The Rocky Horror Show Video Game PC Review

Nearing the 50th anniversary of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, what better time for a new game (yes there have been others) based on the cult classic.

The Rocky Horror Show Video Game takes a retro approach and sends players on a sidescrolling, platform adventure that feels like it could have been made at the height of the movie to game churn (remember games like Home Alone, The Blues Brothers, Terminator 2?).

While modern games tout perma-death… The Rocky Horror Picture Show game has no death… at all, so you can try again and again until you get it right (or rage quit… whichever comes first). On that note… the gameplay starts simple enough but starts to introduce more obstacles and traps and eventually bosses. Level design (as self referenced) can be a little simple and progress can sometimes rely on fiddly movement or timing… but because you just “respawn” you can generally keep trying until you get it right. Checkpoints seem to be either very frequent or very well located near troublesome areas.

The music is impressively recreated in chip tune format… it took me a little while to realise that indeed the music was the same as from the movie… not because it isn’t an accurate rendition but because I was so distracted by the rest of the game. Visually, as mentioned, the game is very retro inspired. Think of Sinclair Spectrum games but with more colour or perhaps Amstrad or Atari ST games and you will have some idea of the visuals. It all works very well to give the experience a suitably “vintage” feel.

There were a few moments where I somewhat “broke” the game… basically during some pre boss type battles I managed to (I think it was press jump) cause my character to fall off the bottom of the screen and it was treated as a death and I had to watch the preamble to the boss battle again. Nothing major because of course you don’t really die… but a little frustrating as you can’t really speed through the dialogue sections.

Final Thoughts:

The retro game style seems a great choice for The Rocky Horror Picture Show game, the side scrolling and chip tunes almost create their own Time Warp! Though some game play elements can be annoying and frustrating to have to attempt over and over… the fact there is no death means it’s not nearly as annoying as it could have been. For fans of the musical or the movie there’s enough here to give quite a few grins of acknowledgement. A nice little game that’s not too pricey, not overly long but a decent bit of fun with some enjoyable familiar tunes in chiptune style. Grab it if you’re a fan of the show or just enjoy sidescrolling platformers.