‘Revenge Of Roger Rouge’ Review – No R&R Here

Revenge of Roger Rouge is not just a clever use of alliteration. Its developer, Trazzy Entertainment, worked to ensure that the game, which follows the tale of a maritime pirate named Roger Rouge (and his subsequent and expected revenge), seemed like an authentic seaside tale of pirate life. Unfortunately, for as gorgeous as the game can be, its gameplay falls short of holding your attention past the ten minute mark.

I never like to deride indie developers as we all know how hard they work and how much effort they put in. So it is not my intention to undermine the developer’s work, but rather just my (semi)professional opinion as a gamer and game critic when I say that the game really does fall short of a worthwhile experience.

To start with, the gorgeous animated introduction is a good indicator of how the game is treated visually: the artists have clearly done their jobs right, and it sure is a beauty. The 2D arcade look works really well with the animations that Trazzy has drawn up, and the ship models, pick-ups, weapons, etc. look good enough to be a selling point for the game. But aside from this extra polish on top, there really doesn’t seem to be much depth to Revenge of Roger Rouge.

In essence, the game is a side-scrolling arcade shooter. You can move your ship freely with the arrow keys, but you can’t go back to an area as the game screen scrolls on its own. Along the way, you’ll run into loads of other ships, all of which seem to want to take you down! You can shoot them by pressing the space key, and upon destroying a ship may be fortunate enough to find some weapon or health pick-ups. There are a variety of weapons, but essentially they play the same way: you don’t really do anything else but shoot them towards enemy ships. For example, there’s little difference between a cannonball on fire and a cannonball as is, aside from the amount of damage it deals.

Gameplay-wise, Trazzy has built a functioning and pretty game to look at. But the scale of fun with Revenge of Roger Rouge is pretty minimal. The environments, albeit they change from stage to stage – sometimes you’ll get dawn or dusk, islands nearby, or maybe some stormy weather – all end up feeling the same. Even whirlpools, when thrown into the mix, are not enough to make the stages’ difficulty varied. That has mostly to do with the fact that gameplay doesn’t change in the game, at all.

From the beginning of your playthrough until whenever you’re done, the game plays the same exact way: sail, shoot, die, repeat. The promise of pretty visuals interlaced with story elements fall short in the actual game itself, and what seemed like an intensely good-looking pirate arcade shooter ended up being a rather boring and conventional experience.

You can purchase Revenge of Roger Rouge over on Desura for PC or for your Windows Phone 7 on the corresponding Marketplace. You can find out more information on the game over on the developer’s official website.

Review summary Pros:

Good animation; artwork is fantastic; throwback to old-school arcade shooters

Cons:

A little too simple; repetitive; can't shake feeling there is better stuff out there to play

Rating: 60%