Rogue Trooper, Review PS2, EIDOS

Rogue Trooper is based on the 2000AD character of the same name and is a new third person shooter from EIDOS and Rebellion. 

Story
The story is set on Nu Earth where a fierce war has been raging between the Norts and the Southers. You take the role of one of the Southers blue skinned genetic super soldiers following the decimation of his battalion and head out on a mission to gain a measure of revenge against the General who betrayed you.

While the bodies of your comrades have been destroyed they live on inside your equipment – their personalities recorded on bio-chips which Rogue finds at an early stage of the mission. Rogue inserts fallen comrades Gunnar, Helm and Bagman into (guess what……), his gun, helmet and bag. (Good job there wasn't a guy in the squad called Dick!!). This essentially gives you a four man team who all offer you extra skills and converse with you through the adventure.

Graphics
The graphics in Rogue Trooper are above average and do relay the artistic style of the 2000AD mag. However while cut-scenes and characters are well drawn the backgrounds on the various levels do seem to be very monochrome and bland. I also found manoeuvring Rogue around to be a bit cumbersome – his movements are a little stiff.

Sound
Again nothing out the ordinary but equally nothing offensive – voice acting is decent although at times a little cheesy and in game weapon effects also sound as they should be. The musical score throughout the game is very well done and adds to the atmosphere and environment.

Gameplay/Controls
The game plays out over a number of levels all of which can be approached and tackled in a number of different ways. You progress through the levels by following objectives which are added to or change throughout the level. Most levels require you to access certain areas, take out certain enemies and reach checkpoints, pretty standard stuff for this type of game. Rogue Trooper excels however in the way that you can go about doing this and the special skills that your comrades afford you. You can set Gunnar up as a gun turret to target and take out enemies while you sneak off and take out Norts stealth style, Helm can project a holographic image of you to confuse the enemy while Bagman acts as your mobile shop by creating health and ammo from salvage recovered. These extra elements really add to the game and the strategic element of the game as you realise that there is more than one way to skin a cat – take the stealthy approach or wade in all guns blazing.
Controls in the game for the most part are pretty decent and well thought out with the exception of the controls for aiming and throwing grenades, these are selected by the d-pad and thrown using square – this is a bit slow and clunky and actually throwing and aiming them is also laborious. Also Rogue throws like a girl and getting any distance with these grenades is near impossible. I found this to be frustrating and some of the head-hunter enemies can be lethal unless subdued by a chaff grenade which can be a pain to select and throw before you are mercilessly taken out.
The game will give you around 8-10 hours of fun and is of a normal difficulty level – there are things to unlock but this is mostly concept art and cut-scenes – not really anything to get too excited about.

Conclusion
Rogue Trooper is an above average third person adventure with a few new tricks thrown in. While by no means revolutionary it is worth a look if you are a 2000AD fanboy or an action/adventure junkie. Overall I give it…………………………………………

7 out of 10

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