Written by: Ian

 

 

 

Part Monty Python, part Super Monkey Ball, all rock. What on earth is "Rock of Ages", and, more importantly, is it any good?

 

 

History, like. That’s what Rock of Ages is about, although with a firm hit from a slapstick, and a dose of Monty Python style artwork and humour. Effectively, you go through history, smashing down the doors of various historical figures after you get annoyed that in Ancient Greek times it was your job to push a boulder about. Instead, you use it to squash these leaders. It’s pretty thin as stories go, but it remains funny and interesting even though the premise doesn’t really ever change.

 

 

 

So, the gameplay. Like football, this is a game of two halves. Firstly, tower defence. You start with some money, and then plonk down a variety of towers, animals, catapults, flying galleons and other crazy things, to stop your opponent.

 

Then, you launch your own rock from a selection, hurtle it down a course, trying to avoid breaking into heavy objects (these crack bits off your rock), avoid flying off into oblivion, but destroying what you can to earn more cash.

 

Eventually you get to roll at the door of the enemy castle, and the more force you hit it with, the greater damage is caused (generally you need 3-4 goes to break in). This is all going on in real-time, with your opponent doing exactly the same as you. But there is strategy involved- which defensive units do you use? Do you save your cash for a more powerful rock?

 

 

The single player starts off as a nice little tutorial, but after about 10 levels, starts to get seriously hard, with some flagrant cheating by the AI, which is a shame, because the style and pacing of the game is fairly relaxed, and it would have been nicer if the game was a little easier. If you can bare with it though, there’s loads of levels and content though, making the game a steal at 800 points.