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Are you ready for a review of the most exciting soccer game on 4 wheels? It's soccer, but in rocket powered battle cars. Easy to pick up but difficult to master, this is ROCKET LEAGUE.
Rocket league is beautiful in it's simplicity, like the beautiful game. Score more goals than your opponents and you win. Simple right? Well thanks for coming to the review. See you on the field.
RECORD SCRATCH
Ok, now the icebreaker is done, let's get into the important bits. The game is very accessible to gamers of any level - gamers can pick this game up and know what to do straight away. Players who play racing games might pick this up faster, but it is not necessary to gain enjoyment. The fun really starts when you are able to leave the ground by jumping and boosting into the air, like a LITERAL ROCKET. BOOM
Rocket league is best enjoyed with a group of friends, online or couch co-operatively and who are close to your level of experience. Since the matchmaking will find you opponents close to the top ranked player in the party, if there is a large skill gap, you're gonna have a bad time. However, the matchmaking is usually (USUALLY!) pretty good at finding you opponents within a few ranks of where you are at. That's because over 4 years after release there are still hundreds of thousands of players still playing it!
Playability
There's so much to play and enjoy! Do you like to "1v1 me bro?" You're covered. There's also 2v2 and 3v3 in ranked as well as casual. Gather a party of 4 and hit the 4v4 casual chaos mode. There's a very good reason it's called chaos.
If you get sick of the soccer mode, the fun doesn't need to stop there. There are extra modes: hoops the basketball equivalent, snowday is ice hockey, drop shot where you have to break open the ground to score. And there's rumble. Think Mario kart power ups crossed with 3v3 mode. There's a solid selection of powerups to use that drastically change the game and it gets very crazy very fast. But that's half the fun, right?
You will no doubt decide early if you want to "git gud" at the game or just play casually. If you decide the former, you will want to hit up the training menu. You can hop into freeplay where you can hone your skills. You and the ball. Nothing more required. Or you can hit up the custom training packs. Many legends of rocket league have created specific training packs for rocket leaguers of all levels from new to professional.
It's a lot to choose from, but you will find what you like playing best and likely stick to it. 3v3 ranked is my game!
Sound
There's not much to cover. It sounds pretty much as expected. You can pick your motor noises to change it, the most annoying being the motor mouth *motor mouth noises* to big v8s and futuristic cars.
The arenas often have different level's of voice commentary based on what is happening. For example if you make a good save, a voice will scream WHAT A SAVE or GREAT HEADER of you score. It's different for every map and always remains enjoyable.
Graphics
ROCKET LEAGUE IS STUNNING. With the creation of the xbox one x, we received an upgrade pack for 4k graphics. It looks superb on a good 4k enabled tv. Even without the 4k enhancement, the game contains very bright and colourful arenas. Neo tokyo is the best map, don’t @ me.
There are also endless customisation options that look great on the cars. My favourite loadout is my watermelon. I have the watermelon car decal, water melon slices for wheels, worried water melon car topper, warm watermelon slice antenna and watermelon boost. I am often worried for my opponents when I play in this car, because it is usually too much awesome for them to handle. My friends and I joke that the car is too overpowered, but the reality is that all cars behave mostly the same way, apart from their hitboxes. There are only a couple of different hitbox sizes, but don't worry about that, just pick the octane. It's the best car. You're welcome.
In game purchases
A controversial topic for many, when Rocket league launched, they had random luck lootboxes. In a recent update, these crates were removed and replaced with blueprints. The idea being that you buy premium currencies (credits or esport tokens) which allow you to buy the specific item in the blueprint. No random luck involved. These purchases are completely optional, but the better items can be very expensive. The best value credit pack is AUD$73.45 and you get 6500 credits. Many of the higher rarity items can cost 2000 credits. That's almost AUD$25 for one item. It definitely bears mentioning that these items are PURELY COSMETIC, they do not give you an advantage over the opponents and you can be the best player in the world with no cosmetic items if you desire. You don't have to do that though, just make sure you collect all the awesome watermelon items for maximum awesomeness.
However, if you want to earn items as you play and level up, a much cheaper option exists: rocket pass. There is the free level of rocket pass where you pay nothing and get customisation items every few levels. But for 1000 credits (AUD$11.30), you can unlock the premium rocket pass which will reward you with a variety of sick items every time you level up. You can complete 6 weekly challenges to level up the paid rocket pass even faster and gain more items. There are 70 unique items in the premium pass and past level 70, you can unlock coloured variants of the coolest items in the game. You also earn 100 credits regularly throughout the levels. If you reach level 110 of the rocket pass you will earn enough credits to buy the next edition of the rocket pass if you don't spend them.
The esports decals are exactly what they say on the box. Customised items that represent your favourite team colours and financially support the esport organisations themselves.
You can also trade many of the items you own with other players. There are guides online as to what items are worth to assist you in making fair trades with other players. There are also many social groups online to find someone to trade with.
Online interactions
This is the double edged sword of rocket league. The online mode is where the game shines, an doesn't.
There truly is nothing in gaming I have experienced like a sweaty tryharding ranked 3 v 3 match where your scores are locked at the end of regular time and you head to overtime. You don't want to mess up and cost your team the game. Pressure is mounting. Your palms are sweaty, mom's spaghetti. The elation of hitting that winning goal is unbelievable. The complete depression of losing in overtime hits like a sledgehammer.
The non shiny part of online are the toxic players. Unfortunately they appear on both your team and the other team. They can range from slight quick chat abuse - dropping a passive aggressive "Okay." when you mess something up, to a multiple spam of "WHAT A SAVE" if you miss something. The worst occurs when people type things out in chat. A lot of the common words are censored, but gamers are always finding new ways to type toxic things in chat. Thankfully you can just turn this off in options. Quick chat only, or team chat only are two good options if you find yourself getting heated because of this behaviour.
can have very toxic players, but you can turn off opponent chat if you wish.
Rocket league also have a decent esport backing, with Rocket League Rivals Series, Rocket League Championship series as regular events. There are also adhoc events run by big youtubers. The prize money is pretty good, but not on the level of League of legends. Still a great addition to the game and awesome to watch when active!
Speaking of youtubers, there are many content creators making excellent videos, from tutorials and finding out why you suck at rocket league, game shows, stories behind iconic moments, montages and much more.
There's really nothing like it available, and the feeling of muscling out an overtime win in ranked is utterly exhilarating
Summary
Drive it like it's hot and I will see you on the field.
5.0