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Home ¦ Reviews ¦ Rogue Trooper - The Game

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Version reviewed: Xbox

What to Expect: Step into the shoes of everyone's favourite blue loner...

Review by Gavin Hanly
25th April 06

When the last Judge Dredd game, Dredd vs Death, was released there was, inevitably, a significant amount of anticipation from the 2000AD fanbase. It was the first time that a 2000AD character was supposed to get the interactive treatment it really deserved. Plus, given that the game was produced by the same people who ran the comic, the fanbase felt assured that we would get a fantastic game.

That was the theory anyway. When the game finally arrived, it was met with a lukewarm reception at best, and soon disappeared from the charts. Perhaps we should have been put on high alert by comments from the games developers that the game would be designed in a garish manner to reflect the comics (which, on reflection, sounds like the comment of someone who doesn’t actually read comics) and the bizarre elongated version of Dredd from the preview screens. It wasn’t a terrible game, but it fell very far short of competing 1st person action games and certainly wasn’t the second coming that we were all expecting.

With the Dredd game out of the way, Rebellion moved their focus to what perhaps should have been their first attempt anyway – Rogue Trooper. The Future War concept of Rogue Trooper is possibly the most obvious story to adapt into a game, given a scenario that could easily be split into levels and a strong central character with some nifty weapons.

The decision to shift the player focus to a third person perspective is also a sensible one. After all – if you’re releasing a game based on one of your top characters, it makes sense to give that character as much screen time as possible.

So, how does everything start? The player is thrown right into the Quartz Zone Massacre, battling alongside fellow GIs until you’re the only blue guy still standing. You’re introduced to your GI buddies with their foreshadowing nicknames and who also have handily different haircuts so that you can tell them apart. Clever as this sounds, this didn’t help much as I still couldn’t remember who was who as the game progressed. The player then works through the initial levels in the tried and tested “tutorial” method – i.e. you are put through your paces and given the opportunity to utilise all of Rogue’s moves in preparation for the journey ahead.

You then end up bumping into your best buddies, just before they die. It’s like Rogue is some sort of jinx, as terrible things seem to happen to his friends just after he appears. Honestly, you can imagine them avoiding him in the Millicom cafeteria in case some hideous accident instantly befalls them…

Once the other GIs are pushing up daisies, Rogue pulls out his knife and removes their chip (no las-saw for this trooper…) placing them into his equipment. This is where some of the unique aspects of Rogue Trooper come into play. You start with Gunnar. He has basic shooting functionality, but with the help of Bagman, you can gradually upgrade him throughout the missions, adding on all manner of extra parts such as a surface-to-air missile or an electrifying beam weapon. This ensures that Gunnar is always the primary weapon while still giving the user a number of extra ways to take out those pesky Norts. After a while of playing around with him, so to speak, Gunnar works surprisingly well and helps to add diversity to the gunplay while never straying far from the overall concept of having Gunnar as Rogue’s main weapon.

Next up is Bagman. Bagman’s main use is to build weaponry and items for you, as well as upgrade items. The player keeps Bagman primed with salvage from dead Norts and some handily placed machinery. As long as you have the correct salvage, you can keep Gunnar primed with ammunition, and yourself armed with medpacks and grenades. As mentioned above, Helm can also gradually help you build new weapons or upgrade current ones, upping Rogue’s armament as the danger intensifies throughout the game. The salvage aspect is another nice touch, adding a more believable air to the way Rogue keeps himself armed – as opposed to stumbling across handily dropped weapons or ammunition.

Finally you have Helm, who is sadly the most underused element of the group (although making anything useful of a talking hat is probably something of an achievement in itself). Helm is mainly used to open doors or hack consoles. There are some nice ideas with Helm, including his ability to project Rogue Trooper holograms to attract the enemy, but none of them are really well implemented. One of Helm’s other abilities, for example, is the “attract” mode, which seems to be little more than shout “over here” – perhaps this is useful if Rogue gets a bad taste of laryngitis?

And this misuse of Helm leads us into one of the game’s disappointments. While Rogue and his biochipped buddies are provided with a fairly original and accessible bunch of armaments and abilities, there are far too few moments where you really get to use them to the max. For example, there should be some clearly cool opportunities for the Rogue hologram to be a great asset in a level, but it’s never properly exploited. Again, if you could chuck Helm into the distance and THEN get him to call out that could help on a number of occasions too. The blind fire stuff also looks really cool - but doesn't seem to have any applicable use. With so many varied weapons, it would have been nice to see the game designers come up with a few more set pieces and puzzles where the player had to really work with the biochipped goodies in order to progress.

So it’s almost as if the game’s designers piled a large bunch of great ideas into the game, but never really capitalised on them. As a result, the game can be fairly straightforward at times. There may well be some decent sub levels such as some on-rails shooting sections but it’s often all about getting from a-to-b and shooting some Norts on the way. The same can be said for the way stealth is implemented. There are opportunities to sneak around enemies but, if spotted, everything quickly turns into a standard firefight. It’s a little too hard to work out when the bad guys can or can’t see Rogue when he’s hiding in the shadows - and as a result the stealth nature of the game becomes quickly redundant.

On a more positive note, though, the enemy AI is considerably improved from the Dredd game. This was arguably one of the worst things about the Dredd game but has been dramatically improved here. Enemies won’t go after you but will wait in ambush – they’ll spot you at a decent distance, which allows you to take a few things off at a distance – avoiding the usual game cliché of bots which can spot a moving pixel several miles away and helping to balance out the difficulty more. But despite this improvement in the AI, the Norts are never really that much of a challenge on the “normal” setting and this leads to a fairly short game for the experienced player.

Multiplayer is also a big letdown. I was looking forward to an opportunity for some Nort vs Souther action online, but the only online options are co-operative matches against computer controlled bots. A hugely missed opportunity, I feel.

But, despite these concerns, the single player game is still rather good and, most importantly, it’s highly enjoyable. This is much more than could be said for my experience of Dredd vs Death (or even the recent Rogue Trooper strips in the comic). While it is fairly easy to get through – I managed it in a weekend on normal setting – it’s never less than good fun. There’s always a desire to get to the next level to see what’s waiting for you there and, unlike far too many games on the market, it never feels like a chore as you’re making your way through.

So, summing up, it’s a vast improvement over Dredd vs Death. There may well be some better games out there, but if you’re after a decent 2000AD game adaptation, while it lasts, you shouldn’t be disappointed with this one. So this comes recommended as follows:

• Avid gamers: the game comes tentatively recommended. I can’t deny that there are better games out there, but there is a certain charm to this game that can't be denied. Better use of Rogue’s weapons and more innovative level design would be appreciated next time, though. 7/10
• 2000 AD readers – well worth a look. The best 2000 AD game yet and bodes well for further adaptations. 8/10
• Rogue Trooper fans: a must-have and the closest you’ll get to an animated Rogue Trooper film. 8.5/10

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