Rocket League, a game where you play soccer with futuristic cars, was just about the most surprising title I have played. I expected Rocket League to be a disappointment. The experience I received was the opposite. Rocket League exceeded my expectations on almost every single level, and I never stopped smiling while playing it. I have experienced very little technical issues and I have hardly any real gripes. The Xbox One version even comes with all but one DLC pack.
Cons and Minor bugs
I ran into almost no technical issues while playing Rocket League, and my main gripes can be easily fixed by the player. Rocket League is meant to bring an arcade-like feeling, and it is exceptional at this. For my first technical issue, the guys over at Psyonix haven’t done a very good job of creating competitive AI. If you choose to play the unpopular single-player or “season” mode, you will experience a slew of own goals from the AI. These own goals usually occur when the AI tries to save the ball from going into your team’s goal. This issue can be prevented by upping the difficulty in season mode from “rookie” to “pro” or “all-star.” However, this shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and more work is needed for the AI.
Another technical issue that I found was so small I could have easily missed it. I experienced the slightest amount of texture pop-in. It was hardly noticeable and it only occurred once. I also noticed that the wheel models for your battle-car pop-in when customizing your car in the garage. Texture pop-in demonstrates a poorly optimized engine, as the textures don’t fluidly appear, they just pop into view. This issue wasn’t found to happen on a regular basis. The final issue I found is that I wasn’t able to test two multiplayer modes due to unpopularity and a lack of servers. If I compile all of these issues, Rocket League, unfortunately, can’t receive the perfect score I thought it deserved before these issues occurred.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer is probably the most prominent feature that Rocket League brings. It is evident as to why this is true. Rocket League should not be played with bots and really should be played in an ideal 3v3 match in Multiplayer or local Multiplayer. There are even dedicated Rocket League parties for you and your friends to have fun in the arena. There are two main types of ways to play multiplayer, Playlists and Competitive Playlists. Both are self-explanatory, with Playlists coming in as matches that count towards your win record and help you unlock new items and battle-cars. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to test Competitive Playlists since the servers never let me into a game. This is probably due to the mode’s unpopularity as the amount of people on these servers were very low and I was never able to join an open game.
With Private Matches, you can partner up with a couple friends and make a private little game, in which you can change any setting using the Mutator, from ball gravity to boost length. The main issue I had with private matches was that I always received a message telling me there were no servers available. With Private Matches, you can even create named rooms and optional passwords. My only note to Psyonix is that they should definitely open up a myriad of new servers due to the influx of new players from the game’s recent release. I was able to test out the split-screen mode which had no flaws and worked as expected, unlike the case with many others. It was a pretty simple process and I got to enjoy Rocket League locally with my brother.
Arenas
I don’t have much to say about the arenas in Rocket League, as they were exactly the same, apart from a different background, as well as goal and turf type. Otherwise, there were no other differences apart from the cosmetic changes stated before. Each arena has two goals on each side, a wall that you can drive on, and boost points scattered across the field. These boost points each give you a small amount of boost, if the boost point has a glowing orange ball, you will fill up your boost meter when you drive over it. Each arena seems picturesque, and my favorite is the standard arena which looks like a real life soccer stadium. Yeah, it’s boring, but it’s the most realistic. There are six arenas, with different variants for most. Otherwise, I have nothing to say about arenas other than there is a variety of styling and cosmetic differences, but none will alter your gameplay.
Cars and Customization
Rocket League boasts a variety of 18 different ‘Battle Cars,’ two of which being Xbox exclusive. The game also features an insane amount of customization options, hundreds to be more specific. You can unlock these cars and parts simply by playing the game, I found out that I usually received a new unlock almost every time I won a game. These cars left me spoiled for choice, and I never really knew what to pick. All items and Battle Cars are purely cosmetic and don’t alter gameplay in order to level out the playing arena. (See what I did there?) With the Xbox version, you also get all of the DLC for the game. This means you have all of the cars available as long as you play the game, except for one. The one DLC you don’t get with the Xbox One version is the Back To The Future Car Pack, which brings the DeLorean Time Machine as a Battle Car. The two Xbox exclusive cars are the Gears of War “Armadillo,” and the Halo “HogSticker,” which is an alternate version of the Warthog.
Single-player
Rocket League is a pretty self-explanatory game, but I’ll inform you on how the single-player modes work. Let’s start with Season, essentially your campaign mode. You choose your Team Logo, Team Name, and three other AI teammates to play with you. Afterwards, you can choose how many in-game weeks the season lasts, and the difficulty of your opponents. I started out with Rookie, which led to a copious amount of own-goals due to the badly programmed AI. I also chose a nine-week season just to get the hang of it. The season lasted nine games, and each game was a 4v4 match between you and an opponent’s team. Your wins and losses will be counted and after the nine games are over, the season ends and you can start another one. I found that seasons are the best way to unlock cars and items, as each game lasts five minutes like Multiplayer. If you decide that your opponents are too hard or too easy, you can modify the season. It’s a very simple campaign and you shouldn’t have any trouble with it.
Summary
In conclusion, Rocket League brings an extravagant amount of thrill to the couch for you and your friends to relish in a great online experience. It sports a beautifully balanced car list with full customization for each. Rocket League is a very well done game. I highly suggest you pick it up for the low price of $20 if you can look past the minor flaws and take a gander at the redeeming features. However, it pained me to list those issues towards the start of the review. The game was so enjoyable for me, and I am astonished at how these issues were overlooked, as they can easily be fixed.
Ali is a games journalist, Mobile and Tech Reporter at Wccftech. They contributed 51 articles to ICXM between 2015–2016, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: covers mobile hardware, telecoms, and consumer-tech news for Wccftech.