With the gaming world becoming more and more in love with storylines, deeper monologues and character building, simpler experiences are sometimes needed. These can come in any shape or size, on any system, and that is what Land it Rocket sets out to provide.
Land it Rocket is a simple single-button game that pushes you into a world of frustration from the outset. It succeeds in being accessible and simplistic, yet fails in important areas.
By utilizing a basic joystick and one button routine, your little rocket needs to stay in the air, avoid crashing and safely land on a landing pad; obstacles vary from bushes, to trees and mountains, caverns and other well drawn landscapes.
As with most games in this genre, the goal is to get the job done in a certain time frame, granting the pilot a number of stars and pushing you into gradually harder levels. These stars become the bane of your existence, always mocking you after finding out you weren't even close to completing the level at hand in record time.
The landscape looks familiar in artistic direction but is easily ignored due to the level of pain and frustration it takes to accomplish even the simple of task of landing your rocket. Flying through the air becomes more and more of a love hate relationship as obstacles become more rampant in the beautifully etched backdrops.
The game controls lack the necessary adjustments to support an enjoyable game. From the lack of settings to the sensitivity of the joystick, landing your Rocket is a dubious task. Considering this is the only task in the game it drains patience quickly.
The soundtrack is a trance of sorts, playing with your emotions as you try and manage not to die over and over while flying through the air. Then something happens. As you are flying your rocket to the next landing pad, you realize you want to mute the TV; the sound design fails to appeal.
Bring the hyper sensitivity of the controls together with the annoying trance of the music and you get lost - lost in a game that causes plenty of frustration.
Conclusion
Land it Rocket doesn't come close to landing on a great final product. It's an idea that has been done on multiple platforms in many different sizes and colours, yet this doesn't truly lift off. The execution is frustrating, the music is monotonous and the feel of the game doesn't find the sweet spot. With that said, the difficulty level may be looked at as a possible hurdle that some many want to jump over, to work at, or even to defeat.
Comments 10
Heh. I wonder how many more times they'll re-make the old Lunar Lander game? Yeesh. The mobile gaming shovelware continues. I dearly, dearly hope the NX has a deeper library and doesn't lean on the mass proliferation of cheap "indie" titles to compete.
@AirElephant I'm really curious what the games DeNA is working on look like too.
This reminds me of Subterrania on the Megadrive (without the Shoot em up element). Would love that to get a VC release
This has nothing to do with the game but I've tried making a game in Unity and I know it's a lot of work but I've never understood what to do even with a tutorial.
Most people aren't cut out for making games. Most indie games sink without trace, only incredibly intelligent and talented people get anywhere with it. People might look at a POS indie game and think 'I can do that', when they should be looking at the very best indie games and asking themselves if they can do that. Because, like I say, only the very best will get anywhere. The guys making poor quality games will end up making no money and give up, but not before inspiring other people to make terrible games with no hope for success.
@Hero-of-WiiU I think the tutorials cover enough basics to give you a working knowledge of how to make a game. The trouble comes with the next step when you have to actually make the game. It's no excuse for making a bad game of course, but there are SO many minute design decisions that go into making a game.
@MitchVogel I couldn't even get a Pong tutorial to work for me so I'll stick with trying to do music for games. Thanks for responding.
I've heard that this game is amazing but reflects the players skill levels when played...........😉
@ULTRA-64 I'd argue that this could be said about any game. The question is: how much of the blame lies with the developer and the game design itself? Failure in a well designed game is almost always the player's fault and while I have yet to play this one myself, it sounds like the controls are way too touchy for it to be just the player's fault. It raises an interesting question, though! Where do we draw the line between it being the player's fault and the developer's fault?
@MitchVogel whether there is a greater argument for skill vs enjoyment of particular titles aside.....I was mearly being sarcastic in response to the devils third fiasco........😉
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