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Rogue Trooper
Third person action is
the name of the game here with Rogue Trooper from Atari. Anyone who was
wondering if that was some sort of Star Wars type rip off should know
that Rogue Trooper originally surfaced as a character in the popular
Brit Sci Fi mag 2000AD. It is actually over 20 years old.
The Rogue Trooper in the title is like a clone
trooper of sorts, a super soldier that is part of an elite team that has
been put together to fight in wars of the future. Our war takes place on
Nu Earth, a place where Rogue and his buddies are ambushed and all our
killed except our hero who of course has to find out who betrayed them
and fight his way through a hostile environment at the same time.
In an interesting twist to the title, Rogue’s team
mates, although physically gone, still take an active part in the game
in the way that their consciousness has been placed into bio chips that
Rogue carries around with him in his helmet, weaponry and other parts of
his get up. They help him with what needs doing and augment his skills
with their own expertise.
The style of gameplay is quite down the line with
little straying from the path of what you are meant to be doing at any
given time. This does not take away from the title and simply means that
you are going to have a faster paced game given the lack of wandering
that you can do. Also due to the fact that you can easily do most of the
stuff in the game without using most of the abilities given by your bio
chip buddies means that you primarily rely on just one of them, your
weapons buddy aptly nicknamed Gunnar.
The visuals in the game, whilst not revolutionary,
more than do the trick and you do get the feeling of being in a very
desolate place indeed. Rogue himself looks just like his character from
the comic and the colours used are of a kind of pastel variety that
works quite well. Characters in motion have a decent range of animations
and attention to the AI means that enemies will attempt to take cover
when under fire. I know that this should always be the case in this day
and age, but occasionally we find it not to be.
The game is pretty intuitive to pick up and play with
good use of the D Pad to control what you are using at any given time.
Pressing the select button allows you to augment weapons and also create
new ammunition. This is done by processing battlefield waste and
salvaging what you can after a firefight from the bodies of the fallen.
I thought this was pretty neat and a unique way of replenishing as
opposed to your usual way of either just picking it up from bodies or
the old thing of weapons and ammo just lying all over the place.
This is a game that I think most players who want
something fast and snappy will pick up and enjoy. There really isn’t a
great deal to it in terms of getting bogged down by storyline all the
time and Rogue himself is a bit of a cookie cut character. The bio chips
are one of the highlights of the game and the chatter from the fallen
Rogue Troopers can be a bit over the top at times, but still all the
better for being there. Players can expect this game to be over in a
goodly amount of time as it is very straight forward what is expected of
you with little room for deviation from what the designers intended. The
weapons are all fun to use and with some quick reactions from players to
incoming fire, you should do alright throughout the whole game.
I’d say that if you are expecting something epic from
this game then you need to look elsewhere, but if you are looking at
something fun, fast and to the point then it’s certainly worth giving a
shot. Give it a try and see for yourself with a rent before buying if
you are wavering over the purchase. |
