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Rocket: Robot on Wheels continuously caught me off-guard as I played it.
From building a rideable roller coaster in the first world to colour-based puzzles using a paintball cannon vehicle in the second world, the game presented a really cool mix of puzzle-based and skill-based challenges.
Despite being called a Robot on Wheels Rocket is, effectively, a unicycle. His physics, momentum and movements reflect this. Turning on a dime is not possible and how he moves takes some getting used to.
The game provides hints to the key collectable via the means of riddles to help steer you in the right direction. Not too dissimilar to how Mario 64 does the Power Star hints, but still requires a bit of thought to figure out.
The other thing that surprised me was how difficult the game gets, and the difficulty spike happens quickly. Even in the first world, some of the platforming challenges are a test of patience.
I can imagine many kids never getting to the end of this one.
#N64 #RetroGames
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It comes as little surprise that Rocket: Robot on Wheels reviewed quite positively.
8.4/10 from Nintendo Power
8/10 from Game Informer
9/10 from IGN with an average user score of 7.8.
I mean, the lowest score the game shows on its Wikipedia article is 3/5. That's still 60% which is above average!
Usually i wouldn't hold much stock in review scores, but I didn't want to call Rocket some kind of hidden gem or underrated game, because clearly people at the time could see the fun it had packed in there.
That's not to say it doesn't have some pretty glaring issues. I feel the N64 gets a lot of stick for camera control in games, and sometimes it is totally justified. Rocket's camera control can be awkward and clumsy at the best of times.
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