Killing Commies With Dick

Rogue Warrior got a lot of flak upon release and to this day stands at an astonishing 27 out of 100 critic rating on Metacritic. It’s been featured on countless worst games ever made lists and received more hate than a neo-nazi preaching his beliefs in a synagogue, but I like it. It’s a fucking joke, but a damn funny one.

In Rogue Warrior you play as Richard ‘Dick’ Marcinko, a real life navy seals operative with a badass attitude and a very prominent, yet undiagnosed case of tourettes syndrome. You and your seals team are briefed with a mission of meeting a Korean informant who has something urgent to show you. As you exit the helicopter both your team-mates are killed and despite your superior’s call to abort the mission you soldier on with a fuck-tonne of motherfucking curse words in tow, cocksucker. As you arrive at the informant he is being executed and though you can’t rescue him you do manage to salvage the information, which involves the Russians and nuclear weaponry, and it’s up to you to save the day. If video games were movies, this would star Sly Stallone and be a long forgotten 80’s revenge flick.

The gameplay is very generic. It avoids getting boring by being incredibly short, clocking in at around 5 hours. It’s an FPS with stealth elements and cover mechanics. The shooting is fine, just fine. It’s nothing special; it’s not too horrible. The blind fire isn’t completely blind as you have a reticle at all times, yet you still manage to miss more than half of the shots you take, alerting all the enemies in the entire level who aren’t taking a piss waiting to be stabbed by your bearded, masculine form as if it were a scripted cutscene. Most enemies will get stuck on boxes or doorways or take cover behind a full glass window. The stealth elements of the game are somewhat defeated by this, and it becomes hilarious watching enemies shout for help in faux-Russian as you shoot them nine to ten times in the face as they run repeatedly into a doorframe.

Something interesting the game brings to the fucking table is kill moves. With one button you can kill any enemy in the game instantly if you are close enough. There are quite a few different kill moves, but if you plan on using them a lot you will see the same animation a hell of a lot. If an opponent is standing next to a ledge you can throw them over, however if you are trying to be silent and unseen – as kill moves are purposed for – you’d be better off using your silenced pistol as there tends to be enemies below the ledge that will be alerted at the sight of a flailing body falling from on high.

The best part of this game is the voice acting. In fact, it may be the games redemption for me. Dick Marcinko is voiced by none other than Mickey Rourke, star of classic cult films including Sin City & the ‘Hero’ music video by Enrique Inglesias. I doubt I’ll be able to explain it very well, so here are some of my favourite lines from the game:

• GODDAMN COCKBREATH COMMIE MOTHERFUCKERS!
• FUCK PISS GOD DAMN SHIT!
• Drop dead, motherfucker. You fucking amateurs!
• Fucking wind is so cold it would freeze the balls off a fucking polar bear.
• Suck my balls, my hairy fucking big balls. Wrap them around your fucking mouth.

That’s not where it stops unfortunately; Rogue Warrior likes to poke fun at the disabled too, with Marcinko yelling obscenities about ‘Fucking Retards’ throughout the campaign. It’s fan fucking tastic. The game even pokes fun at itself with the credits sequenced being overlayed with lines from the game over a hip-hop beat, inspiring millions with the bars of MC Rourke.

Overall, Rogue Warrior isn’t anything to go fucking crazy about. It’s generic, bland and grey and never really gets off the ground. The multiplayer is uninhabited and the AI is laughable. If you see this game going for cheap I’d grab a copy and pump up the volume on your TV.

Conclusion

 ‘Buy this fucking game if you want a god damn laugh you commie motherfucker’