Rocket Jockey

For a really old game, it's still a lot of fun, but in terms of content, it does leave a little more to be desired. I played the demo version back then, and it was basically a level of Rocket Race, Rocket War, or Rocket Ball. I mostly played for Rocket War, but I played with that demo until Windows XP said it couldn't run the demo disk designed for Windows 95. Regrettably, the CD-ROM version had the same compatibility issues... It might've been the longest time, but this is a retro gem I generally enjoy playing. It always made me hope that they would do more with the game, but it seemingly fell off the earth instead. In any case, I'm just happy I got to play it again in any form, but considering I wanted it solely for Rocket War, and cleared that in about 2 hours, I'm already looking for my next game. Otherwise, I still enjoyed coming back to the game.

[i]I previously wrote a review here that was negative based on the game being unable to boot, having repurchased the game it appears to be fixed so this is now a positive review![/i] Rocket Jockey is in some ways a legendary PC game, released by the troubled and somewhat short lived Rocket Science Games it is utterly ridiculous, a future sports game about men on rockets flying around arenas trying to jockey for either racing checkpoints or to survive a grueling death match except hold on scratch that future sports theming because it's presented as a 1930s racing spectacle with a surf rock soundtrack by the original surf rocker himself ♥♥♥♥ Dale. After selecting a rider and a rocket you've got to learn through the tutorial a notoriously difficult to control setup. As a note I highly recommend using a modern controller which does work with the game through Steam input and I uploaded my config as a steam layout if you want to use that. Most of the game is spent straddling a rocket which goes rather fast forward but can't turn very well. So in order to not crash into everything you really need to fire grappling hooks out of the left or right side of the rocket into conveniently placed pillars giving you a much tighter turning circle. These hooks aren't just used defensively - nailing an enemy with one allows you to rip them off their rocket and lets you drag them all around the course - you can even create connected hooks by firing both wires out allowing you to leave trip wires or attach objects together. Watch out though because you can get knocked off your rocket as well and a man not on a rocket in rocket jockey is just a victim. Which can actually be a bit of a problem like you're in a high speed race and now you don't have a rocket? Game over basically. I can't really say the game is balanced in any way that you might want from a competitive game - treat it is a fun time with some serious spectacle and try not to take it too seriously. Plenty of single player content to get through with the 3 game modes which are basically Race, Soccer (Yeah, years before Rocket League) and Deathmatch. For this review I didn't try the multiplayer but the rest of the game definitely works and since it's an early 3d windows game and the original audio was I believe CD audio (which plays correctly here) there's actually a decent amount of work having gone into this release so good job everyone - it's not just Dosbox uploaded to Steam. This game is ridiculous though and almost nothing like it has emerged almost 30 years later so definitely give it a look in. Short play time is due to already having played Rocket Jockey in the past.