As a short disclaimer, this may be a very biased review because I am having so much fun with this game.
Rocket League is basically the sequel to developer Psyonix’s 2008 game, Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. The premise of the game is very basic: Score a giant ball into a goal using turbo-charged cars. This sounds strange, and I was skeptical at first, but the result is a blast of fun.
There are a few modes in this game, including season, exhibition, training, but at its core, Rocket League is a multiplayer experience meant to be shared online or through local split screen with friends and family. You can compete in anywhere from one-on-one matches to four-on-four matches. I personally love the three-on-three best as singles is too empty and chaos mode (4 on 4) is, well, too chaotic.
As for the cars themselves, the garage feature allows complete customization of your car, from its paint color, body style, to various antennas and flags with quirky logos on them. The only thing missing here in my opinion is different attributes for different car styles. For example, you can choose a Hummer like tank vehicle or a small sports car, and both vehicles will drive in the same manner. It would have been cool to see a smaller car with more speed but less control and power, while the tank cars have less speed but can run other drivers off of the track easier.
As for the gameplay itself, it is one of those games that epitomizes the phrase, “easy to play, hard to master.” At its core, the gameplay seems simple enough but requires a lot of strategy and use of physics. There is no out of bounds or anything, as the arena is basically a dome where you can drive up walls. You have to time your jumps and positioning to the ball accordingly, or else you risk and embarrassing whiff or scoring a goal on your team accidentally. This provides a layer of depth in what seemingly is a simple “car soccer” game.
The convenient thing about Rocket League is that all matches are 5 minutes a piece, excluding overtime. Overtime is basically golden goal rules, whoever scores first wins, but there is no time limit in that mode, so games technically could last forever. However, that is not the case, so Rocket League is a great game to play if you need something to do for 30 minutes or so before work or something along those lines.
My one major complaint, other than the cars all being the same, is the server issues. You can create and join parties like any other multiplayer game, but parties will randomly break in the middle of matches, causing a limbo effect after the match, there is some lag issues even with a good connection, and sometimes it can take a while to even find a match, but those instances are few and far between, thankfully.
One thing I really like as well, is even without voice chat, there are directional pad hot-keys with shortcuts ranging from hitting the d-pad left and up to let your teammate know that was a nice shot or strategic options such as “defending” to let your team know you are hanging back to protect the goal.
So whether you just want to have some fun or you want to play a sports game that requires some strategy, Rocket League may be just that summer game for you. This game is great to play with friends locally or online and I have had an absolute blast playing it since its release for PS Plus members this month. You do not have to like sports games to enjoy Rocket League. I encourage you to try it out. After all, it is free this month on PS Plus. There is nothing quite like scoring an awesome goal in the Rocket League.