Rocket League

The life of a doctor/personal trainer/ladykiller can often be stressful, and limited time for gaming calls for a piece that is quick and easy to pick up, and is just as easy to put down.

I'm not a fan of sports games by any means, I strongly dislike the genre and tend to avoid it. OUTLANDISH sports games, on the other hand, I'm always willing to take a gander at. My friends and I would burn hours playing games like Super Monday Night Combat, and NFL Street. But until Rocket League came along, I had since ditched the genre.

Rocket League is a pseudo sequel to an older, less recognized title, Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars (Say rapidly three times to induce seizure). And it's RC car soccer, essentially. Now, one might be skeptical as to the amount of fun one can harness from such a straightforward concept, and I was such a skeptic.

Using the Unreal Engine, up to eight players can scramble and rocket boost their way around a field in order to land the ball into the opposing teams goalpost. Where this might seem easy to do at first (As more often than not, cars friend and foe alike will slam into and stockpile on each other as they watch the ball passively bounce into a goalpost), as you pick up skills and get the general idea of mastering the cars maneuvering and rocket boost physics/air steering, the game can become a frantic test of both luck and skill with some pretty sweet goals and some far sweeter saves.

A match is about five minutes if a winner is determined, if there is a draw, it goes into overtime, which is like a sudden death mode, where first team to score wins. BEING 5 minutes, you can imagine a quick game requires very little commitment in the time department and is very easy to set aside when you need to do that thing you've been putting off for so long (Tamim). The game also makes for an ideal party game, as it's not necessarily difficult for a group of novice gamers to get the general idea and have a good time at it, too.

Online matches have thus far been a tossup between the completely satisfying victory/ Soul crushing defeat. Or just two teams watching the ball slide into the goal due to lack of communication and coordination (The latter not essentially a bad thing, if you're a filthy CASUAL). There are casual  online games, and then there's a ranked league where you can go at it in a pickup group, or with a premade team of friends, both with their own fun and frustrating aspects.

My only frustration with this game is, since there are no designated team positions (forward, defense, striker, and goal keeper), very few points are awarded team members who willingly take up positions other than those that score goals. The difference in points between a volunteer goalkeepr and a striker can be in the hundreds. Which is a shame, because in ranked games later down the line, a good goalkeeper is indispensable.

Other than that, Rocket League is a very entertaining little pick up and put down game that I highly recommend for anyone who is a fan of the genre, or for someone looking for a quick and easy game to play!