Rogue Trooper

"A decent game to end my X-Box life span"

Third person shooters are slowly but surely becoming one of my favorite genres. With fantastic games like Freedom Fighters, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, and of course The Punisher, they are a force to be reckoned with now days. As there are great third person shooters, sadly there are also some flat out horrible ones, one such game being the True Crime series in general. Alas though, another great third person shooter has come out of the darkness, and its name is Rogue Trooper.

Rogue Trooper takes place on a world called Nu-Earth. Once a beautiful and arguably the best place to live in the Galaxy, now has become a war town planet, with air filled with poisonous gasses and materials. The war is against two rival forces, the Norts, and well, the GI's basically since they are doing all the fighting, but they work for the Southers. The GI's are blue, genetically made, war machines. Unfortunately, your one of the last ones alive, seeing as how a General on your side tricked the GI's into a trap where they all died except you.

Thankfully, you were able to save three other GI's, by taking out their biochips in their heads, and inserting them into your gun, helmet, and back pack. So now the four of you are out to find the traitor General, and stop an entire Nord army on your own. While the story itself is original enough, I couldn't help but feel the cliques throughout it. But none the less the story will defiantly keep you interested for a while, and you will certainly like the characters and what the have to say throughout the game. The only problem was the length of the game, it felt entirely too short, and ended so abruptly that it left me wanting a lot more.

But even though the game is shorter than I would have liked, the fantastic game play will keep you hooked as long as you play it. I admit the controls are a pain to get used to and you will more than likely be pressing a few wrong buttons, especially if you're used to other games controls like GRAW, but once you master them they will become second nature. With so many different ways of killing your enemy, then what's not to like about it.

With a huge variety of weapons in the game, which includes everything from an assault rifle, to a sniper, to a beam weapon to even an EMP launcher, then you will never be without something to shoot. The different things you can do with your weapons also made it wonderful. Let's say you have to hack a computer console using Helm, the GI in your helmet, but you need some extra firepower. Place down Gunner, the GI in your gun, and have him post as a sentry while you take up point somewhere else with your pistol, and lay down the enemy's while Helm gets the job done. Or you can just make a hologram of yourself, and use it as a decoy for a while.

Unfortunately you will plow through ammo like there's no tomorrow in this game. Which is where the GI in your backpack comes in by using materials and parts you pick up on the battlefield, he can make ammo, perform upgrades, and even create new weapons for you, which is all great, but in the middle of the battle it was annoying to have to stop and buy ammo constantly.

But every GI needs someone to talk to during battle, which is something that your three comrades do a lot. They are always filled with tidbits of info or just simple little things to say, which added to the games fun, always hearing these three, supposed to be dead soldiers talk. The voice acting is great in Rogue Trooper, not the best I've ever heard, but still good enough to make the game a lot more interesting. The voices really do match the personalities of the characters especially with the GI's in your equipment.

Music wise, well Rogue Trooper was kind of generic if you ask me, didn't really impress me, and didn't really set up the intense scenes for me. The action in the game did all that. Sound wise, Rogue Trooper was pretty good, the sounds matched the guns, and the heavy foot steps of the GI and the Nords was nice. Vehicles all had a realistic sound to them, and it was impressive all around.

What made me kind of sad though were the graphics. It may be from playing the 360 everyday to go back to X-Box graphics, or it may just be lack of effort, but Rogue Trooper is not a graphical stand out at all. The character models lacked life, the environments were blocky and not very detailed, weapons and vehicles didn't really look amazing. They were decent, but in this late in the X-Box life, and with so many other games coming out now with amazing graphics, these were just very disappointing.

Rogue Trooper was probably one of the last games I'll be playing on my original X-Box, but at least it went out on a good note with Rogue Trooper. While the graphics lacked seriously, and the music wasn't the best I've heard in a video game, the game play was phenomenal, if not a little hard to master, and the story was compelling, although cliqued I felt. It's a decent buy if you're still looking for titles for the box, especially with a 30 dollar price tag.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/14/06