Review: Rogue Trooper

Rogue Trooper (2006, Rebellion) is a third person action game based on the comic book of the same name. You play a genetically engineered soldier whose buddies' personality chips are placed into his gear.

Gameplay
To me, the key to the gameplay in Rogue Trooper is its pacing. Everything moves really quickly. If you're in a stealth area, you'll usually kill three guys then move on. If you're in a combat scenario, you'll kill a dozen guys then move on. Admittedly, I was playing in tourist mode (easy difficulty), but you can too. :)

Rogue Trooper also has a number of additional mechanics, so many it can sometimes be overwhelming. It's got kill.switch style cover mechanics. It's got mines. It's got enemy distracting holograms. It's got a sentry gun that can guard a hallway or keep enemies pinned down for easy flanking. It's got on rails shooting segments. And it's got way more guns than I ever needed.


Eat grenade, monkey!

With this many elements coming together, some of them were bound to fall flat. The on rails segments weren't terribly exciting. The grenade toss mechanism saw way too many grenades bouncing back when the trajectory line showed them going through a window. Sometimes enemies would see me behind cover when they shouldn't have. And the helmet's ability to lure bad guys to me didn't seem to work at all. But the core sneaking and shooting were still fun. And those few times when it would all come together, when I'd be on a turret while my helmet was hacking a door and my sentry gun and mines where covering other approaches, were pretty awesome.

Theatrics
The cut scenes in the game are well done. The voice acting and directing are generally good. The plot is okay. At the end of the day, I didn't find any of the characters or plot points compelling. Perhaps lovers of the comics who already knew who to love and hate got more out of it than I did.

Aesthetics

If I can just get into position without anyone seeing me, I may be able to snipe DiCaprio.

While Rogue Trooper isn't at the top of the technical heap, it does occasionally pull off scenes of impressive scope.

Also, the talking equipment, which I thought would drive me crazy, didn't, which is a minor miracle in and of itself.

Final Score
4 of 5