PSN Review: Rochard
The only six-pack we should be expecting from Rochard is the one hidden in his fridge.
By: Uma Smith
I roll my eyes whenever I go to the gym and see these fellows doing all this heavy weightlifting. What’s the point? All that effort just to gain strength and some bulging muscles (which I must admit look pretty good). Don’t they know that in the future, all this heavy lifting is unnecessary as predicted by Recoil Games’ PlayStation Network exclusive, Rochard? Why face the risk of physical injury when you can rely on technology to do the work for you?
As you can see from our hero, John Rochard, his physical condition appears to be… hmmm; on second thought perhaps continuing to work out in the gym isn’t such a bad idea. Once you’re done though, prepare yourself as Rochard comes floating from outer space and into your PS3 consoles. But, will the game leave an impression as large as Mr. Rochard’s belly?
CONTROLS (3.75/5)
There are a lot of buttons to become familiar with as the control layout makes use of all triggers, face and shoulder buttons. Thankfully, the tutorial helps players get accustomed to the needed commands. Once that happens, you’ll navigate levels and solve puzzles throughout Rochard faster than his belly’s rate of growth.
While moving and aiming remain smooth and responsive, the battles are where the controls can be cumbersome. Having to remember what buttons to press while trying to avoid projectiles and moving objects around can be a daunting task. You’ll find many of your deaths to be unjustified and simply unfair!
GRAPHICS/SOUND (4/5)
Rochard sports a good look… in terms of graphics that is (not in terms of his physical appearance)! You won’t be mesmerized by the visual action taking place on screen, but nonetheless everything seems to maintain a smooth frame rate. On top of that, there are some nice cartoon-like designs and pastel-color usage for the characters, enemies and even the environments.
The voice-acting was quite amusing but also executed effectively. Rochard boasts a soundtrack influenced by the 1980s. The tunes are enjoyable for the most part, and they even get muffled when you are in certain environments, which speaks to the high degree of auditory detail for this game.
GAMEPLAY (4.25/5)
You assume the role of miner John Rochard, who is searching for precious space minerals as requested by his company, Skyrig. Unfortunately, four years have passed and there is still no progress whatsoever in terms of new discoveries.
Finally, John comes across the valuable minerals he’s been searching for. However, this discovery leads to events that spell betrayal and deception. Who’s involved? There’s only one way to find out. Anyway, the plot doesn’t seem that crucial during the gameplay. Your only concerns really are John himself and his female friend, Skyler.
Rochard is essentially a puzzle-platformer that mixes in some combat. Its style is similar to Super Metroid but without that great degree of exploration. Instead, your focus is more on the physics-based puzzles combined with some enemy battles.
You’re equipped with two items — the G-Lifter, which allows you to grab items and enemies from a distance, and the Rock Blaster, which serves as an offensive weapon against enemies. You can also manipulate gravity, thereby gaining the ability to make high jumps as well as lift up objects that would normally be too heavy.
When you take into account the various colored force fields, what you get is a pretty challenging puzzler with some elements included that will throw off your conventional thinking. The blue force field will allow you to pass but not the objects while the red ones are the reverse. There are also yellow force fields, which stop all projectiles or explosions, as well as the white ones that stop everything. To make things even more interesting, the introduction of the inverse gravity fields will have you walking on ceilings. It will have you literally flipping out!
Rochard‘s difficulty ramps up at a steady pace without ever getting out of control. Having five chapters in total, the game is quite lengthy and entertaining. And if you take into account the number of puzzles waiting to be solved in this journey, you’ll be unable to put the controller down without having the satisfaction of completing them. In the end, what you will discover that the amount of content is even larger than John’s own body (now that’s huge)!
OVERALL (4/5)
You’ll find Rochard to be addictive as well as amusing, especially if you can’t look past John’s disproportionate body. If not for the level of entertainment and presentation quality, spend the $9.99 to see how much that belly is sticking out! Either way, you’ll be mesmerized.
