Developer: Ace Team
Publisher: Atlus
Rrp: £6.99
Released: 7th September 2011
Available on Steam
Played using: Mouse & Keyboard
You are a rock, actually you’re not just any rock, you’re the very boulder that Sisyphus was eternally damned to push up a hill for all eternity. Except one day Sisyphus concocts an idea of how to escape his torment, that’s where you come in. With your help he escape the grasp of Hades and returns to the mortal world. Sadly it seems everyone you meet wants to fight, oh well.
Rock of Ages is a hard one to describe… The best I can come up with is imagine Marble Madness with a touch of tower defence.
The aim of the game? Smash the gates of your opponent before they smash yours, using your rock and squash the person inside. These opponents you face range from creatures of myth to famous historical people, from Hades to Vlad the Impaler and beyond.
You control the rocks direction using the WASD keys and can make it jump with the space bar. Thing is controlling the rock is not all you do. No, no, no. You also have to build defences against your opponents rock as well. You get your chance to do this while each boulder is being carved. You see, once you hit the enemies gates your boulder is destroyed and you have to wait for a new one to be carved. During that time is when you occupy yourself with building your defences. Defences cost money though and the better they are the more they cost and since you start with so little money, how do you think you accrue more? Well, by destroying objects and squishing people on the way to your enemies gates of course, each item destroyed gives you a little more to spend.
Hitting the enemies gate isn’t the only way for your boulder to be destroyed, it has a health meter. Every and bump your boulder takes lowers its overall health and gives it a visibly damaged appearance on your screen. You can mitigate some of this damage by temporarily upgrading your boulder. Once your men are done carving it you will get the option of what particular upgrade you’d like (for a fee, of course), some are simply there to allow you to take more hits but some of the others…. Well they can be pretty weird.
During each level of the story campaign you’ll see golden keys, you’ll need those. You see, if you don’t you’ll find that you can’t progress because a gate will appear that needs a set number for them to open. Some of these keys though are very gain access to and require some puzzling out.
There are four modes to play; War (Story), SkeeBoulder, Time Trail and Obstacle Course. My personal favourite is the story mode though because of the animations and challenge.
Rock of Ages feels like it has taken more than a little influence from the animations of Terry Gilliam (of Monty Python fame) now when it comes to the art and animation style it uses. I have nothing to back up that statement, it’s just the feeling the game gives me and by no means is that a slight.
I love the sense of fun this game has, everything from the sound design, the visuals and music has a sense of whimsy about it. Plus it’s fun to hear Agamendon squeal like a child. Everything in this game is geared to make you smile, which is good because it can be really damned frustrating. Then again maybe I’m just bad at the game.
This is a must have, you won’t find anything like this anywhere else and its a absolute blast to play. There’s about three to four hours of play with the main story and a at least a few more hours to be had from the other modes, more even if you play online with people. And at £6.99 you can’t really go wrong.
If this interests you then perhaps try;
The Orcs Must Die Series
Monday Night Combat
Plants Vs. Zombies
