Review: Rochard (PC)
Space marine? No. Space miner? Yes. Recoil Games invites the player to the mix of physics based puzzling, platforming, and side scrolling shooting. This is a first effort from the Finnish indie studio. In Rochard you play as John Rochard along with your astro mining crew just after stumbling upon supposed proof of alien life. Soon afterwards, John’s team goes missing without a trace and he finds himself stranded on the asteroid and under attack by space bandits.. These events leave Rochard and company to fend for themselves. Ultimately it’s then up to Rochard and his application of Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of physics.
A once enjoyable puzzle heavy job is quickly diminished to a mix between shooting and puzzling once you gain access to a firearm early in the game. If one were itching to finally just blast through enemies, so be it, but the satisfaction gained for solving puzzles greatly outweighs muscle particularly in the earlier sections. A gun with infinite ammo (Rock Blaster), although having a cool down period, doesn’t completely transform Rochard from good to bad, but I feel the developers put a gun in your hands prematurely. Taking the alternate route of disallowing the player the use a gun could have led to more satisfying outcomes against foes by instead letting the player use the environment and Newton’s laws of motion.
Rochard plays in multiple genres of gameplay. A classic design choice term dubbed ‘Metroidvania’ snuggly fits the description of Rochard. In the case of upgrades, Rochard’s G-lifter (Gravity Gun) can only lift crates early in the game yet can later bend bullets away and launch explosives back at enemies that of which I never cease to tire.
Rochard is well paced offering up good mix of physics based puzzles, shooting, and low gravity platforming that turn normal jumps into epic feats of traversal. Gravity is changed with an easy press of the L1 button at any given time. The mass of objects stay the same, and you’ll soon find how they interact at different levels of gravity. The HUD is also nice enough to let you know the weight of the object. Even though the game offers a nice mix, there are portions of the game that feel as filler, or become a chore since the solutions become so apparent. It often ends up the case of being busy work rather than a real puzzle.
Recoil Games then explores the realm of logic puzzles by use of differing force fields. Blue force fields disallow non living matter through, while red force fields block carbon based life forms, more importantly, you. Other fields block laser fire (yellow), and the all encompassing white field block all matter. Things can get quite fun when you come across an intricate wave of different colored force fields and multiple types of objects at your disposal. Sometimes, there’s even more than one solution. Rarely will you get stuck because objects required to finish puzzles regenerate quickly, a good design choice. It’s also nice that the check points are plentiful and each save is located at those checkpoints so that you can come back to a puzzle with a clear head.
The charm of Rochard’s story and writing quickly turn predictable. Characters soon turn out to be not as humorous as they could have been and rewarded cut scenes turn out to be ones I wanted to skip. Rochard’s personality is hard to pin point. Rochard appears as it should be funny at face value considering the setting and character designs, yet the game only netted a few smirks from me throughout. Take Rochard for what it is, as I assume developers never intended on enthralling story, but one that at least kept you playing.
Minor quibbles aside, Rochard does a lot well. Something to note as well is the awesome music that reminds me of early John Carpenter and 80′s inspired electronic music. An early portion of the game even features music from Poets of the Fall. The puzzles are original, mechanically the controls feel good, characters are brought to life with solid voice acting, and replay value is present due to hidden items whenever Rochard ventures off the beaten path. Rochard will net you around 6 hours to complete and is well priced at $9.99. I’m surprised Sony didn’t push this game harder, it’s really good. Recoil Games came out of nowhere with this one taking me by complete surprise. Rochard is definitely worthy of what time you have.
B
