Rocketmen: Axis of Evil
There’s no shortage when it comes to sheer variety of games available for Xbox Live and Playstation Network. Particularly now that the XNA developer’s kits are being made available, gamers are bound to see dozens of new and innovative titles. Many of the most popular Live Arcade titles are based on, of all things, board and card games. Such is the case with Rocketmen: Axis of Evil.
Rocketmen is a constructible strategy card game by WizKids that features bright, colorful artwork with a heavy cartoon flavor and a healthy dose of humor. Earth has been overrun by the evil Legion of Terra, and it’s up to the Alliance between Earth’s rebels, the Mercurians, and the Venusians to stop Terra’s and Mars’ Axis of Evil. The card game is accompanied by a series of Flash animated episodes with plenty of tongue-in-cheek gags. Capcom brings the look and attitude of the card game to a 4 player 3/4 top down shooter with RPG elements. Sounds perfect, right?
Unfortunately, the charm of the animated series does not translate well to the game. Cut scenes feature familiar characters, but are presented in lackluster 3D in comic-book like fashion. Characters walk (a little) and talk (a lot) though their lips don’t move and their bodies are stiff.
Gameplay follows suit. Generally similar to the classic arcade game Smash TV, up to 4 players can create their own character chiseled from one of 4 species and then several classes for each, but it makes little difference except in minor clothing and skin color variations. Your character is then dropped onto a world to complete one task or another, essentially survival until an end boss. From a 3/4 top down perspective, move your Rocketman with one stick, aim and fire with the other. Kill everything that moves, grab a new weapon and fire till you run out of ammo and pick up a variety of resources to be used after completion to upgrade your abilities and weapon effectiveness.
For the most part, this type of play is all well and good, but Rocketmen is sluggish and unexciting. Camera problems are plentiful: invisible walls are everywhere and once you’ve set foot past a certain spot, you’re unable to retreat back to it. This linear progression (remember the first Super Mario Brothers?) gets even more frustrating when a power-up appears but it’s just a hint out of boundaries for the playfield, so even though you can see it, the dreaded invisbile wall and cemented camera prevents its retrieval.
For Xbox Live players, achievements are relatively easy to get, since just getting through a level earns one, and being that you have unlimited lives, you’ll have it run through in a matter of hours.
I suppose if you’re a fan of the offline card game, this might give a few moments of satisfaction, but the less than impressive cut scene animation and sluggish on-screen action makes it all just a little boring. What I do recommend is visiting the WizKids website and downloading the animated episodes for a few laughs: http://www.wizkidsgames.com/
