There has been a lot of first-person shooters under our mice, pads, or whatever devilry we've grasped in all these years. From the adrenaline rush offered by the most frenetic Quake brawls to the more tactical and reasoned approach of Counter Strike, FPS was undoubtedly a constant in our play, thanks to the increasingly vast offer proposed by the various software houses.
Many development teams have proposed a particular vision of the genre: today it's the guys from Final Strike Games who make the guns roar and we at Epic Videogames Guide spent a few hours in the company of their Rocket Arena on the occasion of the last Closed Beta.
Heroes, Gunpowder and PvP
Rocket Arena sees us engaged in 3 VS 3 clashes, focusing the totality of the experience on the multiplayer sector. In the build that was proposed to us during the Closed Beta we were able to select our hero among the 6 available and we threw ourselves headlong onto the battlefield, juggling 3 different game modes in random rotation. The first detail to catch the eye is undoubtedly represented by the really tiny maps, which, thanks to an almost zero respawn time and the very short duration of the matches, characterize the gaming experience of exquisite frenzy.
The modalities are the most classic you can hope for: from a reinterpretation of the dethmatch team through an evergreen king of the hill, to conclude with the timeless capture of the flag in a footballing key. The selected hero will have to accompany us for the entire duration of the match and we will not be able to change during construction, in contrast to the prevailing trend in Overwatch and its derivatives. The heroes themselves have several similarities to the skill kits found in Paladins or the Blizzard shooter: each champion has access to unique weapons and abilities that characterize their use.
Rocket Jumps!
Rocket Arena takes its name from the famous technique known as “Rocket Jump”, typical of the Quake series and re-proposed in a wide range of titles. This particular technique involved launching a missile at our feet, in order to take advantage of the propulsion offered by the explosion to make amazing jumps at the cost of sacrificing a small portion of their hit points. In Rocket Arena this component is naturally enhanced to the maximum of form, removing the danger and applying it to all the weapons of the characters. The effect is that of finding yourself with the arena full of jumping heroes, even the theater of confrontation was not a trampoline. The key to victory is being able to gain an elevated position to ensure victory in gunfights.
At the end of each game of the Closed Beta we were rewarded for our efforts with experience points, which at each level up they granted us access to crates containing cosmetic elements and unique upgrades for our characters. A cheap aesthetic customization will make skins fans turn up their noses, while in order to discern the balance of the upgrades it would be appropriate to wait for the final build and have the opportunity to dissect the title calmly.
Where have I seen you before?
The proposed build proved to be absolutely stable, and the cartoonish aesthetic rendering is very pleasant. What makes the nose turn up is the lack of personality of the heroes, who in the face of a character design that knows of already seen (with similarities to other well-known videogame characters on the verge of plagiarism), it cannot even diversify itself from its illustrious competitors due to the uniqueness of the proposed skills. Even the synergy between the characters is if not absent, very little marked. Very strange if we consider that in the 3 vs 3 format at least the intention of a skill interlocking between heroes would almost be taken for granted.
Although in this Closed Beta it seems clear from the beginning that Rocket Arena points to Esport, with a frenetic and competitive gameplay, it does not however present the uniqueness able to kidnap and engage its target audience, with uninspired heroes and kit of functional skills, but never brilliant. The title of Final Strike Games nevertheless manages to entertain and proposed in the Free to Play formula, fans of the genre will absolutely not be able to deny themselves the thrill of throwing themselves into the air and emptying the magazines on the enemies with carefree, perhaps in the company of some trusted appears raids. We remain confident that we will see substantial changes in character design and we hope that the approach philosophy will be revolutionized, perhaps along with greater identity diversification of the heroes.
► Rocket Arena is a Shooter type game developed and published by Nexon for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 14/07/2020
Rocket Arena is a nice game that we recommend: we decided to rate it with a 68%, if you are interested in learning more you can read the Rocket Arena Review
