Rogue Warrior

There wasn't really any hype or attention paid to the new first person shooter title by Rebellion studios Rogue Warrior. This isn't surprising considering that the FPS is a crowded genre and most of the attention is going to Modern Warfare 2 anyway. I would like to tell you that Rogue Warrior is a surprising gem that provides an entertaining, fun, and lengthy adventure that really makes you feel like a Navy SEAL fighting against impossible odds. Unfortunately, if I said any of these statements, I'd be a flat out liar. Rogue Warrior is a short, dull, ugly, and painfully generic shooter that has no place on anyone's shelf. 
 
If you are unlucky enough to have a copy of this game spinning in your disc tray, you'll be placed in the extremely foul mouthed boots of Dick Marcinko, a no nonsense Navy SEAL who has no problem disobeying orders to get the job done. Shortly after landing in North Korea with two other squad mates, Dick finds himself alone and out manned when his team mates are killed by an enemy's grenade. Disobeying the order to abort the mission, Dick pushes on to uncover what those damn commies are manufacturing, put a stop to them, and avenge his fallen comrades. 
 
The story is bare bones and pretty irrelevant. There is no antagonist, zero emotional investment,  and the cutscenes that try to get the story across are short and provide little to no information. It simply gives Marcinko an excuse to kill a bunch of people in various locations, like a palace and a submarine pen.  
 
Having a lame story can be forgiven as long as the gameplay around it is satisfying. That is hardly the case here. Movement and combat feel stiff from beginning to end. They just never feel quite right. You can adjust to them after a mission or two, but you'll never feel like you're in control as much as you should be. Gun sights are over sized and can make it difficult to see the target you're trying to line up a shot with. There is also a cover and blind-fire system in the game that sort of works, but there are plenty of times I was behind cover and still was getting hit or stuck to a wall without meaning too. 
 
Even with these stiff and awkward controls, enemies pose little threat even on the hardest difficulty setting. To put it simply, the enemy AI is dumb. They have no problem standing in the open or charging your position without firing at you. They are also incapable of hearing footsteps even while Dick is sprinting or one of their own screaming for help, so sneaking up on multiple guards within ear shot of each other and eliminating them one by one is a common occurrence.
 

The only mildly entertaining part of the combat is the close up knife kills which can be activated with a single button press when close to an enemy. Some of the animations for these kills are brutal and satisfying to watch the first few times, but they get repetitive quickly. On top of that, there are times where you'll be prompted with the button icon to kill your target and it simply won't work. I had to mash on the button several times trying to get the animation to trigger.  
 
The visuals aren't any better than the gameplay in Rogue Warrior. The game is ugly. Environments are bland and boring. The textures are blurry and unpolished and consist mainly of grays, browns, and blacks. Character models range from ugly to passable. The animations are nothing special, but some of the close up kill animations look decent.
 
Sound is one of the few bright spots. The overall voice acting, sound effects and music are nothing special, but credit has to go to the voice work of Mickey Rourke. It's not that he has a great performance or anything, but his dialogue is filled with so many over the top, out of nowhere lines of cursing that they're bound to provide some chuckles. My personal favorites include "President Reagan says fuck you", "The Soviet fucking Union can suck my hairy balls", and "The wind is so fucking cold it would freeze a polar bears nuts off". Simply brilliant.   
 
I would discuss the multiplayer but, unsurprisingly, I could not find a single other person playing this game. It has ranked and unranked Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch modes. That's all I can really say about this aspect. However, assuming there's no gameplay or graphical differences between it and the campaign, I call this a blessing in disguise.  
  

Rogue Warrior is a mess from top to bottom. There is no reason to pick up this game, especially at it's full retail price of $60. At least the game is short, clocking in at less than 3 hours on a first play through, so the pain doesn't last very long. Any entertainment obtained from Rogue Warrior will probably come at laughing at it's pure awfulness. If you're an achievement hunter and want a simple 600-700 points, then it should be noted that achievements for beating the game on it's three difficulties do NOT stack, meaning you'll have to play through the game a total of 3 times (took me around 7 hours) to get all the single player achievements. To everyone else, avoid this game.