Rogue Trooper Review (no fat)

Game Description

For those of you who aren't familiar with the 2000AD comics, you'll be surprised to find that Rogue Trooper comes with a very good background story. Two factions of human forces are battling it out on a planet called Nu Earth, for a great deal of time. It is because of these battles that the planet's surface now hosts a great amount of chemicals and deadly bacteria, far too much for the human body to withstand, which is why everyone walks around with breathing machines and anti-chemical suits and so on.

The Southers (one of the two factions), beginning to lose the war, create a hybrid race of genetically modified humans, with blue skins and a lot of extra goodies, who can actually live and breathe in the toxic atmosphere. Hoping that this will give them the upper hand, they proceed to launch these genetic infantrymen (as they call them) into enemy territory.

However, someone in the Souths faction decides he's better off doing some backstabbing, and the Norts (the other faction) ambush the genetic infantrymen and only four men remain after the massacre. One is Rogue Trooper, your character, and the other three only remain as spirits that help Rogue Trooper carry out his quest to find out who led his brothers in arms to their deaths.

Rogue Trooper Gameplay

Other then the story, the gameplay is about the only strong positive aspect one may notice in this game. It does an excellent job of letting you decide how you want to play. You can go for a "kill everything you can see moving" approach, or turn the machine gun down a notch (and put a silencer on it while you're at it) and go for a stealthier approach, a-la "Splinter Cell"

What helps this game most is the presence of your three companions, called Gunnar, Bagman and Helm, who, despite dying, remain in existence through their biochips, electronic chips that hold their mind and soul. Each one of them helps you out with a certain task.

Gunnar helps you with your firing, and can be separated from yourself and mounted on a tripod. Bagman will help you turn the scrap you find into all sorts of useful goodies (grenades and such, and even new guns). This has a very bad side as well. The scrap you collect acts like money, and sometimes you have to pause in the middle of combat to buy some extra ammunition and so on, which is really a bummer for the gameplay.

Finally Helm can hack any doors and security devices you may find on your way, effectively letting you go just about anywhere you please on the planet. He can also project a hologram of you which works very well, for example, in situations where you want to distract your enemies so you can ambush them from behind.

You can duck behind things in the environment, fire off at enemies from behind something, effectively forcing them to take cover. You can crawl and sneak behind enemies, and so on which all adds quite a bit to what you can do in this game.

But there's one thing about the gameplay that's destined to get on your nerves sooner or later, and that's the controls. While they're by no means impossible to master on any of the platforms the game runs on, they're a bit awkward because you might just find them too many to handle.

And, of course, the game ends way too soon. You can buy this one in the afternoon, go home, play it, finish it, then go out for a beer with your friends or whatever the same day. And while games that let you drink beer are nice, you might expect a bit more replay value from this one, which it really doesn't seem to have at all.

Rogue Trooper Graphics

The game's graphics are average, there's nothing to really catch the eye. The good news that the visuals really fit with what you see in the comic books, so if you're a fan of the series you won't be bothered by the fact that the view isn't all that spectacular. As for the other 99% who have no idea where the game's story comes from you'll probably be a bit disappointed.

Rogue Trooper Sounds

The game's music isn't all that catchy or cool, it doesn't add to the suspense of the game (since it doesn't have that much to add too anyway, the game is a bit too much on the easy side even on the default difficulty setting). The ambient sounds are, however quite good, and the voice acting in the game is quite as well. All in all the game's sound is satisfactory, though there's certainly room for a great deal of improvement.

Rogue Trooper Multiplayer

Unfortunately, the multiplayer doesn't add to the game's replay value either. There are only two game modes, and those aren't all that spectacular either. And as another downside there aren't all that many people playing Rogue Trooper online so you'll have quite a hard time finding someone to play against.

Rogue Trooper Overall Impression

Well, Rogue Trooper isn't the kind of game that will have your jaws breaking as you see it and play it. It's certainly not bad either. The gameplay's actually quite good, making up for what the game loses in other aspects like graphics and sounds. The only real downside is that Rogue Trooper is way too short and that you probably won't be motivated to play it after you've finished the single player mission, especially given the state of multiplayer.

Rogue Trooper Pricing

Rogue Trooper currently ships at a price of $29.99