Atlus’ Newest Title Rolls Well, But Doesn’t Exactly Rock

October 3, 2011 Patrick Hickey Jr. Video Game Reviews, Video Games 0

Part Tower Defense, part Katamari Damacy, Atlus’ new roller, “Rock of Ages” scores big points for bringing back the type of gameplay that made KD such a huge hit. Tie in some comedic elements based on history and there’s little doubt that there’s an audience for this title.

A raucous difficulty will make it a bit harder to love the game however, as the lather, rinse, repeat style of gameplay manages to run thin after a few rolls down memory lane.

The object of the game is easy to understand. Roll and jump your rock down the path, avoid the enemies and their animals and obstacles and knock down the castle door of their leader. After the first few levels, new power ups and enemies are introduced into gameplay. While this spices things up incredibly, the game also gets painfully difficult.

Enough so that even the fun cut-scenes begin to annoy you. Animals in your home in the vicinity of your foot, beware. The game gets so difficult, they will fall prey to a kick in frustration. Simply put, it’s enough to make you stop playing.

Unlike KD, which had a great story with characters you could get easily attached to, “Rock of Ages” takes you on a voyage through time, where you fight everyone from King Leonidas to Vlad Tepes. But aside from different landscape and originally entertaining cut-scenes, little is done to bring these characters to life.

In the end, this is the game’s weakest point. With the actual gameplay being as close to KD as possible and an interesting assortment of obstacles to navigate around, this title had promise, but doesn’t deliver fully.

Without a solid story to latch on to, there isn’t much to rock to here.

The addition of a few more gameplay modes makes up for this somewhat, but with the meat of the game being in the single player conquest, casual gamers may get bowled over by the difficulty.

Had the difficulty been fine-tuned, perhaps “Rock of Ages” could have been more than a one-hit wonder. As it stands, its tune is an intriguing one, but lacks the charisma and comfort needed to induce hours of enjoyment.

mm
About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13872 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*