That was what I was talking about when I said childish and xenophobic. Some people on these boards use the word chav in every other sentence it seems, whether actually appropriate or not. It just gets a little old after a while, like a fahion that has passed by but is still followed by those trying to stay trendy. And I've travelled around a bit and met obnoxious kids in every single country I've been in, including this one. I've also met lots of very nice americans of varying ages. |
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kangarootoo
27/04/06 @ 16:45
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I've never been overley enamoured with unlocking difficulty modes.
Lets say I'm Cthulie and I find the game too easy. Should I be forced to play through the game in a lower entertainment level than is really ideal for me, jsut so I can then be "rewarded" with the experience I wanted in the first place? I still reserve judgement, as I know a lot of poeple like unlocking super hard modes. I guess the key thing is that the modes that are available right from the start need to be sufficient to provide the required challenge. In Chtulie's case (if I can use you as an example again), it sounds like the only mode that suits him is the one he has to unlock, which suggests that my own tag of "super hard" doesn't really apply and that "adequate" may be more appropriate. In which case I would suggest the "unlock new difficulty mode" mechanic is not being used appropriately. |
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CosmonautX
27/04/06 @ 17:51
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Review's bang on, IMO - as is the score.
On the subject of difficulty/longevity... I played through on Normal and finished it in somewhere between 5-6 hours. I'm playing through on the unlocked Massacre difficulty level and - a few sections aside - I'm having no more trouble beating levels than I did the first time around, and I expect to complete it again in about 6 hours. Considering that there really isn't a great deal of replay value, it's hard not to be disappointed by the length of the game. Throw in all the other flaws - most minor, a few major - and a score of 6 is perfectly fair. |
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I'm not a fan of super hard modes, to be clear. I just think that games are designed around a certain difficulty setting. A setting in which the game mechanics, settings, ai, etc. come together in their most optimum way. The setting on which everything is tweaked just right. Sometimes that means that a game will be easy when it's played at it's best, sometimes it means the game is really hard.
Lego Star Wars for instance is quite an easy game, but still very good. In fact a more merciless difficulty would bring a lot of flaws to the surface and kill the game's charm. I'm sure there are lots of examples of excellent but hard games. The earlier mentioned Ninja Gaiden but also must of the Treasur Shooters and such classics as Contra Hard Corps. Sometimes with games I get the impression that way at the end of the production cycle, someone stepped in and had the names of the fiddiculty settings changed to make the game more 'accesible'. Calling easy mode normal will make the gamer feel more capable by making the game itself seem less, which is very appealing and easy for a consumer. But not good for the product and certainly not too good for the rep. of the people behind it, it makes them seem less capable until one has a go at the old normal difficulty. It's feels like a change to reach a broader market. Which isn't a bad thing. But it also means that it now is changed to appeal to a diffirent market then the game was designed for and still is, which isn't a good thing. |
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After Dredd Vs Death I was going to give this a miss but after reading the review I'll probably pick it up next week sometime as I have a soft spot for simple run and gun games like this.
The comment on the death animations reminded me of the ones from The Punisher, although with more robots and less blood obviously. ;) |
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bloodflowers
28/04/06 @ 09:11
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I can't understand why people hate Dredd vs Death so much - I thought it was a solid FPS, lovely solid graphics that looked the part as well as moving without dropping frames, very decent audio, and some tongue in cheek humour that went just far enough.
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Comments: 1-47 of 47 in total
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