Developer: Interceptor Entertainment
Publisher: Apogee Software
Price: $14.99
Release Date: July 31st, 2013(out now)
Where to buy: Steam, GOG.com, Green Man Gaming, Gamersgate, Apogee store
After a long year of production, a team of very inspired developers pulled together, and brought back a very under rated FPS shooter called RoTT, or Rise of the Triad. A lot of the classic elements were kept for this games production. A ton has changed in the gaming market for shooters, where most opinions for said genre is ether snobbish, or undefined. Examples of the older elements are the enemies. Where they walk almost the same as the older characters, which off the bad my nostalgia bell rung loud as hell. Remixed music from the original soundtrack blasting in the background as you encounter tons of triad goons. All sounding clean and fantastic might I add (listening to it as I write up this review).
The plot is just there to give you a backdrop, something to set the theme in your mind. Otherwise it is unmemorable. You are given a choice between 5 characters. All baring differences between stats. As one of the five members of the elite High Risk United Nations Task Force, you are trapped on an island overtaken by the crazed cultists of the Triad plotting on world domination. I went with the Canadian woman called Thi Barrett in my first play through. Finding her to have a decent balance that I wanted. Speed, and some Endurance. The rest of the Hunt team are Taradino Cassatt, Doug Wendt, Lorelei Ni, and Ian Paul Freeley. While the game stays the same, you do slightly feel the differences, and advantages each character.
Game play in RoTT, is to me the best experience I genuinely had in a shooter in years. Do not mistake it, while it has some optimal issues as well. That aside, this is what many gamers who sit down to play a shooter on PC wants. Not a linear path narrated bore-fest. People want to take a enemy and give them some Gib Stew. Hell I am playing the game on Hard difficulty and I feel I am being tested. Causing me to slightly slow down, and think about how to approach locations. Along the way you are also given several places to locate, such as small, medium, and large secrets as they call it. These spots ether grant secret levels, or killer weapons to give you a advantage. Some cleverly hidden, others obvious and on the same path your heading. This game does not, whats so ever hold your hand. The only things it gives you, is kick ass weapons, and Monk’s Meal. The meal of bad asses, and well.. monks. You most explore each location, finding keys such as gold, bronze, silver, and so forth. With success in locating the keys, you are then given a chance to advance forward and give the triads some good old fashioned boots to asses. Maps in the game are pretty large. Scaling from small, to freaking large. Naturally this would mean the places are big freaking mazes, with platforms, spinning blade traps, ponies, and flames. You know, like the old game from the nineties. Multiplayer while somewhat lifeless, while a few servers are active, I was in a match that was a little bad at least for my ping. I will say past the people who camp the super power ups. The experience is pretty fun. All of the weapons from the singleplayer game are map’d out for players to run across. Such as the Excilibat. That is the games super baseball bat, what, we do not make this crap up! Like yesteryear, shooters had episodes, which were broken up fragments of the game, which like today were sold as DLC. You know the stuff people complain about. However most games released then did give you all of the episodes. Four in total. Each in basis of a theme to every segment to the “just there” story.
Bosses in this game deserve a little bit of a review in there own right, I will only discuss the first episode’s boss for this segment, leaving the rest in mystery(why ruin the suspense). This boss being the ever so bad ass “General” Darian. Who floats in a box in the ceiling, your goal is to survive and take him down while dodging array of traps and hazards, such as waves of freaking plasma, Fire like spikes that rise from the ground and fire balls. As such it is treated like a gauntlet where you are given a pack of enemies who want to steal your oatmeal. You must make them pay. For all the monks out there. The battle over all was challenging, and fun. It was not just a hey this boss is going to chase you around the room with a overpowered weapon, it had variety, and some sort of substance. I basically camped in a side room, til the cyborg demon came down from the rafters and wanted to tap my butt harder then cell block B, but I would not let him take me down. I stirred my Gib Oat meal, and I kicked his .. backside. After of which I felt shaky, stimulated, and excited to see what other horrors they wanted me to rage about. Mind you this rage was not the experience being overly difficult. Just the good old “ Damn I will get him next time!” kind. As I stated above, you will have to wait and see what else they have to test you in this game, for now let me give my final opinions.
In Closing:
This game is fun. While the multiplayer is not as active, the rest of the matter is this, latter on down the line they will allow players to create mods, and open up the floodgates for the Steam workshop. On top of this also FREE, yes FREE DLC that gives everyone more content to enjoy and explore. For now the game is lengthy. As well as allows the player to stop, besides the chaotic game play to look through every nook and cranny to locate secrets, including secret levels. The weaponry in this game was created by a bunch of mad scientists, at least ones who loved the original games OP selection of weapons. Which the mainstay is the crazy-ass rocket launchers. I love this dev-team. Just saying. However a few set backs to this game are present, which honestly will be addressed over time. That being Bugs, glitches, and some account server issues. So knowing a few out there who stalk the Steam sales will swoop on this game around those times anyway. I would heavily suggest keeping up to date on any patches in the recent dates to come. Another funny part to this game is it has cheat codes. Such as god mode, full infinite ammo, etc. This was mentioned to us, but I never used any of the codes. I wanted to absorb the fun of this game. A killer soundtrack. Massive potential in the modding scene, this game is going to be much more to the PC market as it was back then. A quick question to answer to all of the folks who like to locally Lan Party, well my friends, those fun times are back. Get your best acid wash jeans, your hottest of all the pink tee shirts, and make Gib enemies out of your friends. This game overall is very appealing to both my modern gamer side, and the retro enthusiast in me. GET THIS GAME!
P.S.
If you are a cheater, here are the cheat codes.
Enable the console in the options menu then press ~ or TAB to open the console.
Type dipstick to enable cheats
The following cheats are available:
God Godmode
Fly Flymode
Walk Walkmode
Chojin Godmode+infinity ammo+excalibat
Gunfinity Infinite Ammo
Shootme Bulletproof Armour
Burnme Asbestos Armour
Vanilla Bazooka
Hottimes Heat-seeker
Booze Drunk Missile
Splitem Split Missile
Bones Flamewall
Firebomb Firebomb (lamest cheatcode ever)
Kesofdeath Dark Staff
Homerun Excalibat
Cujo Dog Mode
Seeya God Mode
Flyboy Mercury Mode
Boing Elasto Mode
Badtrip Shrooms Mode
NOTE: CHEATING CAN AND LIKELY WILL MAKE UNEXPECTED THINGS HAPPEN. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. ALSO, CHEATING WILL DISABLE YOUR SCORE AND ACHIEVEMENTS FOR THE LEVEL – YOU DIRTY CHEATER.
