I've been meaning to get this game ever sine I saw the trailer, and I'm glad to say that I wasn't disappointed with it once I finally got it. It was everything I expected it to be and more, but my perception might be affected by the fact that I got during the last Steam summer sale for essentially nothing (10 Saudi Riyals).
Rock of Ages is a slightly unconventional take on the tower defense genre that has you both defending and attacking at the same time. The game was developed by ACE Team, a Chilean game developer, and published by Atlus. Its available on Windows, the Xbox 360 and the PS3. The game has a very solid single player campaign as well as multiplayer, although the multiplayer is a bit emaciated now since its been a few years since the game came out.
The game is quite simple as a whole, with there being two main aspects to the game mechanics the attacking and defending. The two aspects are not separated from one another with the game flow from one to the other quite quickly. For the sake of structure I'll discuss them one at a time starting with the defensive part. Unlike conventional tower defense games you aren't really building towers in the conventional sense, you are more appropriately building obstacles some of which are static (Towers, Giant Fans and Seige Machinery) and others are mobile (Elephants, attack cows). This is where Rock of Ages starts to diverge a little from other tower defense games, since you build these obstacles knowing that your opponent can and might full well destroy them during their attack if you don't place them well, although sometimes you are building them just to act as glorified speed bumps, and once these things are destroyed the space they occupied can't be used again for the entire duration of the round. The move to block out space might bother some, but I personally saw as an added layer to strategy since you can use this empty space to manipulate the attack if you place you defences well. The defence isn't the main draw in the game's mechanics though, at least not for me or the trailer used to market the game, the main draw is the attacking. Attacking is a much simpler animal, you have a giant ball that you control and attempt to hit your opponents gate with as much force as possible as quickly as possible while taking the least among of damage to the ball itself. That sounds a lot less fun than it actually is since in your race to the gate you are going to be avoiding or smashing your opponents obstacles and rolling down the track as quickly and carefully as your nerves will let you so that you can smash your opponents gate before they smash yours. Your ball can also be coated with different layers to increase its offensive and defensive capabilities. As a whole its really fun, tense and quick experience that you get from each game in Rock of Ages.
However, while having some pretty solid game mechanics the winning factor for me has to be the game's charm and aesthetics, hell, its the only reason I decided to take a chance on the game and buy it. It would be really difficult to separate the music from the art and tone and talk about them, so I'm not going to because its the whole product that is convincing as opposed to these parts on their own. The easiest way I can describe the game is that its essentially Monty Python in videogame form. If you can manage to remember the animated parts of the Monty Python and the Holy Grail then you essentially have an exact picture in your head of the cut scenes, character design and overall look of the world in the game. The similarities can be seen in the less tangible things as well such as the constant juxtaposition of very serious concepts and people in very silly contexts and mannerisms. The overall tone of fun also just seeps through everything from the funny cut scenes to the creative boss design. This is simply put a game of such strong character that despite having very little to no use of language any that plays it is going to clearly understand what is going on and have a fun time along the way.
Rock of Ages is a really simple game. You have some giant balls, your opponent has some giant balls and roll at each other in the hope that you can break them before they break you. All the while various figures and events from European history prance across the screen in their attempt to amuse you. I'm a bit worried about going on even more about the game since I do want to over think the entire experience. The game's price might be a bit high given than its been released for a few years now so I might recommend that you wait for it to go on sale like I did, but I can safely say that even without a sale the single player experience in the game is totally worth it.
The game is quite simple as a whole, with there being two main aspects to the game mechanics the attacking and defending. The two aspects are not separated from one another with the game flow from one to the other quite quickly. For the sake of structure I'll discuss them one at a time starting with the defensive part. Unlike conventional tower defense games you aren't really building towers in the conventional sense, you are more appropriately building obstacles some of which are static (Towers, Giant Fans and Seige Machinery) and others are mobile (Elephants, attack cows). This is where Rock of Ages starts to diverge a little from other tower defense games, since you build these obstacles knowing that your opponent can and might full well destroy them during their attack if you don't place them well, although sometimes you are building them just to act as glorified speed bumps, and once these things are destroyed the space they occupied can't be used again for the entire duration of the round. The move to block out space might bother some, but I personally saw as an added layer to strategy since you can use this empty space to manipulate the attack if you place you defences well. The defence isn't the main draw in the game's mechanics though, at least not for me or the trailer used to market the game, the main draw is the attacking. Attacking is a much simpler animal, you have a giant ball that you control and attempt to hit your opponents gate with as much force as possible as quickly as possible while taking the least among of damage to the ball itself. That sounds a lot less fun than it actually is since in your race to the gate you are going to be avoiding or smashing your opponents obstacles and rolling down the track as quickly and carefully as your nerves will let you so that you can smash your opponents gate before they smash yours. Your ball can also be coated with different layers to increase its offensive and defensive capabilities. As a whole its really fun, tense and quick experience that you get from each game in Rock of Ages.
However, while having some pretty solid game mechanics the winning factor for me has to be the game's charm and aesthetics, hell, its the only reason I decided to take a chance on the game and buy it. It would be really difficult to separate the music from the art and tone and talk about them, so I'm not going to because its the whole product that is convincing as opposed to these parts on their own. The easiest way I can describe the game is that its essentially Monty Python in videogame form. If you can manage to remember the animated parts of the Monty Python and the Holy Grail then you essentially have an exact picture in your head of the cut scenes, character design and overall look of the world in the game. The similarities can be seen in the less tangible things as well such as the constant juxtaposition of very serious concepts and people in very silly contexts and mannerisms. The overall tone of fun also just seeps through everything from the funny cut scenes to the creative boss design. This is simply put a game of such strong character that despite having very little to no use of language any that plays it is going to clearly understand what is going on and have a fun time along the way.
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