Rogue Trooper

Nu-Earth, an uninhabitable burnt-out rock that's near a strategically important worm hole (in space) in the ongoing battle between the Norts and the Southers. The land is decimated and the air a toxic poison. Here, soldiers do battle against one another in environment suits that are bulky and because of the strategic importance and hellish conditions, millions of lives have been lost. The Southers, in an attempt to gain an upper hand, genetically create a super soldier that can heal quickly, fight ferociously and breath the acrid air without any need for an environment suit. But in an act of treason, the regiment of Genetic Infantrymen are betrayed and only a handful survive. This is where you come in - as the Rogue Trooper who manages to save only three of his comrades it's your turn to do some betraying. Because as far as you are concerned, anyone on the other end of the barrel is the enemy, and you will make them pay.

 
"I learned this from the school of John Woo movies."

Sounds cool huh? I should write type for upcoming movies or something, just writing the above got me pumped to go play some more. Well, that's because Rogue Trooper is, in all, actuality a pretty decent action game. You see since action titles have always been a staple in the video-game library, it takes a little something extra to rise above the other titles. And I think that where Rogue won't reinvent the genre, it does present some unique gameplay and a fairly rewarding experience. You see, the thing that sets the game apart from other games is the fact that you rescue three members of your fellow troopers by removing the bio-chip from the back of their necks in the seconds after they died. The chip is basically the soul and personality of the fallen trooper and can be placed into equipment. For instance, Gunnar dies in front of you and in a cutscene you see Rogue cut the chip out of the back of his neck and place it into his rifle. In doing so, Gunnar now enables accuracy in your targeting, the ability to use other ammo types for the rifle and in a strategic twist the ability to place the rifle on the ground to act as a turret while you move elsewhere. The two other characters you find are named Helm who goes in your helmet and Bagman who goes into your backpack. Of course these placing these chips into the equipment creates other options during combat like the ability to manufacture ammo/health in your backpack and on-screen radar. But the real question is; how convenient was it that these troopers be named so close to the equipment they eventually are plugged into? I mean, what would have happened if you had rescued a trooper named Micro? Would you be able to cook a burrito in under 60 seconds? And suppose you would have been the one that was killed and placed into a piece of hardware? What does the name Rogue tell us? Hmmmm...

"Wait, wait, wait... I said get the BIG gun!"

All kidding aside, Rogue turns out to be the real deal when it comes to pulling off the whole "army of one" thing that our own military likes to use as a recruitment tool. With his ability to heal quickly and his intelligent equipment, Rogue does the things only 80's action heroes could have done. And with the ability to use Gunnar as a turret you can set up crossfire-type attacks, or ambush-type scenarios, which really does open up the gameplay. Sure you could just do the whole run and gun thing but that would be ignoring an interesting dynamic that the folks at Eidos created. I should mention at this point that you also have this nifty little hologram projector that can be used to project your image, enabling you to mess with the minds of your enemies; I like how this game works.

Please don't be confused, this is not a first-person shooter, rather it is a third-person adventure style game. Yeah, there is a lot of shooting and yeah, you do find some rather large and powerful weapons in which you can dispatch your enemies. But there is a certain charm that the game seems to slowly wrap you up in. I found myself embracing Rogue's plight and the vengeance he feels he needs to exact upon, well... everyone.

 
"The Blue Man group presents... Explosions!"

Controlling all of this mayhem is done very well. With the third-person perspective there is the traditional chase cam that allows you to get a slightly higher point-of-view perspective, it works really well in this game and if they had initially had thought that this could have been a FPS (I don't know, I'm just saying) they made the right decision sticking with the third. Rogue moves pretty good and fortunately has the ability to hop up onto platforms or objects that are slightly higher then waist high, unlike other games of this type. He can also blind fire, take cover and move rather stealthily. It's a good mix of moves for a game and the developers made them easy enough to execute so that if you are in the middle of some crazy action sequence, you could do them without fumbling.

You would think that a planet named Nu-Earth that has been described as a war-torn uninhabitable wasteland would have some interesting things to look at. And there are - buildings are decidedly rubble strewn, the whole place looks like a dump and there is all sorts of stuff left laying around. It looks good, but I think it needed to look worse in a destroyed/messy way. I would have liked to seen more bodies lying around including lots of skeletal remains. Supposedly there has been millions of lives lost in this war, where are the corpses? If this place is as bad as the game would like you to believe, then I think the joint really needed to show that. As a fan of games and movies that show a blown out apocalyptic future, Rogue should have been this to the nth degree. So while the game doesn't feature bad graphics, I think the implementation of the look of the game, missed the boat a bit.

What surprised me probably the most, was that Rogue and his comrades actually had personalities and individuality. This was conveyed to me by the way they spoke with one another and their witty banter. Voice acting was on-par and it surprised me because the game does a good job of making you think (initially) that the squad is made up of clones. And by my thinking I assumed that clones would be these mindless, order-taking robots who didn't crack jokes or poke fun at one another. So good move on the developers part, by tricking me. Of course since the game is a revenge-driven title, I shouldn't have been surprised that Rogue had other emotions, I already knew he possessed that vengeance gene.

Gameplay: 8.5
Smooth controls, lots of actions for Rogue to perform and the ability to apply different methods of strategy all throughout the game.

Graphics: 7.5
Again the game looks fine, and Rogue and the enemy soldiers all look good, but I really wanted to see a full-blown holocaust of destruction. The A.I. seems to be a bit spotty, but the game makes up for it with cool looking explosive effects and big, nifty guns. I can see traces of all sorts of different Sci-Fi influences in here.

Sound: 8.2
Boom! With in-game Dolby Digital, I like all the sound effects and action noises that this title pumps out of the speakers. The folks at Eidos have never really cut corners in their in-game sounds and this one keeps the tradition alive. Decent voice work gives the otherwise cloned troopers a bit more individuality.

Difficulty: Medium
The game was a little too short for my liking. The A.I. was relatively easy to take on and the bad guys would not even run if I tossed a grenade at them.

Concept: 7.9
Super soldiers taking on everyone has been done to death. But the game scores points for having an original idea with the bio chips of fallen comrades placed into the equipment. But the ability to find scrap and have Bagman convert it to ammo makes that whole difficulty thing that much easier.

Multiplayer: 7.0
With a game like this I half way expected it to have a decent multiplayer experience. And while there is a couple of nifty play options involving you defending your base from an invasion of Nort soldiers called "Stronghold" I honestly don't think this game had enough multiplayer play for my liking.

Overall: 8.0
It's a decent adventure game that has some really interesting ideas on gameplay. It may be a tad too short, but there is some fun to be had while playing.