Rogue Trooper: Quartz Zone Massacre Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 11th March 2009

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We head to the Quartz Zone.

Rogue Trooper: Quartz Zone Massacre Details:

Goto Rogue Trooper: Quartz Zone Massacre Game Page

	Third Person Shooter
	Nintendo Wii
	Reef Entertainment
	Ubisoft

16+

Out Now

When you think of third person shooters, most gamers would be able to count as many as they could think of for the Wii on one hand and still have fingers left over. But none the less, I find myself delving into this some what over looked genre on Nintendo’s console but despite some promise I find myself disappointingly unfulfilled with Rogue Trooper: Quartz Zone Massacre!

The game is based around the character Rogue featured in the 2000AD graphic comics. As the sole surviving member of an elite clone Genetic Infantry, Rogue must try to get to the bottom of a betrayal that led to the Quartz Zone Massacre.

Rogue Trooper plays like pretty much every other third person shooter. You start the mission with an objective and as you progress more objectives are added that ultimately lead you to your initial goal. All the usual skills and abilities of any good shooter are present in Rogue Trooper. You can take cover and blind fire in a Gears style way, and have various weapons at your disposal, such as sniper rifle, assault rifle, various grenades and the ability to develop new weapons and upgrades.

The way Rogue Trooper differs from other third person shooters is through the use of Biochips. Biochips allow Rogue to access special abilities and skills from his fallen comrades, whose minds have been downloaded onto these chips effectively keeping them alive until a new body can be engineered for them. Rogue places these biochips of his fallen friends into his own equipment, Helm occupies his helmet, Gunnar is placed in his rifle and Bagman obviously resides in Rogues backpack. Effectively making Rogue four soldiers in one!

As already mentioned the Biochips give Rogue some special abilities, these include being able to deploy his rifle as a sentry gun, manufacture new weapons and generate a hologram decoy. The idea behind these special abilities is very good, sadly though the execution of them isn’t. Resulting in them feeling like nothing more then an after thought and tacked on!

Sadly, poor execution seems to be something of a theme for Rogue Trooper. The pace of the game is unbearably slow and the control system is very sluggish and clumsy. So much so that even with the sensitivity turned up full, commands are fairly unresponsive.

The game also poses very little challenge as the AI enemies are idiotically stupid! They will investigate if an ally falls in front of them from a sniper shot, however they will also stand in the line of fire waiting to be killed. Also if you engaged in a fire fight with an enemy his friends will simply stand by and watch seemingly waiting for their impending demise. Due to this the game has a very scripted and staged feeling. It’s almost as if enemy soldiers know you’re supposed to win, as they spawn from set points in the games levels.

Visually the game offers a bit of a mix, at times it looks pretty good and features nice detail. Whilst at others it looks damn right ugly, with bland textures and poor animation. Despite glimpses of nice visuals though, the game on the whole looks dated and generally ugly. The games audio is fairly good, voice acting and sound effects have been done well, although the games soundtrack is instantly forgettable.

Like so many third person shooters, Rogue Trooper features some good ideas but is ultimately let down by poor implementation. If you simply must have a third person shooter fix, then Rogue Trooper may be worth a look. It’s not the worst game in the genre, but is most definitely not up there with the best.