Steam Roundup: Rock of Ages

It's extremely rare to see anything original in gaming nowadays. In the current economy, it makes much more sense to make sequels and iterize concepts instead of trying something new that could potentially fail. In fact, it's proven to work, at least for a time (looking at you Call of Duty). When something new does come along, it can be something extremely surprising and a breath of fresh air.

Rock of Ages by Ace Team (makers of Zeno Clash, another odd game) is rather unique. The goal of the game is to roll your boulder/rock down a hill and crash it into your enemy's gate. Three or four hits and you open the gate and can kill your enemy inside. The levels change, adding things like water to slow down your rock and levels made entirely of islands. Your opponent rolls the exact same track you do.

When you aren't rolling your boulder, you can spend money you accrue to build obstacles to get in your opponents way. These consist of things like catapults, exploding barrels, towers to block the way, and wind blowers to push the ball off the track. The enemy does the same and you try to both build better defenses and outrace your opponent to win. It has concepts found in other games but the overall idea is entirely unlike anything I've ever seen before.

There is a story but it is quite silly. Each "cutscene" is told in Monty-Python esque cutouts that only make mumbling noises to convey what they are doing. It is not unlike a Lego game, telling its story only through small actions instead of words. It can be quite humorous but didn't really do much for me.

Over the course of the story mode, you play a bunch of levels with the standard gameplay and fight four bosses at certain points. These are the weakest parts of the game, having you delicately move your ball in a specific pattern to hit the boss' weak point three times to kill him. They become more and more annoying as they go and are easily the most frustrating part of the game. I understand Ace Team wanting to mix things up but this feels like the wrong thing to do.

I can't really think about how to describe the game eloquently enough so I'm just going to link to a Quick Look of it on Giant Bomb. Seeing it in action makes it much more clear. Give it a try if it sounds like your thing.

Quick Look - Rock of Ages