add to the gameplay.
On the topic of matchmaking,
the game does a fairly decent
job of keeping you with players
of the same skill level. At times
this will fail badly due to the only
available players being more or
less advanced than you, which can
cause you to gain or lose ranking.
This is sorted out within one or
two matches, however, as the
matchmaking will then put you in
games where your actual skill level
doesn’t match your rated skill level,
and in no time at all you’ll be back at
the correct rank.
Other than the standard 3 vs 3,
the game also includes 1 vs 1, 2 vs
2 and 4 vs 4, as well as other modes
such as ice hockey, basket ball and a
mode called “Dropshot”, where the
map is divided into small hexagons
that can be broken by powering
the ball into the same hexagon
twice and then scoring through the
resulting hole.
Having the ball roll across
36 The OverClocker Issue 42 | 2017
multiple hexagons means that
several can be affected by a single
shot, and if the shot is hard and
direct enough it can also affect
surrounding hexagons without
actually touching them.
The AI varies between easy
enough to win one of your first
matches to frustratingly difficult,
especially if you choose one of
the “unfair” game modes which
pits you against up to four AI
players. This is difficult enough
in the beginning, but once you’ve
mastered aerials it shouldn’t pose
much of a challenge as the AI never
flies or goes for aerial shots. Once
you’ve mastered aerial dribbling
there may as well not be AI players,
as they will wait on the ground for
you to return.
Moving on to the sound and
graphics, both are fairly basic
although the colours are diverse
and vibrant. The sound track is
alright, but it does get repetitive
quite quickly and I found myself
streaming music in the background
rather than listening to the in-game
music. The game sounds are simple
- cars revving, balls bouncing,
explosions when you score a goal,
and so on - nothing fantastic, but it
gets the job done.
At the end of the day, Rocket
League is all about the gameplay,
and neither better sound nor
graphics could enhance it past what
it is. None of the bugs are game-
breaking, and you quickly learn
to overlook them and accept that
they’re part of what makes Rocket
League what it is.
With the game being relatively
cheap on Steam (or even free
with the right graphics card
purchase at the moment) there’s
absolutely no reason not to tr y
it out. When you work out the
cost per hour (I’ve put in around
400 hours already) it’s certainly
one of the cheaper forms of
entertainment around, and worth
ever y cent and more.