ROCKET LEAGUE (2015) REVIEW

Everyone's dream about playing football with cars has finally become a reality.

PC version reviewed.

Rocket League is a sports game published and developed by Psyonix for the Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC. The premise is simple, rocket powered RC cars that play football, or as they call it "soccar".

I remember playing a flash game about a jeep football world cup many years ago, it was probably my favourite flash game and I wondered for years why no one expanded upon the idea, but finally after all these years Rocket League has finally gone and done that.

GAMEPLAY

The skill level the game offers is excellent, as even after 300 hours you’ll still be finding new ways to play your very best game and beat opponents. This isn't just a game you play for a few hours and reach the ceiling, this is a game where you keep on learning for hours and hours, it's very comparable to real sports really, you practice, study it and put in enough hard work and you'll be able to compete with the very best, but even at that top level you're still learning.

The game had four different game modes at launch, those being solo (1v1), doubles (2v2), standard (3v3) and chaos (4v4). Each one you'll have to go into differently, having to do everything in solo, or making sure you cover the space that a third team mate would have had covered in doubles and so on. The game is far from one dimensional though, with teams having to fight it out for superiority on both the ground and in the sky, as it's not called Rocket League for nothing.

You won't really get the hang of aerial hits until at least around 50 hours in, and even then you won't be hitting them regularly for a few hours more. Then at over 150 hours you'll be learning how to best pull shots off while spinning through the air towards goal, and scoring some of those goals can be incredibly satisfying and look very stylish, just look up a few Youtube compilations for some great examples. Aerial hits aren't just for shooting though, dominating the middle of the arena or taking on the role of a goalkeeper and performing spectacular mid-air saves is vital if you want to win games.

The game also has bots for people who want to play offline, you can even do an offline championship if you want to. After just a few hours though you'll probably be getting the better of the bots already, if you're looking for a challenge without going online you'll only find one when you're outnumbered and playing on the highest difficulty, even then though, the best players probably won't struggle too much.

I feel it would have been nice if there was an online championship mode, whether it was playing against bots with friends, or even going up against other people playing in their own championships. Playing exhibition matches with friends against bots or regular matches against other people is certainly fun, but it feels like they missed an opportunity that could have added a really fun game mode in.

All the cars you can pick from are generally around as good as each other, although some may have some very slight advantages that people at the highest level will take advantage of, but for newer players that shouldn't be a problem. There are plenty of different paint jobs, hats, antennas, wheels and even flags, to represent your favourite online community or a specific country, to pick from too, meaning there's plenty of options if you don't like the look of your car.

There are sometimes a few rare bugs that can occur, such as your car crashing out the arena or, rarer still, your car going through the ball. While I'd like to stress these are rare, they can be annoying when they happen, especially as it can lead to you conceding silly goals,

GRAPHICS

I never ran into any frame rate problems with the game, and from what I've heard almost anyone can actually run the game, as it is so easily customizable that it works on most PC's. The game itself looks fine at full graphics, the cars and stadiums look nice, everything seems nicely animated, such as the variety of rocket trails you can use that come out the back of your car, ranging from things like money blowing out of your car, to other things such as a red hot dose of flames showering out as you shoot past opponents.

SOUND

The sound effects aren't at all bad and there's certainly plenty of them to be heard too, with all the different rocket trail sound effects. Perhaps the abilty to have different engines would be nice though, I understand the cars seem to RC powered, but different cars growling out different sounds as they prepare for kick off would be a nice addition. I also liked the crowds reactions, with gasps for aerial hits and boos for blowing up opponents.

The music is fine, I personally haven't found any good enough to add to my music collection, but some people are sure to enjoy the electronic style they've gone with. 

VALUE FOR MONEY

As stated earlier, the game offers countless hours of game time, even past three hundred hours you'll still be learning new things and the fact that this is a game where you have to keep playing and learning after numerous hours, which really makes the game's replay value very high.

The post-release support from Psyonix has been very good too, addressing issues with servers quickly and adding in things like flags that people wanted.

The actual price of the game at launch too was very nice (£15 in the UK), more than half the price of your standard release (£40).

OVERALL

The game is simply really fun, with so many different things to learn and ways to approach it. Along with excellent continued support post release, with new arenas, game modes and more being added in, the moment I saw Rocket League I knew it would be a blast. I would recommend it to anyone, even if you're not into sports games, or car games, this is just so much fun to play, especially with friends.

Thanks for reading this review. I really appreciate it.