[Review] – Rock of Ages

[Gamercide]

Ever wanted to crush Napoleon with a giant boulder?  How about Marie Antoinette, Louie XIV, or Leonidas?  In Rock of Ages, that’s just what you’ll get the chance to do, if you can smash through their castle door before they smash yours.  Part tower defense and part Marble Madness, with a Monty Python sense of humor is what is on tap here.  Read on to find out if the game rolls to victory or gets smashed with a resounding fart.

From any other developer the concept of Rock of Ages would just be odd, however ACE Team is known for Zeno Clash.  Rock of Ages is a 3rd person/1st person fighting action-adventure game.  So combining genres is nothing new for them.  You play the main story as Sisyphus.  If you don’t know the story of Sisyphus, he is a character in Greek mythology that is punished by Zeus.  His punishment?  He is forced to roll a giant boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, for all eternity.  Through a very Monty Phython-esque intro video, this story is told.  However, unlike the mythology, Sisyphus gets tired of rolling the boulder and decides to use it to escape.  Thus begins our adventure through time.

As Sisyphus, you will roll your boulder through five different time periods.  Each new level, you are given a castle and tasked with protecting your gate with towers, cows, dynamite barrels, and catapults.  Here in lies the big problem with the game, the tower defense mechanic.  While not completely bad, it truly is the weakest link in this chain of events.  You are given a rather large play area to build your units that are used to protect your castle.  As with most tower defense, you pay money for each unit. The bigger the unit the more it costs to build.  While this sounds good in theory, the cursor for placing units is a little tough to control.  Also, the AI is sometimes overpowering.  Easily placing its units on the field with lightning speed while you are dealing with the unwieldy cursor.  The mechanic gets some better as you get used to it, but never quite feels right.

The Marble Madness portions of the game are where the real fun begins.  Once your minions have constructed your boulder you are given the option to add armaments to it such as spikes, flames, etc.  These will make it not only more powerful when it hits the enemy gate, but also more resilient to the enemies defenses.  As you roll down the hill you will be smashing and jumping the defenses that your enemy has set up.  Smashing enemy units will net you more cash to spend towards setting up your next round of units after you hit the enemy gate.  When you are near the enemy gate you want to try and gain as much momentum as possible and hit that gate as hard as you can.  If you are able to smash through the enemy gate before he gets through yours, he or she will scream in terror.  Upon smashing the enemy leader you will continue to the next round.

There are 2 modes of Split Screen or Xbox Live multiplayer.  War is the exact same as the main story mode.  SkeeBoulder has each player rolling down a hill smashing different items littered around to increase the score and then aiming at a target to gain multipliers.  It is fun for the first few rounds but becomes extremely repetitive as it never changes.  More options for SkeeBoulder really would extend the life of multiplayer.  Instead we get a couple of modes that are good to goof around with but never fully develops in to something with staying power.

Overall Rock of Ages is a fun game.  The Monty Python visuals are a big draw for me and the Marble Madness-esque sections are a blast.  Tower Defense and Multiplayer are lacking in polish but don’t drag the game down all that much.  ACE Team has come out very strong with their second game.  With a little more time spent; I think this could have easily been a sleeper hit.  I’d recommend giving the demo a try. I’m willing to bet you laugh more than once.

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[Kevnvek]

Good review Spawn. I was considering reviewing it a few weeks back, but never got around to it with camping and stuff. Turned out good though, I liked Zeno Clash for all its oddness, so I may have to check this one out sometime.

[Dateranoth]

Nice review. The game looks really quirky, but I guess that's what they are known for. I really like the art style though.