A tribute game dedicated to a popular classic comic hero that plays surprisingly well and will grow on you.
Anybody who was (or still is) an avid follower of this classic comic strip from the unforgettable comic "2000 AD", will not be disappointed in this modern third-person game-conversion. The authors have captured the dark and bleak atmosphere perfectly and have given it a pleasing 3D home in which to live, and they have done a fair job at keeping to the original story concept.
Fans of the third-person genre will not be too disappointed, you will still find a fast-paced and reasonably challenging game under the cover of this comic-book-hero tribute game.
If you've never read Rougue Trooper in its original form then the plot is reasonably simple, but it does have some deep implications. The location is set in a place called Nu Earth, which is a planet set between two black-holes and a sun.
It has been discovered that Black Holes can be used to assist in long-distance space jumps, and Nu Earth, being situated between two of these jump-points, would give a strategic advantage to whoever has dominance on its surface. Defense and control of this prime jump-point is going to be better placed under military control.
There is no breathable atmosphere which means that to survive it is neccessary to wear breathing equipment. When it comes to the military there is a better solution, developing Genetic Infantrymen who can breathe the local atmosphere unaided, and who are immune to almost every disease conceivable.
Rogue Trooper is a Genetic Infantryman from the south (a "Souther"), one of a whole troop of infantrymen who have been given the task of fighting off an invasion from the ambitious Northers, or as they are more correctly called "Norts", contenders for control of Nu Earth. The battle is a long and bloody one and shows no sign of letting up anytime soon, however there has been an interesting development.
The GI's (Genetic Infantrymen) are being massacred on a mass scale, and there is a suspicion that there has been a betrayal at a high level. Rogue Trooper is not having any of this and has decided that he will find out what is happening by himself (hence the name). One by one all of his companions die, together with most of the rest of the GI's. However each infantryman carries a bio-chip which, if removed quickly enough, can be inserted into the standard military hardware that they carry with them, preserving them until they can be re-inserted into a new genetically engineered body.
Eventually, having rescued three of his closest military companions, he is carrying with him "Helm", "Gunner" and "Bagman". The names are obviously simple (those were the days... uncomplicated plots...), and together they are raging a personal war against the Norts in revenge for the death of the GI's, and to discover who is behind the betrayal.
Just a note at this point that each of your newly-housed companions have useful functions. Helm can hack computers and open doors, Gunner can... shoot things for you... (there is a stand-alone turret mode available) and Bagman can manufacture weapons and ammo for you from salvaged scrap, and he can re-load your weapon on the fly without you having to insert new clips yourself so you can stay on-target. This is useful in full battle although you DO still get a reload delay. This follows true to the original comic-strip feature.
The game kicks in near to the end of the massacre, only a few GI's left, which leads you smoothly in to where you watch your companions die, and rescue each of them during the first few missions. Then things ramp up...
Gameplay... it depends on the difficulty setting. Veteran gamers will probably want to play on hard level or higher, however if you just want to enjoy the game and pass the time, the normal level of play is still challenging enough. This is a reasonably fast-paced game and on the harder levels it will keep you on your toes so try it before judging it.
One thing I DO like about this game is that is has a PLOT!!! It isn't just a shoot-em-up to see how many enemies you can kill on one meaningless level. There is an actual storyline closely matching the classic-comic version, and it plays out very well.
The second thing I like is that there are SENSIBLE checkpoints, usually before a particularly challenging part of a level (I did say PART of a level, which means it saves intelligently before the difficult bits to save you having to replay the ENTIRE level again). Nice to see this done properly for once!
This game uses the Asura engine, however there were times when I was playing this game that I though I was playing Quake 2 or Unreal, the oppressively dark graphics (browns and reds) and the over-large weapons and vehicles, but this only adds to the game atmosphere and the comic-book authenticity rather than detract from it.
Character animation is very well done and motion capture has been integrated very realistically, shouldering or deploying a weapon and removing or preplacing Helm is very well co-ordinated, running walking and crouching all look proper. Attention to small detail has been very well thought out.
There is also a cover system, you can hide behind vertical objects and from that position you can blind-fire (making your enemies dive for cover), and you can snipe (after they dive for cover preferrably). You can also throw various types of grenade without losing cover which is an improvement on the usual cover system where you have to reveal yourself to enemy fire whilst throwing.
The aiming system is interesting, whenever you target an enemy a target circle appears which indicates red if they are an enemy or green if they are an ally, but better than that, when using Gunner he gives distance to target and, more importantly, will indicate if you are aiming a head-shot or a backpack shot. It is possible to place a head shot "from the hip" without zooming but you have to be VERY quick to get this against moving targets.
A backpack shot will cause your target to eventually explode, handy if they are close to of their own troops at the time...
Finally there is a stealth attack, which can be exexuted from behind, always good for that single take-down where you don't want to attract too much attention.... which is practically everywhere in this game!
The weapons have a good feel to them and react reasonably well, and recoil time, reload time and recharge time have been brought into realistic time frames instead of just annoyingly long pauses where you get shot. The sniper shots kick massively high, but the aiming accuracy is actually quite good. It has been offset with "breathing" and "arm ache" that causes a very slight (but realistically annoying) drift around your target, which is easy to counter if you have good hand-eye co-ordination. Later on this drift can be reduced with a gyro, but that only lasts for a short time before it cuts out and needs to recharge before being used again.
This is to date the best way that I have seen a sniper rifle programmed, just enough drift to miss if you trigger at the wrong moment, but not enough drift that you can't control it properly, and head-shots are achievable because target accuracy has been programmed PROPERLY (take note other game-developers... PLEASE). Also, if you get shot whilst aiming you will react the same as you do in Medal of Honour, your body kicks causing your aim to snap away from the target.
I am impressed with most of the other weapons offered (the pistol is deadly accurate), and you get to choose a few special items as you get further into the game, however I chose not to use all of them. Which brings me to the subject of ammo.
It seems strange that you actually have to "pay" for your ammo, but this is quite well done. As you progress through the game-world, you pick up "salvage", either from dead turrets or dead enemies, or from various "hidden" locations. This salvage is worth some kind of value so that the more you collect the more you can spend.
Bagman will manufacture anything you need depending on your level of advancement and the amount of salvage that you have collected. This means that you can actually manufacture amunition and weapons "on-the-go" and top up your ammo whenever you want as long as you have salvage to collect (even in the middle of a battle... no more running out of ammo.) It is very quick to manufacture new ammunition or new weapons (just a mouse click) but it can affect the pace whilst in battle.
I personally like the idea that you can manufacture your ammo on the move, however it does pause the game whilst you choose what you want to make, and I can understand why some players see it as losing pace whilst in the middle of a battle, however on later levels where you can upgrade Bagman and store more ammo before you go into battle this isn't really too much of a problem. It doesn't work for everybody but it does work for me, and it follows closely to the original concept of the classic-comic version.
The graphics in this game are dated, no doubt about that, but it doesn't matter (no, really, it DOESN'T matter). It has been done this way on purpose, Rogue Trooper was originally a comic-book hero and that translates perfectly well into the game. No need for hi-tech nicely crafted features, this is a shooting game, not an art gallery. However if you are fortunate enough to be able to play on a widescreen monitor, you can kick in 16:9 modes (works on 16:10 as well, playing on 1680x1050 shouldn't cause an issue if you have a powerful enough graphics card) and you can kick in anti-aliasing, so you can crank the backgrounds up fairly high.
You will need a reasonable card to play the higher resolutons, as a minimum recommendation something like a GeForce 8600 or something similar that is DX9 compliant will render satisfactory results. Pixel-shading will help as well.
Sound is rich and quite well thought out, music is very atmospheric and "eerie" in places, and sound effects are where they need to be.. in the right place at the right time, not just there to get on your nerves. Weapon sounds are good and solid and hi-tec effects are crisp and clean.
The voice acting is very well done and has just the right amount of sincerity, with a little subtle humour thrown in as well. It re-enacts the comic-book hero very well and has been well scripted.
As you progress you can unlock several features such as concept art (including some original 2000-AD artwork) and level-intro movies. When you complete the game for the first time (at whatever level) there are a few basic cheat modes available from the main menu (no hacking required, just select them).
The replay value is not so good, and there is no free-roaming available, the plot has to be linear in order to follow the original. There are also certain areas where you hit the old "invisible wall" if you try to walk off the map area, just like in Medal of Honour, however the plot is fast enough for you not to notice them, and you should never have to go anywhere near them.
A short mention about multiplayer, it is present but it only has a few limited game-modes, and playing online relies on finding somebody else online... not easy. There is a local network mode so LAN multi-play is possible... but not exciting. I feel that this game is aimed at being a tribute to the original comic-book hero and has had to include multiplayer to satisfy people who like that kind of thing. It could have been better and would have attracted a lot more attention if it had been implemented properly, however the author's have sadly fallen short of the mark on this one.
Over-all this is a thoroughly enjoyable game, doubly so if you are a fan of the original Rogue Trooper, and I think that this game does it great credit and is well worth the purchase. It is available through Steam as well as through the usual sources, and it is not highly priced. Even for a budget shooter it plays very well. As mentioned elsewhere it could have been better, however it is still very much worth a go.
Now if only somebody would make a game out of The Stainless Steel Rat...