Rogue Warrior consists of a distasteful amount of foul language and mindless brutality in a broken two hour experience
Contains: Frequent Very Strong Language and Bloody Violence
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Rogue Warrior is a Tactical First-Person Shooter featuring former United Navy SEAL Richard Marcinko who's trapped behind enemy lines in North Korea on a covert mission to assess the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear arsenal.
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STORY - 1/5
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In Rogue Warrior, the United States has sent in Richard Marcinko, a veteran Navy SEAL, on a mission into North Korea to disrupt ballistic missile launchers. As he progresses, Marcinko will encounter numerous enemies and allies as he is sent from locations such as Korea, Russia, and others to pursue terrorists with dangerous missile capabilities. The plot is completely boring and predictable, you've seen numerous ideas similar to this executed better in other games and movies.
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CHARACTERS - 1/5
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You play as real-life Veteran Navy SEAL Richard Marcinko, who is voiced by famous actor Mickey Rourke. Marcinko will likely be ashamed and appalled at the way this game turned out, since the protagonist is portrayed as a foul mouthed, racist f*** who seems obsessed with using excessive swearing while killing every enemy as violently as he can imagine, while at the same time, loving every brutal moment. If you take away the protagonist's looks and personality you can almost imagine yourself playing as Rambo on a massive killing spree, not that it will help you understand such a terrible person this guy is portrayed as. Mickey Rourke couldn't possibly have seen any gameplay footage when he accepted the part as playing Marcinko. If he did, he must have done it for a laugh, since that's all you're going to get out of the only encountered character in the game, a bad, uncontrollable laugh because of his abusive language and how unbelievable every situation evolves from one bad moment to the next.
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GAMEPLAY - 2/5
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Rogue Warrior goes nowhere but in a constant straight line, you'll never see a more poorly designed map with no extra rooms to search, more boringly obvious objectives (you don't need any because the game is so linear). You'll occasionally enter a building which looks slightly larger than most, but the exit is always the same - through one door, the only other door apart from the one you entered in from. Rogue Warrior also relies heavily on the use of a stealth mechanic, but it's totally pointless since you don't need to be stealthy. All the enemies in the area are standing and facing away (usually watching a wall) giving you no aim what-so-ever in having to take them out. You kill one, move on the next, and so on until the area is cleared. There is one decent aspect to take away as a positive from Rogue Warrior however, and that's the Kill Moves. There are just over 25 variations of violent finishing moves to be executed if you are within a close enough proximity of an enemy, whether you come from behind them, or sideways, an extremely violent knife kill animation unfolds quickly, and usually accompanied with a typical insult from Mickey Rourke just to add insult to injury (or in this case - death). The kill moves are satisfying, you can't deny that, though they would be even more satisfying if you had to work to execute it. But the map layout doesn't give any room for enemies to move around in, or force you to plan how you'll go about spilling blood. Environments sometimes change the way a kill move is executed, where Marcinko will either smash an enemy's face into a wall, or throw them over a railing to their death, but the enemies are yet again planted exactly where the kill move will take place, giving you suspicions that the developer's wanted you to see each and every kill move at every opportunity.
When you're not stabbing enemies violently to death, you'll be shooting them using a mixed assortment of guns. Gunplay is completely broken because of terrible hit detection. Sometimes you'll kill an enemy with a few shots to the leg, and other times you'll shoot a magazine of ammunition into their face and they'll not even flinch, which overall makes it pointless to even bother aiming down the sights. If the gunplay sounds bad enough, the grenades are even worse. Not only do they sound weak and unsatisfying to use, but they don't always make the impact a regular explosion should, meaning enemies can actually get away with being right on top of it when it detonates, and laughably survive the blast.
Despite most of the gameplay sounding so negative, Rogue Warrior isn't a game you'll feel is unplayable, you'll notice how horrific everything is, but you'll still have the urge to carry on. (Most likely because of trophies available, but you'll like to see what other disasters await around the next corner just out of curiosity).
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GRAPHICS - 1/5
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The graphics of Rogue Warrior are best suited to the PS2 era, lack of detail in every environment despite such small areas, and an overall stale and ugly look to the background and the characters force you to believe you aren't playing a next-gen game. The visuals drain every bit of hope out of the gunplay aswell, with flaws including stuttering framerates, screen tearing, loose textures and awful looking explosions. The brief kill moves scene always cuts away from the First-Person view allowing you to see the brutal finisher take place from a better angle, and in fairness, the camera angles are well placed so you get the best possible position to see such a cruel takedown, but the graphics during these are still subpar and unacceptable for a Playstation 3 game. Also something worthy of mentioning is the fact that no wound is ever seen on the enemy during or after the brutal procedure, but lots of blood pouring from the suspected area of impact with the blade only.
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SOUND - 2/5
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Excessive use of foul language is so frequent that it actually will get quite disturbing to hear constantly, and Mickey Rourke must be having a laugh producing all these nasty phrases which he's getting paid to do. Weapons sound weak, grenades sound and look more like stun grenades, and boring audio flood every gameplay scenario. Once again kill moves bring about something positive, as plunging your knife into an enemy releases gratifying tears of flesh and blood, and snapping opponents necks sounds brutally realistic, which gives you something to look forward to every time you're encouraged to use stealth on the deliberately positioned enemies.
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CONTROLS - 2/5
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Despite an acceptable layout of control configurations, unresponsive controls frequently impede in action sequences, making it aggravating when all you want to do is reload or switch weapons.
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ATMOSPHERE - 1/5
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Rogue Warrior generates no atmosphere. You'll take part in missions in different continents of the globe, but you won't feel any change of pace or change in quality wherever you end up, and the terrible AI just make you feel it's some kind of training ground for the mentally impaired or the physically less able remnants of the Navy SEALs, which is just wrong.
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ENEMY AI - 1/5
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The abysmal intelligence of enemies makes your mission completion so much easier and so much more boring. They are deliberately stationed at certain points to allow you to easily execute a kill move, and their comrades are seemingly partially deaf and in need of an eye test. You can sprint up behind them and they won't even hear you, you can kill one of their squad and they won't react to the loud scream when you threw them over a balcony, and you can even be in their line of sight and they won't register you being there. Most enemies won't take notice of grenades either whilst taking cover, and in fact, you can sometimes throw a grenade so poor with accuracy, and they'll run into the blast making it just so easy to run through groups of hostiles with ease.
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LENGTH - 1/5
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You only have to suffer the poor aspects of Rogue Warrior for a couple of hours, but even so, 2 hours of gameplay going at full price is shocking on the publisher's behalf. There are many add-on single player content available for other games which last 3 times this length, and are considerably better, showing just what a rubbish accomplishment this 'tactical' First-Person shooter is. If you do manage to play the game to the end, you'll hear a hilarious, yet pathetic, rap song that is a combination of all of Mickey Rourke's outrageous and abusive language, which tells the story of this game's failure in a few minutes.
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REPLAY VALUE - 1/5
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The developer's spent more money getting Mickey Rourke for the part than they did at trying to make the actual game. His crude and racist outbursts border on two lines - one of hilarity, and the other more viable option - ridiculousness. It has no purpose being on shelves in this state and length, with its only salvage being the brutal finishing moves on unsuspecting enemies. In conclusion, avoid this mess of a game!
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OVERALL SUMMARY - 3.5/10
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Good Points: Over 25 variations of brutally gratifying kill moves.
Bad Points: Terrible graphics that don't belong on the PS3 system, Only lasts a couple of hours, An appalling and abusive protagonist that disgraces the real-life veteran's name, Broken gunplay, Stuttering framerates and awful looking explosions, Abysmal enemy intelligence, Stealth has no meaning in the game despite it being a frequently encouraged gameplay mechanic, Weak sound effects and boring audio.