Rogue Trooper Redux - HD rerelease

[Infinitron]

Coming soon to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC!

Head to www.RogueTrooper.com and sign up for a chance to WIN a copy of the game at launch!

Rogue Trooper Redux delivers a beautiful remaster of one of gaming's greatest comic book adaptations for the next generation!

Play as Rogue, the iconic, blue-skinned super solider from the 2000 AD comic of the same name, and avenge your fallen comrades across the chemical-blasted wastes of Nu-Earth! Experience tactical third person action and cover-based shooting that feels as fluid now as it ever did.

 

[Baron Dupek]

What?
People really played that game? I got hard time to find anyone talking about it since release.
I do liked variety of ways to deal with enemies until installation of Psi-Ops: Mindgate Conspiracy.
And I found Wii port which I'm sure like heck the Redux will be based on (less resources spend, less time spend on work etc.).

 

[DemonKing]

Not sure if I need a redux version but the original was a decent game, particularly compared to Dredd vs Death which was mediocre.

 

[Don Peste]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Mynon]

Rogue Trooper anticipated some trends that became popular during the previous console gen, such as cover-based shooting, optional stealth or cinematic takedowns a la Human Revolution... but it wasn't particularly good or memorable.

 

[Dayyālu]

The guy in the video is rather terrifying. He looks like a creep.

The only thing I remember about Rogue Trooper (the game, the comic is kinda fun for 2000AD standards) is subpar gameplay and the cleavage of one of the char models.

Memory is going places, I reckon.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Rogue Trooper was incredibly boring. I think I got halfway through the game before going back to Skyrim sex mods. On the upside:

IIRC, Rogue Troopers were blue-skinned because they were genetically enhanced to be able to survive the irradiated, toxic atmosphere of the planet they were deployed on. No one else could breathe in the air without dying violently.

And yet here we have someone who can do just that. Those tits must be some next-gen tech for filtering out air-based toxins.

 

[Baron Dupek]

I played RT twice years back, second time with pistol only and it still was easy as fug, even without silencers (they broke game).
Still - less fun than Psi Ops (when it come to GOG ffs).

 

[Lord Rocket]

And yet here we have someone who can do just that. Those tits must be some next-gen tech for filtering out air-based toxins.

not to rain on the ol' parade but they are indoors

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The background suggests otherwise, but it doesn't matter because:



(39:37 mark)

 

[Dayyālu]

The background suggests otherwise, but it doesn't matter because:


(39:37 mark)

This shows instead they are incredibly lore-compliant, as the toxic seas in Rogue Trooper keep the air "clean" from the poison and thus sailors can live without the suits.

Aaand my autism wins again.

 

[A horse of course]

Tiddies win AGAIN

 

[Infinitron]

 

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[LESS T_T]

 

[Infinitron]

Coming October 17th.

 

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[Unkillable Cat]

Did they... did they just "cover up" the Big Tists Inquisitor?

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-10-16-watch-the-rogue-trooper-games-you-never-knew-existed

Yo listen up, here's the story, about a little guy that lives in a Nu-world. And all day and all night and all the Quartz he sees is just blue, like him, inside and outside. Blue his gun with a blue little Helm, and a blue Bagman, and everything is blue for him, and himself and all the Norts around, 'cause he ain't got nobody to listen.

If you haven't already guessed from all of my tenuous pop culture references, today's episode of Games You Never Knew Existed focuses on some long forgotten Rogue Trooper games.

Many people will of course remember Rogue Trooper for the PS2/Xbox, especially as tomorrow sees the release of the remastered version, Rogue Trooper Redux, but are you old enough to have played the original games from 1986 and 1991?

In the video below I delve into the history of everyone's favourite sci-fi Smurf before rediscovering the joys (and frustrations!) of the Rogue Trooper games for the ZX Spectrum and Amiga.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I STILL own the poster from the Piranha version of Rogue Trooper (the 8-bit game).

 

[pippin]

Most 2000ad comics got videogames in the 80s though.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/10/17/rogue-trooper-redux-review-pc/

Rogue Trooper Redux: a so-so remaster of a perfectly decent action game

Rebellion’s 2006 third-person shooter Rogue Trooper is, as I have said before, the archetypal 7/10 action game. I mean that only positively: a game you fire up with no expectations of bar-raising, but just a solid good time. (As opposed to a 7/10 game that you expected 10/10 things from but were left underwhelmed). I’ve been in two minds about the revelation that it was coming back this year, remastered for PC as well as assorted consoles. For one thing, the original still looks pretty fine when cranked up to big resolutions. For another… well, it’s good, but it’s not quite Carling, is it? How much betterer could jiggery-pokered graphics really make Rogue Trooper?

I’ve been playing Rogue Trooper Redux [official site], and the answer is: not much. If this is your first time with it, the new version’s still that crucial solid good time nonetheless.

Old school Rogue Trooper character models…

…and the shiny new Redux version

To recap: Rogue Trooper is the tale of Rogue, a Genetic Infantryman bred to fight in an apparently ceaseless war for Nu-Earth in the far future. He’s super-tough and resistant to the pervasive radiation and other lethal chemicals on this blighted world, which is where the whole blue skin thing comes in. On top of that, a trio of his fallen comrades have had their personalities encoded onto microchips fitted into his helmet, gun and backpack (let’s step politely aside from the grim nominative determinism of these guys being called Helm, Gunnar and Bagman even before their death and electronic resurrection as various men’s accessories).

In practice, that means they can do nifty things like build ammo out of salvage, become auto-firing turrets and whatnot. Nothing particularly mould-breaking for a third-person shooter, but that’s yer genre-traditional gimmick, anyway. All told, there’s a little bit of sneaking, a little bit of cover-shooting and a whole lot of head-popping across a setting that is basically post-apocalyptic World War II.

The then-impressive skyboxes of 2006 Rogue Trooper…

…versus the new look in Rogue Trooper Redux

Let’s get the new look elements out the way before I chat about how the game in general holds up 11 years later. Some stuff, such as lighting, shadowing and some texturing, is a subtle but noticeable improvement, upping the overall sense of gloss without changing the look of the game. Other stuff, such as more detailed wrinkles and muscle lines on titular blue infantryman Rogue, might look a little more 2017, but also serve to undermine the original version’s well-judged moving comic book aesthetic.

Rogue Trooper is an adaptation of a 2000AD strip, y’see, and though that boasted some world-class artists in its time, it never really strove for photorealism as such. In other words, this new’un’s more interested in being a videogame than it is an adaptation. Not unwise, commercially, seeing as the Rogue strip’s reach probably begins and ends at 30 to 50-year-old British comicheads, but I do think it makes Rogue Trooper Redux look less distinctive than it might have been had it held the lineart line.

Then there’s the graphical bells and whistles that actively make the game look bad. I’m talking about teeth. I hereby inaugurate the Worst Teeth In Videogames Awards 2017. Nominees: Rogue Trooper Redux. Winner: Rogue Trooper Redux. Honorary Award For Special Services To Terrible Teeth In Videogames: Rogue Trooper Redux.

I don’t know how these gruesome gnashers got made, let alone got approved for release. Unmasked characters all boast a collosal overbite when speaking, and the net effect of the Genetic Infantrymen is that of an army of Duane Dibbleys. I don’t want to spend too many lines bellyaching about mis-rendered ivories, but they’re the oversized cherry on top of a cake that I feel might just have lacked consistent artistic oversight. As such: as much as I miss the subtly nicer lighting, crisper textures and less angular edges of Redux, I definitely prefer the more stylised and less raptor-faced original. Rogue himself looks so much better in the 2006 version of his lone star turn.

Of course, it’s another matter on console – Redux is the only way to play Rogue on PS4, Xbone or Switch, and it deserves its second chance there, but on PC we have the choice of either edition, and the old one really does scale up to big resolutions rather well.

Rogue 2006

As for the heart that beats underneath this shinier blue skin, little if anything has changed. I thought perhaps there were a few minor nips and tucks to flow, item/enemy placement and interface, but it was quite likely a trick of the mind. This is functionally the same game, replete with slightly outdated-feeling mechanical camera movements in cutscenes, unsexy menus and thin characterisation.

This is all OK! Rogue Trooper is, again, the ideal 7/10 action game, doing exactly what it sets out to do, no more no less, barely putting a foot wrong but equally never making a move that makes you coo in awe. I had a good time with it in 2006, I had a good time when I replayed it in 2009, I had a good time when I replayed it again in 2015, and I had a good time when I played Rogue Trooper Redux last week. It is an enduring Good 7/10 Action Game.

At the same time, I can feel the age moreso now than previously. It’s not as if it’s pretending to be full-blown 2017 game, but there is a certain smallness and perfunctoriness to it compared to the high gloss and chest-thumping of today’s big action fare. This is as much a positive as a negative: trupple-ay games can be exhausting in their pomposity and setpieces, whereas this just lets you get on with it. But the overall effect of the redone graphics is to make a 2006 game feel perhaps like a 2011 game, not a 2017 one.

I’d be wholeheartedly recommending Redux over Rogue ’06 if it wasn’t for the anachronistically over-detailed faces and the nightmare teeth. It just looks that little bit less like a Rogue Trooper game to me for that reason – but, monstrous chompers aside, if you’re not coming to it with comic heritage, Redux is almost certainly going to look a whole lot better to you. (It also plays nice with a wider range of resolutions without any exterior fiddling being required, I should note). In truth, the differences aren’t profound enough for it to much matter which version you choose – but you really should choose one if you’ve not stepped into Rogue’s shoes before (the shoes, at least, do not have an electronic ghost inside them).

They don’t often make ’em like this any more. I wish they would, I really do. If you miss ’em too, choose another from our round-up of the most perfectly average best action games on PC.

Rogue Trooper Redux is released today for Windows PC, via Steam and GOG.

 

[LESS T_T]

Redux is out now:



GOG: https://af.gog.com/game/rogue_trooper_redux?as=1649904300

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-10-17-rogue-trooper-redux-review

Rogue Trooper Redux review
Blue man whoop.

A wonky blaster retains its charm, but Rogue Trooper still deserves better.

War is hell. But sometimes the view is spectacular. One of the most memorable things about Rogue Trooper first time round, on PS2 and Xbox in 2006, was its beautifully realised prog-rock skybox, a gorgeous, pulsing black hole haloed by sparkling particles that lazily waltzed in slow, chromatic eddies. The new Redux version again drops players directly into the action, firing you down into the toxic battlefields of Nu-Earth from low orbit in a screaming and fairly rickety-looking deployment pod. And again, it's all too easy to stop and gaze up that awe-inspiring sky, ignoring the blood, muck, sizzling laser fire and whopping great quartz crystals all around you.

A decade on and the rest of the graphics have caught up with that view, mostly. With his striking, iris-free stare and He-Man musculature in deep, gorgeous blue, Rogue himself was always an impressive central character. His supporting cast - a motley collection of gas-masked grunts and preening generals, like a rubbery, slapstick spin on the grimdark Killzone franchise - has been upgraded to almost match their lead. This reupholstering of art assets cannot quite mask the slight shonkiness at the heart of Rogue Trooper's chunky run-and-gunning - a studiously linear assault course of firefights, ambushes and unavoidable choke points that actually feels rather charming now - but Redux at least feels like a repackaging put together with lashings of love, like an unexpected Blu-ray re-release of a disreputable 1980s action movie.

The storytelling is similarly robust and streamlined. Lifted from the splatterpunk pages of 2000AD, Rogue Trooper takes place on Nu-Earth but, like a lot of sci-fi, is really set in the Allegory Dimension. The reason for the endless conflict between the comically evil Norts and the slightly more sympathetic but still pathologically self-interested Southers seems to have been lost in the mists of whatever horrible chemical haze has choked the entire planet. The plot plays out like a propulsive Commando comic resprayed with rayguns, a satirical and enjoyably lurid swipe at the futility of war so heightened that it seems entirely appropriate that the main antagonist channels the sinister cadences of Werner Herzog.

Nu-Earth has been so ravaged by war it is essentially an uninhabitable radioactive rock but Rogue Trooper Redux still boasts moments of beauty.

Against this rather panto backdrop, Rogue comes across as, literally, a straight shooter: a lab-grown Genetic Infantrymen bred only to fight but so courageous and righteous with it that he can seem like a bit of a square. In truth, there is no pressing need for him to throw out Nathan Drake-style quips because Rogue soon assembles his own wisecracking chorus. Gunnar, Bagman and Helm are three of his GI comrades, brutally cut down by sneaky Norts but granted a second life when Rogue plugs their personalities into his field equipment. This surprisingly gory process involves subcutaneous biochips and a big Bowie knife.

Some mechanics have been tweaked - Rogue now automatically moves to cover rather than requiring a button-press - but some eccentricities remain. Quickly toggling from your rifle to a pistol to keep up sustained fire is something now ingrained in many players by first-person shooters. Try it in Rogue Trooper - which at one point, the game actually suggests you to do - and your super-soldier crisply presents arms and secures his rifle before finally unholstering his sidearm, an extended process that would look great on the parade ground but can seem to take several hours while under heavy Nort fire.

Teamwork makes the dream work and Rogue Trooper's gradually expanding arsenal of weapons and abilities is where the game still shines. The standout is Bagman, a sort of portable 3D printer backpack that, like the old stop-motion cartoon Bertha, can always turn the goods out. By reconstituting plentiful salvage into extra ammo, grenades and health packs at a very reasonable cost, Bagman makes Rogue enviably self-sufficient: squint and you can imagine him thriving in Metal Gear Solid 5's vast sandbox. With a cute little extendable arm that pops out to swap gun attachments or inject an energy boost, Bagman even partially solves the age-old third-person problem of how to make constantly staring at your protagonist's back vaguely interesting.

By putting access to unlimited health at your fingertips, Rogue Trooper should in theory encourage experimentation. Your stoic GI is a rudimentary sneaker with a limited but entertaining palette of stealth kill animations and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of mini-mines which can be dispensed behind you like lethal fairytale breadcrumbs or scattered forward in a dense arc of explosive volatility. Your multi-tasking rifle Gunnar has a hefty silencer, an exceptionally satisfying sniper mode and can even be posted as an automated sentry gun.

It took three years for the original Rogue Trooper to be ported to the Wii; a Switch version of Redux is shipping same-day.

There are other nifty gadgets too, including Helm's ability to project a hologram decoy of Rogue, an involved process that is just a little too finicky to be fun. But once you fathom your blue GI's impressive potential, it actually highlights the relative straightforwardness of his task, to track down the traitor who got his friends killed. Very rarely do you feel that any of your particularly clever use of weapons or equipment - plotting out a Spirograph of mini-mines then luring gormless Norts into your killing zone - has been appreciated. Thanks, in part, to the fact that you'll never run out of ammo, it is possible to simply grit your teeth, trudge onward and tough out the various encounters with bellicose infantry, explosive drones and heavily-armed Hoppa gunships.

By the time you have unlocked all of Gunnar's weapon attachments- including a surface-to-air missile launcher - you being to suspect that Rogue is rather overqualified for his task. Levels are generally compact, with only one route and a checklist of objectives required to get through them. Some create their own vivid atmosphere - like the graffitied concrete sprawl of Nu Paree or an eerie petrified forest infested with snipers - but the rest feel like pretty bog-standard sci-fi shooter boilerplate. A brace of on-rails shooting sections clearly intended as palate-cleansers feel inevitably rather quaint.

The additional Stronghold and Progressive modes, which can be tackled in single-player or frill-free online multiplayer, have also been revived from the original but these actually remove some of Rogue's extra abilities, a winnowing that rinses out much of the fun. Stronghold tasks you with protecting an area from attacking waves of enemies while Progressive sends you on a suspiciously pointless safari through an enemy hot zone, and both feel like perhaps unintended reminders of the futility of war.

Approach Rogue Trooper with the right attitude - as a defiantly old-school, guns blazing blowout to burn through in one or two sittings - and there is plenty of enjoyment here, especially if you task yourself with being more of a devious saboteur than straight shooter. What you may come away with, though, is the distinct feeling that Rogue deserves better, and not just because he was grown in a test tube to be cannon fodder in someone else's pointless war. Rogue Trooper Redux ends up making a strong case for a sequel that might belatedly allow this honourable soldier to be all he can be.