Rogue Warrior is the latest first person shooter title to hit the market. It is set during the Cold War, a setting that most shooters neglect. There really isn’t much story in the game with the basic premise simply being to prevent Russia from winning the Cold War. Your team is taken out early so you are left to accomplish this objective by yourself. Bethesda aimed this title at the hardcore shooter fans which you will immediately find out the first time you start this game. In addition to the standard first person shooter fare there are also some really vicious “kill moves” in addition to their being profane language on a constant basis. This is definitely not a title that your kids should be playing or even watching you play for that matter.

There are a couple of different ways that you can go through the missions. You start out each mission with the enemy not knowing you are there. If you choose to do so you can employ some stealth here and sneak up on them to perform a kill move. The kill moves are contextual so you will be seeing a variety of them throughout the game. If you are on a bridge you can throw an enemy over the side or if he is standing next to a wall you can smash his face into that wall and there is even an achievement for doing that. You will have a much easier time going through the missions if you can stay undetected for as long as possible. If you don’t want to do that then you can go in with guns blazing and shoot your way through the mission which you might have to do anyways if you are caught sneaking around the level. Your standard weapon is a silenced pistol along with a secondary weapon. You can use your silenced pistol to quietly take people out but don’t miss or they will try and alert their comrades. Additionally you can use part of the environment to help get an edge on your opposition. You will come across exploding barrels quite a bit and in some areas you will come across an electrical box. Simply shoot this and the lights will go out and leave your enemy temporarily dazed. When that happens you can put your night vision goggles on and then take them out before they realize what is going on. Be careful when you are doing this though because it seemed at times that the enemy could still see you in the dark somehow. You also have grenades at your disposal, however, that will obviously create some noise that might attract other enemies. The campaign is shockingly short leaving you feeling unsatisfied when you realize that you beat the game and not just another mission. There are eight missions throughout the game. The problem is not how many actual missions are in the game but how long they are. Each mission is fairly short and a lot of gamers will probably be done with this title in a couple of hours.

As you are going through the game you will notice that the enemy A.I. is a bit of a mixed bag. They have flashes of brilliance where at times they will retreat when you are shooting at them to try and get behind better cover. They will try and flank you if they get the opportunity so if you aren’t paying attention you will suddenly find an enemy standing right next to you shooting you in the face. The times where the A.I. isn’t so bright is when you take someone out and no one seems to notice. It is also really easy to sneak up on someone. There are times when I found a guard staring at a wall. That made it really easy for me to get a silent kill but it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Guards are generally supposed to be patrolling the area, not standing in a building staring at a wall. The cover system in the game is also completely broken. There were times when I wanted to take cover behind a door but the game wouldn’t allow me to do so or if it did it would put me in a spot I didn’t want to be in. Aiming while you were in cover was also a bit of a mess and if you did have someone come up on you good luck getting out of cover quick enough to move around and aim at the guy that is shooting at you. Add that to the fact that weapons aren’t always very accurate and it can quickly turn into an exercise in frustration.

Overall, Rogue Warrior is a fairly mediocre shooter. There really isn’t much of a story to speak of and the story that is there isn’t told all that well. After the first mission or two the environments tend to have a “been there, done that” type of feeling to them. The title does feature some multiplayer action, however, it doesn’t seem like anyone is playing it since I couldn’t get into a game. At full price I can’t really recommend that anyone pick up this title. If you are curious just simply rent it, beat it in a couple hours and then return it. If you are in the mood for a shooter and you have the $60 dollars laying around spend it on Modern Warfare 2.

Score 4/10

Originally posted on Totally Gaming Network