Will Rock

Overview

Will Rock is a first-person shooter developed by Saber Interactive and published by Ubisoft for the PC. Though the game's graphics were above average for 2003, it was entering a very crowded FPS market and saw little media coverage. Upon release it received mostly middling reviews, and Saber Interactive later moved on to make TimeShift and Inversion.

Story

As the title suggests, the protagonist is Willford Rockwell or Will Rock. Will is an archaeology student, complete with an experienced mentor (Dr. Richard Headstrong,) good build, average looks and a smoking hot girlfriend (Emma) who is also the daughter of his mentor. But when a seemingly uneventful dig takes a turn for the worse, Will is forced into becoming a one-man army against a fanatic cult known as the Olympian Restoration Army (ORA) who have found a way to bring back Zeus and a boatload of mythological beings from ancient Greece (who all really existed, evidently.)

The ORA then murder Richard, and abduct Emma as a mortal bride for Zeus so that he can gain complete power over the mortal world which, unsurprisingly, drives Will over the edge and leaves him in a rather unpleasant position. Luckily for Will the Titan god Prometheus, who happens to be in the market for recruits to destroy Zeus, was close by. With similar goals in mind, Prometheus imbues Will with power leaving him half-man, half-titan - perfect for Will to exact his revenge and rescue his damsel in distress. Locked, loaded and possessed the player is left to control Will as he storms the lost city of Olympus without fear of the terrors within...

Gameplay

Like Serious Sam, Will Rock is a rather fast paced first-person shooter in which the player has access to a plethora of ridiculous weapons that are used to fend off a just as ridiculous number of enemies. These enemies generally attack in mobs with different types of abilities and the aim of the game is to pretty much obliterate them throughout the levels with the occasional boss fight including a Giant Cyclops (not to be confused with a normal cyclops), Hephaestus, Medusa and Zeus himself. These boss fights may make the player think just a tad more by implementing thunderbolts that should be dodged but in the end it still rounds down to point and shoot.

However, the rather non-existent puzzles and platforming in Serious Sam actually show up in Will Rock. The player has to occasionally navigate their way around the environment, usually by jumping around (sometimes with trampolines), destroying a path or finding a switch/lever that does something useful. Swinging axes and spikes are just some of the things that the player must also work around. Scattered throughout the levels are also hidden areas and destructible objects such as pots which contain treasure, encouraging the player to explore and shoot everything. To change things up even more, the player has access to three powers, compliments of Prometheus, which can be purchased and replenished at shrines located around the levels with treasure. They are:

• Immortality - makes Will invincible for a period of time
• Titan Damage - increases Will's damage for a period of time
• Titan Motion - slows everything down for a period of time much like bullet-time

Players have health and armor which are also scattered around the levels and an end-of-level summary is provided summarizing the number of enemies the player killed, treasures that have been found, et cetera. There are three difficulty levels for this game, Will Win (easy), Will Play (normal), Will Die (hard) and there are ten reasonably large levels in both the single player and co-op modes. There is also another multiplayer feature called 'fragmatch', a 16-player deathmatch in which options such as time and kill limits can be set.

Weapons

The starting weapons are the shovel and pistol and the rest of them are unlocked by progressing through the game. They are usually placed in obvious areas with heaps of ammo and are usually paired with many enemies in a situation where the placed weapon would be useful, acting as a kind of tutorial for the weapon.

Description	Image
Shovel This handy archaeological tool serves as Will's melee weapon and is an effective whacking tool
Pistol This 14-round handgun has unlimited ammo and mythological creature stopping power. A good weapon for killing small amount of enemies.
Shotgun Though able to take care of multiple enemies when close together, requires frequent reloading due to it's 5 round magazine capacity.
Machine Gun This rapid fire weapon allows players to spray ammo, with a sacrifice of accuracy; this weapon doesn't require to reload.
Crossbow This weapon acts as a sniper in the game that allows players to shoot incendiary arrows while scoped, it needs to reload after shooting 6 arrows.
Hand grenade This weapon is an explosive that can be thrown at enemies.
Acid Gun This splash damage weapon shoots acid that after a few seconds of contact incapacitates enemies, it reloads after 5 shots.
Fireball Thrower This weapon acts as a rocket launcher in the game with nice damage and hit radius. Perfect for crowd control or boss fights It's slow and doesn't require to be reloaded.
Medusa Gun As the name suggests, this slow firing weapon turns enemies to stone, incapacitating them faster and with a larger spread than the acid gun. Each bottle allows 3 shots before reloading.
Mini Gun Like most mini guns, it's slow to start firing but its damage dealing ability and accuracy are better than the machine gun, however it needs to be reloaded after 100 shots.
Atomic Gun This weapon has a slow fire rate but creates rather big explosions that enemies don't like. How straight and far the projectile flies through the air is directly proportional to how long the trigger is held down for. It reloads after 4 shots.

Enemies

Alligator/Crocodile

These enemies are fast in water and tend to bite.

Apollo Statue/Sphinx

Apollo statues and sphinxes shoot bolts of energy.

Atlas Statue

Atlas statues come to life to hurl exploding globes.

Centaur

These horsemen move fast and throw tridents.

Cerberus

These multi-headed dogs spit dangerous projectiles.

Cupid

These flying babies' weapon of choice is the bow and arrow.

Cyclops

These one-eyed creatures throw flaming rocks and bash things with their clubs.

Discus Thrower

These statues of throw flaming discs.

Harpy/Bird

Both harpies and eagles fly around and spit fire and acid.

Hephaestus

This Greek god attacks with a hammer and homing rocks.

Lion/Tiger

These fast beasts run around and leap or maul to attack.

Medusa

Instead of turning the player into stone, she shoots fireballs.

Minotaur

These mythological beasts attack with an axe, sometimes flaming and split into two blood minotaurs when killed.

Rat

These over-sized rodents explode after running up to the player.

Satyr/Archer

A creature that shoots arrows.

Skeleton

These dead foot soldiers come in different varieties including the regular foot soldier, a flaming spear wielder, a centurion, and a centaur.

Soldier

These fat men either throw exploding flaming maces or blue ricocheting knives.

Zeus

Zeus attacks with lightning or fire while summoning minions.