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| Image courtesy of www.gamespot.com |
If you wanted me to summarise this game into a simple sentence, it would be simply, car football. But that on its own doesn't do it justice, as the addictive game physics in regards to the jumping, the rocket boosting, the stadiums that you play in with how they're mapped out, and ever since the game was introduced, the countless variations of the regular matches.
I would highly recommend Rocket League to anyone looking for an addictive, fun and simple but above all else, easily accessible game that you can play with friends online, or friends sat in the same room, or both at the same actually. You can play it on PS4, Xbox One and PC, you can even cross platform, PC players can play with both Xbox One and PS4 players, but because of Sony's stubborn methods, they won't allow PS4 players to play with Xbox One players. Come on Sony, quit this act and allow us to do just that.
Oh whilst I'm on this, turns out that Rocket League is coming to the Nintendo Switch, though don't ask me if you'll be able to play that with your PC and console buddies, I'd hope you can but I don't know.
With all of this being said, a formality with the modern video game now, is DLC. Now, I have to say, having grown up in an environment that is used to that, I am of the stance that DLC can be a bad thing but not if handled correctly, and unfortunately in most cases, it is not.
You can have DLC like GTA, which advertises itself as being free but has in game currency that you can buy so Rockstar try and push for you to buy their Shark Cards by overpricing things. Next we have is a by chance crate system like on Call Of Duty where you have to pay to open Supply Drops to have a chance at getting the new items that will help you do better in matches. Finally you have most car games that I'm used to, spending a few quid on getting some new cars to drive.
As far as I'm concerned, my stance on video game DLC is that if I pay, I must be guaranteed whatever it is that I want, but if there's only a chance of getting something, I won't tolerate it. There is a grey area though when it comes to Rocket League, as it began with new battle-car bodies that you could buy for less than two pounds, but then evolved into this crate system that I have mixed feelings on.
By chance, you can earn any one of many different types of crate after a match that all consist of their own possible items, including battle-car bodies, rocket boosts, wheels, decals, toppers, antennas, goal explosions, trails, and for some reason since matches dictate you have to pick a blue or orange team colour scheme, paints. You have to buy keys to be able to open them, and thankfully for pretty much the most part, none of this actually has any knock on effect when it comes to making you any better in a game, a criticism that Call Of Duty constantly meets with this casino style system is that you have to spend so much money on the chance of getting a weapon that is so much better than the free weapons.
Another way that the Rocket League system is better is that you can perform trades with other players, and from the outset, it looks like a great idea. My friend Ahmed for example, he only uses the battle-car body Sweet Tooth (A PS4 exclusive body taken from the video game Twisted Metal) which can't carry any of the items that can be used to customise a vehicle so he just lets me have all his stuff, so thanks Ahmed, I appreciate that!
But in a fair trade, the items are so littered around that you can never perform a fair trade. I have two Candy Cane antenna items, I don't like having duplicates so I told this one guy in my game that I was willing to give away one of my Candy Cane antennas and we began trading. I offered my Candy Cane antenna and asked him to show what he would be willing to trade with me, but he kept being difficult and in the end, he left and we never ended up trading anything. If anyone wants a Candy Cane antenna if you're on PS4 or PC, message me.
Thankfully, I've never had many difficult experiences on Rocket League in regards to trading but I imagine a lot of people go through this everyday, because these mindless items for customisation are not categorised in such a way that I'm not sure as to what would constitute a fair deal.
The only reason I give a shit is because the two year anniversary for Rocket League rolled around and to celebrate, the developers released a new type of crate equipped with two battle-car bodies that really took my fancy, the Cento V17 and the Animus GP, which are visually based on a Le Mans Prototype and a Formula car respectively. I really wanted them, and apparently it was only last weekend that you could obtain these new crates so I did as much as I could.
I opened these crates and as ever is my luck, I got some shitty decals that I'll never end up using, some of which were for a battle-car body that I don't even have.. it pissed me off because on two of the three crates that contained these two new cars, the item I got was one above the Cento V17. But what pisses me off even more, if you have five items from the same crate and of the same level of value, you can trade them in for an item of the next level of value and because of that, I cannot trade it up with the game and get something further up.
All this would be completely negated if I got crates more often, I wouldn't mind having to pay for the keys since they don't cost much at all. But when there's that slight chance of getting a crate, then a chance of getting a certain thing, you may as well pick five numbers to submit in to the National Lottery Jackpot because you surely have better odds.
We can't get these crates that often, at least I don't know if there's a system that comes with it like you play one match, you get a random guaranteed item, then five means the lowest type of crate, you see where I'm going. As far as I am aware, it is a random system.
Then you have the duplicate items. I know I said earlier I have two Candy Cane antennas but that's because Ahmed gave me his to get rid of his items and I could use it to trade since according to my friend Matthew, they're highly sought after. But I have had friends who get two of the same decals multiple times, and I hate that rigged system.
My friend Matthew who I just mentioned, he's into Yu-Gi-Oh and he buys those card packs that are deliberately sealed off so you don't know what's in there. I get the appeal there because at least after the developers release those to the world, they can't tinker the results afterwards, they can't change a high statistic Red Eyes White Dragon for a sub-par Dark Warlock or whatever the fuck they're called.
The reason why I am bringing this up, is because with gaming, surely the developers are ensuring the odds are so low that you can't get anything of proper value. In Call Of Duty, the odds of getting any of the 'new' weapons in a DLC, are apparently below 0.1% and it is just a thoughtless exploit and abusing of the system as far as I'm concerned.
I'm not in any way saying Psyonix or Activision are scamming people like those CS:GO sites that Syndicate, TMarTn, FaZe clan etc. all owned and never disclosed when playing on it. But it does give off that uneasy vibe that they're accessing the backlog and making sure the items we want are never given to us and in return, we have to make do with a decal for a car we don't have because the game didn't allow us to have it.
Having brought up those CS:GO sites, these highly sought after items have prompted people to sell them on Ebay and all these other selling sites and again, that just screams scam to me. Not the fault of the developers for people who will scam you, just the fact that this incentivises them to do so and have that ability to take advantage, honestly I hate to say this but that part IS on the developers, for allowing such a system to be in place.
I love Rocket League, and it certainly a lot better when it comes to its crate system than something like Call Of Duty and FIFA, but this is like saying Chlamydia is worse than AIDS. I still strongly disapprove of the system of having to pay to have a chance at getting something, but I know for a fact that the game companies of the world aren't going to form an emergency meeting because some blogger from Britain was like "I don't like it".
So whilst I'm not out of touch and very much aware that it's not like this way of doing things is illegal, I do think it's exploitive and wrong. I'm still of the mind-set that you should pay for the certainty of getting something as far as video games go, but as long as these corporate companies get money for what they do, it won't change.
I guess what I'm saying is, pay for what you know you will get in video games, as long as you get enjoyment out of it. I always pay for Shark Cards on GTA because it's worth it for me, and it's the only game that requires a lot of money from me. Rocket League will continue to be a game that I will play and enjoy a lot, it has revolutionised the gaming experience to the point now where I can sit here and hope that one day, all major gaming platforms can play the same games at the same time. I hate how I can't play with my friends who have an Xbox, still the case of course with Rocket League with me being on PlayStation 4 but it is a step in the right direction.
Whilst I am talking about that, my best friend Nadine doesn't play Rocket League but her boyfriend Bas does on his PC, and we managed to arrange a few matches which was awesome. I mean, he handed my arse to me as he is way too good, but I put on my headset to talk to Nadine as she was wearing his headset too, we couldn't hear each other for some reason. Maybe we weren't pressing the push to talk button? I'd hope that was the case and we weren't able to talk to each other, someone who knows the game help us out please.
Anyway that's all I have to say. Again I reiterate, pick up Rocket League on whatever platform you're on whether that be PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC or even Nintendo Switch later this year and I'd suggest you avoid the crate system or at least getting too suckered into it.
Thank you all for reading, hope you decide to come back for more in which case, I'd recommend you go to the 'Follow By Email' option if you're on desktop or following me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat. Hope to see you all back here soon.
So until we meet again,
Luca.
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