Rogue Point

Recycled shooter with quirks and bugs

To preface this review, I'd like to state that this review is based on my experience during the free beta weekend and what I've observed about the 1.0 release. Many of Rogue Point's systems and selling points sound great on paper, but overall suffers from a slight identity crisis, lack of incentive, and relatively little content. The game does some things very well, but I consider the listed issues to be great for me to commit to fully purchasing the game, even on sale. Tonally and in terms of how gameplay is presented, the game sits in the uncanny valley between an arcade-esk heist game (think of the gameplay of Payday 2 for reference) and a lite tactical shooter. This is partially me being a bit too nit-picky, but the game takes itself a little too seriously considering the campy dialogue and the corny opposition, which doesn't sit right with me considering the game markets itself on "tactical combat" through the avenue of a roguelite campaign structure. I use the phrase "lack of incentive" in two main regards. Firstly, the game fails to motivate me to complete more than a few campaigns, since besides the permanent character upgrades and attachments, there is no content to pursue. All of the playable content (specifically maps and objectives) is found in the campaigns, and the campaign modifiers are insufficient to encourage chasing greater challenges. In simple terms, I cannot foresee playing campaigns over and over and over again forever as this game's only delivery of content, even though they may feel slightly different from one to the next. Secondly, the quote-unquote "tactical options" are poorly delivered with respect to the game's map, enemy, and mechanic design. Consider the tactical equipment, such as under-door cameras, breaching charges, lockpicks, and ladders. These are all fundamentally designed to interact with the game world, its doors, and vertical elements. However, the arcade-feeling combat and world interactions trivializes these options. When doors break to three quick kicks and enemies fail to punish players that mindlessly kick down doors, there is no need to bring a battering ram or lockpick. When wedged doors can't be blown off their hinges by breaching charges, players very quickly realize they offer no tactical value since kicking is faster and unpunished. When combat is encouraged by the phone-collecting mechanic and many perks reduce the risk of constantly pursuing combat, why bring a ladder to shortcut finding the stairs and miss out on several more firefights? Despite what the game is marketed as, I find there to be very little stakes in the moment-to-moment gameplay, and I find that all my successes can be attributed to having teammates that can aim and keep themselves afloat. In short, the quote-unquote "tactical options" offer nothing in this game, which is a shame. Lastly, there isn't enough content to satisfy most players. Although the maps are vast and only segments are playable per mission, the existence of only five at the time of release simply won't satisfy most players. I very quickly got bored of the first four during my time in the free weekend. The weapon options are okay, but for a 1.0 release, I think most players would expect more. And again, I doubt that the campaign structure provides enough variety to appease people for more than a few successful runs. I've been following this game for quite some time, so I'm quite sad to be writing a negative review on it. However, I overall doubt the ability of the game to make this strange cross-over of genres work cohesively and hold people's attention, and much less do any of the individual genres any justice.