Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Play first, then review., 12 April 2006
By A Customer
With a story developed by Rogue Trooper's current writer and long-time 2000ad contributor Gordon Rennie, and vehicles, costumes, uniforms and weaponry taken directly from the strip itself, this game's visual and storytelling pedigree are beyond reproach. Utilising a third-person view, the play mechanics are more akin to Tomb Raider: Legend than the first-person Dredd vs Death (which was universally decried as decidedly average by the gaming press, and required too much concentration for casual gamers more used to Dead or Alive: Beach Volleyball, or Halo). More of an arcade experience than DvsD, but if you've played the game based on Marvel's The Punisher, you'll have a good idea what to expect.
A shame more games based on comics weren't given the same development and care as applied here, as the likes of Daredevil or Hulk could learn a thing or two.
|
|
|
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not awful, but not great, either., 22 May 2006
Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars
I read the first issue of 2000ad when my brother bought it when I was 5. I started buying it for myself in 1981 and immediately my favourite characters were DR & Quinch, Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog and Rogue Trooper. I remember the enticipation every Saturday morning when my copy would be delivered with the papers.
When the Judge Dredd game came out a couple of years ago I played the demo and made the wise decision not to buy the game, but with the release of Rogue Trooper I couldn't help myself and splashed out twenty five sovs.
And...?
It's okay.
It's not the stinker Judge Dredd was, but it's not going to win game of the year.
The graphics are somewhat dated - it looks like the Quake 3 engine and, in the wake of Quake 4, Half Life 2 and Far Cry, it just looks a bit old. If the gameplay was good enough (like Jedi Academy) this can be overlooked but sadly that's not the case. There are some great little tweaks and innovations - your backpack (Bagman) can make you ammo, you can use your rifle (gunnar) as a senty gun and so forth, but there aren't any moments when the game grabs you and drags you in like in the aforementioned classics. As it is, you just run through the levels shooting the bad guys and nicking their stuff, much like many other games.
There's a huge backstory and history around the character, but the depth which the established comic character has is lacking, and at no point does the player really feel that they're actually involved in an all-or-nothing future war. If anything, it feels more like an episode of Splinter Cell with more gunplay and slightly worse animation. There are neither the hordes of troops you'd expect, nor the insanity of war so well drawn in the comic.
I might be sounding negative, but it's really not all bad. A fan of the comic character will get a lot out of it, but I'm not sure someone who doesn't know the background will as the backstory is only very loosely sketched.
Like I say. Not great, and not awful. Just very ho-hum. If Rogue Trooper had appeared on the shelves two years ago, it would have been hailed as a classic. As it is, it feels dated and surpassed by other games of the last twelve to eighteen months.
Another missed opportunity by the developers, and I can only hope that the promised Stronium Dog game delivers a corker.
|
|
|
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very good, but..., 7 May 2006
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
It still could have been so much better. Cut scenes, graphics and the thought that has gone into the game are excellent and clearly evident, but it is far too short, too console and definitely not hard enough. Dredd vs Death suffered from all three of these and whilst if you play that again it isn't as bad as everyone said, RT is a vast improvement.
The biggest change is the FPS perspective has been dropped in favour of a Tomb Raider third person view and this works very well, the addition of a climb ability allows you to move around the landscape much more freely than in a FPS game.
The difficulty levels are very disappointing, I gave up on normal early on and went to hard, completed that with no trouble and then massacre seems the same as hard but with half the life bar available. I want a challenge, not a one man army walk over. Having Bagman manufacture all of your ammo from salvage is also a great game mechanic but you never really have a supply problem because of this, adding further to the ease of the game.
Innovations like Gunnar on autofire and a hologram decoy from Helm just don't seem to work, if you do use them it just slows the flow of the game down. The extra weapons of a shotgun, mortar and beam weapon just seem to have been added to pad out the weapons available, but I managed quite well enough with just the standard rifle, grenades and sammies, not even considering using anything else. The beam waepon is in all truth embarrassing and doesn't belong at all.
The multiplay will go the way of DvsD, 'withdrawn at request of vendor' on Gamespy, as Rebellion have gone for the same repetitive and short lived niche mission type play again instead of all out war as with BF2, FarCry, etc. It's also only 4 player co-op vs bots, another console ported limitation and it compares badly with a 64 player BF2 map. GI's vs Norts or Southers vs Norts would have been so much better, especially with driveable vehicles. Halo did it years ago, why not RT?
If like me you've grown up with Rogue for the last 25 years then it's a 4 star game, Rogue lives and hopefully he'll be back in a better game in the future which sorely needs to be aimed at a more discerning and sophisticated PC market rather than the joypad brigade. If not, it's a 3 star. Get it it's good, but it won't mean as much to you as it does to those who first read the stories of the Quartz Zone massacre back in 1981.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
