jango
12-03-2009, 10:03 AM
http://www.macksites.co.uk/GameBank/Images/rw/roguewarrior.jpg
There's been some really great 'stealth' fps games over the years .. there was Thief back in the day, the Hitman series, right through to things like Assassin's Creed. The thing that tends to make a good stealth/assassin of ownage game is mixing a decent balance of action with a slice of puzzle-solving, deception capabilities, nifty gadgets, perhaps with a touch of humour.
So, into this fairly well established arena walks in Rogue Warrior ..
What's it all about? Should I care?
The basic premise of Rogue Warrior is that the main character, Richard 'Demo Dick' Marcinko (does this sound like a wrestling porn star's name to you?), who is basically going behind enemy lines to carry out a number of missions, and uncovering conspiracies.
http://www.macksites.co.uk/GameBank/Images/rw/roguewarrior1.jpg
The game is being advertised (in a rather dull way) as ..
a character-driven, first-person-shooter, featuring Richard 'Demo Dick' Marcinko's explosive personality in an action-packed single player campaign, and intense multiplayer combat.
There's been a fair amount of hype about Rogue Warrior, partially because the game itself features voice work from Mickey Rourke which gives a certain amount of gravitas to procedings. Surprisingly the game is made by Bethesda Softworks, the makers Oblivion, so fans of the latter might be forgiven for having high hopes.
The game .. 'in action'
Well, I'd love to give a representation of the gameplay with some kind of enthusiasm, but unfortunately I simply can't .. it would be easier for me to bend over, put my head up my backside, and search for the lost treasures of Atlantis. Still, I'll try and give you an idea ..
The game is mostly played in FPS with a fairly straight forward interface featuring a map, waypoint co-ordinates, ammo, and er .. yay. You do occasionally break out of FPS when you enter 'cover mode', where you take up a position of having your back to the wall and action while in cover takes the over the shoulder point of view. Naturally being in cover reduces the likelihood of damage by a large amount, but as you'll discover later it matters about as much as taking condoms to a trip to a convent.
Rogue Warrior does have a couple of nice aspects to it: one of them is the general settings where the missions take place - they're quite well rendered and full of atmosphere. In some ways it reminded me of the original Soldier of Fortune but, sadly, not as good.
Now, the gameplay itself is a tough one. I don't mean difficult. I mean it's difficult to find something exciting to talk about. Perhaps i should've written about something like watching paint dry instead ..
Firstly the movement seems very static and doesn't seem to have the smoothness you'd expect from something based around stealth. It feels like Dark Forces, it feels like a pre-patched Medal of Honor (yes, the first one), it feels like, well, old.
The enemy AI is woeful. The main reason for this is to exploit one of the main selling points of the game ..
With more than 25 uniquely brutal kill moves, do what it takes to take out the enemy. No trick is too dirty as you maintain the element of surprise whenever possible - find and kill the enemy before they find you.
http://www.macksites.co.uk/GameBank/Images/rw/roguewarrior2.jpg
These special moves are gruesome, bloody, and vicious .. but they're only brought about generally because the AI is sooooo very bad that you can pretty much dance around an enemy doing the robot, the running man, and finishing with a moonwalk before you slice the dude's head off. This way of dispatching is very unrewarding after you've done it 2 or 3 times I can assure you. Even when you're not up-close, perhaps choosing to snipe or pick off enemies using your AK47 there are a number of enemies that completely ignore the noise or the fact their friend, Vlad, has just been ripped in half by an over-powered 30 calibre bullet.
"That's OK Vlad, you take a break, you look tired .. I'll watch this harmless guy doing the moonwalk for a while."
Now, a few months ago Operation Flashpoint showed, despite some of its other flaws, that you can field a player controlled character with similar health to the enemy, with damage taking proper effect. Rogue Warrior goes like this .. you get shot 50 times and live .. one shot on the enemy = dead. Sometimes you get a few guys coming at you at once and sometimes this is a challenge, but not much of one. Dropping into cover makes your already superhuman character more superhuman. To me it's like cracking a walnut using a tank, with the game pretending that the fact you have no nuts left except for some singed ashes is a mighty achievement.
Lastly, it would be impossible to talk about the gameplay without mentioning the swearing. On a scale of 1 to 10, the swearing in this game is about .. hmm, let me see .. 2 billion. Literally every other word is a swear word, clearly to add some kind of toughness to the character or intensity to the story. For me this didn't work at all, it just came across like a bunch of 14 year olds in the playground trying to act tough without even one hair on their balls between them.
This is the end .. my only friend .. the end ..
Thankfully the multi-player is the only worthwhile thing in the game, but it feels very similar to the original Far Cry's multiplayer .. i.e. lame. Seeing as this is really the only positive aspect I can pick out, and in my conclusion to this review, I think you can sense that I didn't much enjoy the experience.
Rogue Warrior is a poor, poor effort. There's nothing new here, nothing interesting, nothing of depth. Even as a standard game of this genre it doesn't measure up - you'd be better off getting Borderlands, Batman: Arkham Asylum, or if all else fails Barbie Goes Mental in the Mall with the optional rocket launcher expansion pack.
In short, don't bother unless you have money to burn .. if you're after diverse, interesting gameplay then this won't be for you. I'd love to have something more positive to say about it, but simply playing the game has drained my soul. The saddest thing is that this isn't much of a tribute to the real-life founder of SEAL Team Six who you play in the game .. sad .. very very sad.
3/10
Resouces:
- Official site (http://www.roguewarrior.com/)
- GiantBomb's Quick Look (NSFW) (http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-rogue-warrior/17-1719/)
.. and finally ..
Someone watching paint dry ..
http://images.dpchallenge.com/images_challenge/0-999/320/800/Copyrighted_Image_Reuse_Prohibited_157137.jpg
There's been some really great 'stealth' fps games over the years .. there was Thief back in the day, the Hitman series, right through to things like Assassin's Creed. The thing that tends to make a good stealth/assassin of ownage game is mixing a decent balance of action with a slice of puzzle-solving, deception capabilities, nifty gadgets, perhaps with a touch of humour.
So, into this fairly well established arena walks in Rogue Warrior ..
What's it all about? Should I care?
The basic premise of Rogue Warrior is that the main character, Richard 'Demo Dick' Marcinko (does this sound like a wrestling porn star's name to you?), who is basically going behind enemy lines to carry out a number of missions, and uncovering conspiracies.
http://www.macksites.co.uk/GameBank/Images/rw/roguewarrior1.jpg
The game is being advertised (in a rather dull way) as ..
a character-driven, first-person-shooter, featuring Richard 'Demo Dick' Marcinko's explosive personality in an action-packed single player campaign, and intense multiplayer combat.
There's been a fair amount of hype about Rogue Warrior, partially because the game itself features voice work from Mickey Rourke which gives a certain amount of gravitas to procedings. Surprisingly the game is made by Bethesda Softworks, the makers Oblivion, so fans of the latter might be forgiven for having high hopes.
The game .. 'in action'
Well, I'd love to give a representation of the gameplay with some kind of enthusiasm, but unfortunately I simply can't .. it would be easier for me to bend over, put my head up my backside, and search for the lost treasures of Atlantis. Still, I'll try and give you an idea ..
The game is mostly played in FPS with a fairly straight forward interface featuring a map, waypoint co-ordinates, ammo, and er .. yay. You do occasionally break out of FPS when you enter 'cover mode', where you take up a position of having your back to the wall and action while in cover takes the over the shoulder point of view. Naturally being in cover reduces the likelihood of damage by a large amount, but as you'll discover later it matters about as much as taking condoms to a trip to a convent.
Rogue Warrior does have a couple of nice aspects to it: one of them is the general settings where the missions take place - they're quite well rendered and full of atmosphere. In some ways it reminded me of the original Soldier of Fortune but, sadly, not as good.
Now, the gameplay itself is a tough one. I don't mean difficult. I mean it's difficult to find something exciting to talk about. Perhaps i should've written about something like watching paint dry instead ..
Firstly the movement seems very static and doesn't seem to have the smoothness you'd expect from something based around stealth. It feels like Dark Forces, it feels like a pre-patched Medal of Honor (yes, the first one), it feels like, well, old.
The enemy AI is woeful. The main reason for this is to exploit one of the main selling points of the game ..
With more than 25 uniquely brutal kill moves, do what it takes to take out the enemy. No trick is too dirty as you maintain the element of surprise whenever possible - find and kill the enemy before they find you.
http://www.macksites.co.uk/GameBank/Images/rw/roguewarrior2.jpg
These special moves are gruesome, bloody, and vicious .. but they're only brought about generally because the AI is sooooo very bad that you can pretty much dance around an enemy doing the robot, the running man, and finishing with a moonwalk before you slice the dude's head off. This way of dispatching is very unrewarding after you've done it 2 or 3 times I can assure you. Even when you're not up-close, perhaps choosing to snipe or pick off enemies using your AK47 there are a number of enemies that completely ignore the noise or the fact their friend, Vlad, has just been ripped in half by an over-powered 30 calibre bullet.
"That's OK Vlad, you take a break, you look tired .. I'll watch this harmless guy doing the moonwalk for a while."
Now, a few months ago Operation Flashpoint showed, despite some of its other flaws, that you can field a player controlled character with similar health to the enemy, with damage taking proper effect. Rogue Warrior goes like this .. you get shot 50 times and live .. one shot on the enemy = dead. Sometimes you get a few guys coming at you at once and sometimes this is a challenge, but not much of one. Dropping into cover makes your already superhuman character more superhuman. To me it's like cracking a walnut using a tank, with the game pretending that the fact you have no nuts left except for some singed ashes is a mighty achievement.
Lastly, it would be impossible to talk about the gameplay without mentioning the swearing. On a scale of 1 to 10, the swearing in this game is about .. hmm, let me see .. 2 billion. Literally every other word is a swear word, clearly to add some kind of toughness to the character or intensity to the story. For me this didn't work at all, it just came across like a bunch of 14 year olds in the playground trying to act tough without even one hair on their balls between them.
This is the end .. my only friend .. the end ..
Thankfully the multi-player is the only worthwhile thing in the game, but it feels very similar to the original Far Cry's multiplayer .. i.e. lame. Seeing as this is really the only positive aspect I can pick out, and in my conclusion to this review, I think you can sense that I didn't much enjoy the experience.
Rogue Warrior is a poor, poor effort. There's nothing new here, nothing interesting, nothing of depth. Even as a standard game of this genre it doesn't measure up - you'd be better off getting Borderlands, Batman: Arkham Asylum, or if all else fails Barbie Goes Mental in the Mall with the optional rocket launcher expansion pack.
In short, don't bother unless you have money to burn .. if you're after diverse, interesting gameplay then this won't be for you. I'd love to have something more positive to say about it, but simply playing the game has drained my soul. The saddest thing is that this isn't much of a tribute to the real-life founder of SEAL Team Six who you play in the game .. sad .. very very sad.
3/10
Resouces:
- Official site (http://www.roguewarrior.com/)
- GiantBomb's Quick Look (NSFW) (http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-rogue-warrior/17-1719/)
.. and finally ..
Someone watching paint dry ..
http://images.dpchallenge.com/images_challenge/0-999/320/800/Copyrighted_Image_Reuse_Prohibited_157137.jpg