I've never played the original 2008 game because I never heard of the original game just right before Rocket League was first released for PS4 and PC in 2015, which just got caught everyone's attention. It gained 18 millions players and sold 6 million sales after the releases is due to offering titles as free downloadable game for PS Plus members on release date, to market the game. It receives critically praised reviews and won several awards from video game critics considering it's one of the best sports game and most competitive multiplayer games in 2015. Despite the game's popularity, the game was later released for XBONE in February 2016, and the retail version was released in June 2016, which distributed by 505 Games for the retail release, so I've just brought this game as the retail copy for PS4.
My thoughts on this game is just how amazing the game is because i'm into with playing arcade style sports titles like NBA Jam, NHL Hitz, Mario Strikers Charged, Virtua Tennis and more of awesome arcade sports games that i'm only liked as the sports genre, so same thing with Rocket League has outstanding gameplay controls, insane trickstyle to learn, gains more boost speed, customisable vehicles, selectable stadiums with addictive game modes to play, awesome season mode and it has competitive multiplayer modes with 4-player splitscreen and online play which makes the game worth to play. The graphics are looking amazed with nicely designed environment, smooth animation, gorgeous visuals and it has really cool looking vehicular design choices with fitting colorful textures. What really sounds cool about the collector's edition is it has 3 DLC codes and limited art print that the game came with bundled as the retail copy, which is worth for £20 price cost.
Presentation
This game comes with selectable main menu such as showroom where you can examine each available vehicles on the list, which is sounds pretty cool to see the design choices of playable vehicles in the showroom. The garage is where you can customise your cars with selectable items such as car's design, paint jobs, decals, wheels, rocket trails, toppers and antennas which is really fun to customise your own vehicles. The season mode has up to 36 or 38 weeks matches with well presenting scoreboards which shows win, loss and draws or shots and assists for each match which is quite handy to show how many you scored the goals and how many win, loss and draws you have received in each match. You can also checkout the online rankings to see your player's experience levels and top rankings that gives a players a motivation for this game.
Watching the replays will show the best of player's moments, which can be stored into replay mode, so you can able to watch and see player scoring the goals, but you can also use the camera settings that gives you an options by setting in different angles and zooms while playing the replay videos is sounds pretty neat to use.
Overall, the whole presentation brings great showroom, cool customisable vehicles, online rankings and neat replays videos.
Gameplay
This game has season mode, exhibition mode including offline matches and 3 game modes, and online play.
During the gameplay matches, your main rule is to beat your opponent by scoring many goals till the time is over, so the teams who has scored the most points than the opponents are the winner in the game. The good thing about the game it has no foul and offside restrictions, it's just a straightforward vehicle sports game with no useless restrictions rules, which makes the game even more fast paced and fun to play. The gameplay is handled well with driving controls is much easier to control the players. You got basic acceleration and brakes/reverse to use in the game, but you can use boost speed to make your car go faster, so it can be also increases with boost power-ups in the pitch and you can also drift your car by holding the drifting button which also worked fine in the game. Using the jump button makes your car hop up, but pressing double jump will allow car to hop twice or holding the drifting button will make your car go rolling while in midair, which can be used for performing the awesome trickshots like pool shots, aerials shots, bicycle shots and other crazy stylish moves to perform, but it can be little bit difficult to master, but the more you get used too with trickshots the more you played better. You can also drive around the walls in Spiderman style is sounds kinda crazy to see how amazing the cars can able to drive on the walls. You can change the ball cam options by turning on which is helping the players to focus on the ball more which is easier to hit the ball directly while turning the ball cam off is giving the players freedom to drive around which benefits for using double jumping in different directions. There are some problems with the game is the vehicle can be too floatly in midair when trying to aim at the ball, which you could end up missing hit the ball and the ball can be bounced up too high which is bit difficult for players to hit the ball directly to goal net, but I say the gameplay is still pretty fun and playable which is great for most of the casual players. It does have some great game modes such as soccer modes is more like a standard football arena which is pretty basic to play and you also have basketball mode where you have to bounce your ball into the hoops which is quite hard, but it's pretty fun to play and you have hockey mode which makes the hockey puck more heavier and slippy is still pretty good as well. You can configure your game modes which give you options to select any stadiums, team size, bot difficulty and mutators settings with insane gameplay configurations such as ball type, gravity, boost speed and plenty more of them. You can also enjoy the game by playing through season modes, online modes and 4-player splitscreen modes are all featured in the game.
Overall, it has brilliant arcade style gameplay, great game modes, and addictive multiplayer modes.
Graphics
The developer team uses the Unreal engine 3 to keep the game more fresh and polished by running on full 60fps and 1080p resolution allowing the game able to run playable and making the whole environment much easier to handle the hardware system. It has well made environment design for futuristic sport stadium are looking so spectacular to see a wonderful made stages. The animations runs so smooth that game can able to perform better fps speed with no gameplay lags and no any of slowdowns, so they wanted to make the game feel more precised without adding any of the additional heavy graphics details. The visuals are looking outstanding with nice lightings, cool looking neon colours, and impressive shiny looking special effects that made the game look so good for today's consoles and PC's. I also loved the design of the vehicles that brings up a good concepts that really fits to this game because it's looks friggin gorgeous to see how the developers team can able to achieve such amazing graphics overall.
Overall, it has polished animation, well made environment, outstanding visuals, and impressive special effects.
Music and Sounds
This game does have really terrible modern dance soundtrack compared with original 2008 game has really amazing hard rock theme song which can be played by using cool easter eggs on the title screen if you're using the Konami codes in order to play a original theme song from Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars which is sounds cool, but if the whole modern dance soundtrack is gets too annoying in Rocket League then there's are solution to play with custom MP3 instead, so you just need to turn down the music volume on the options menu and then connect your USB devices into your console which can be played on media player apps, so you can able to enjoy listening your own custom MP3 soundtrack while playing this game.
The sound effects has really nice vroom sounds from car's engine and the crowd cheering are sounds pretty amazing in the stadium that really fits the atmospheric background noise.
Overall, they could have been brought the better soundtrack than this, so i'm pretty sure they will bring the better soundtrack like the original 2008 game with right music genres (like Rock and Metal) in later future updates, but the sound effects are still pretty sounds decent.
Special Features
The collector's edition has 3 DLC codes which adds more unlockable vehicles and items, and it has awesome limited art print with great looking art style.
Advantages
Brilliant arcade style gameplay
Great game modes
Awesome customisable vehicles
Addictive multiplayer modes
Outstanding graphics
Using custom MP3 is convenient
Decent sound effects
Disadvantages
Floaty midair
Ball bounced up too high
Terrible modern dance music
Final Verdict
Presentation 8/10 - Great showroom, cool customisable vehicles, online rankings and neat replays videos.
Gameplay 8.5/10 - Brilliant arcade style gameplay, great game modes, and addictive multiplayer modes.
Graphics 9/10 - Polished animation, well made environment, outstanding visuals, and impressive special effects.
Music and Sounds 6/10 - Bad dance soundtrack, but decent sound effects.
Special Features 8/10 - 3 DLC codes and limited art print.
Overall 8.5/10 - Rocket League is a fantastic arcade style sports game that offers such an impressive gameplay style, amazing game modes, superb multiplayer modes and cool customisation for playable vehicles that made this game look spectacular for modern game consoles and PCs. If you're into with arcade sports genres then this game is definitely for you to buy it from downloadable stores or if you want the collector's edition then get the retail version from the online or physical gaming stores.
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