A competant and mildly enjoyable Third Person Shooter
Was Rogue Trooper one of the first TPS games to use the "Gears Of War" type cover mechanics? I don't remember any others from the PS2/XBOX era. Either way, it does it fairly well, and its always fun to pop in and out of cover shooting enemies this way. For some reason though, when you snipe enemies this way they dont even notice you, like you're invisible while sniping or something - even though you'd obviously need to get your head and rifle over your cover to aim and fire.
You generally need to use cover, and just standing in the middle of the battlefield shooting things gets you diced to bits fairly quickly. So its sometimes quite intense running from cover to cover and gratifying killing enemies this way.
Seemingly the only effective way to kill people is with headshots, seeing as most of them dont even flinch when you pummel them with bullets in the torso, despite all the blood spewing out of them when you do this. But one well-aimed shot to the head is able to off most enemies with ease. The AI isn't very impressive, as they just tend to rush you a lot, and when you throw a grenade at their feet they just stand there.
You will have access to a couple of weapons during the course of the game, but you will always keep going back to your Gunnar, because its simply the most effective. The shotgun can also be good for close quarters and taking out robots. The beam rifle is useless.
Overall the gameplay is quite fun while it lasts but you really will be relieved when the game is over because it ends on a high note and you're left without feeling that the game got too repetitive.
The story is your bog-standard action game story with a few little twists - Its nothing very exciting.
If you're looking for something refreshingly different or highly entertaining then look elsewhere, but if you just want something mildly enjoyable from the bargain bin to tie you over until the next big game release, then you could do a lot worse than Rogue Trooper.