Rogue Planet, Gameloft’s new turn-based strategy game, has finally hit the app store. With the lack of standout TBS titles in the app store, Rogue Planet toss its hat in the ring with the likes of Command & Conquer and Robocalypse in an effort to see who comes out on top.
Rogue Planet sees you returning to Earth many years in the future, only to find it overrun with robots and machines, with no sign of human life remaining. Through strategic deployment of troops and military equipment, you must defeat these mechanical forces to take back the planet we once inhabited. Within your ship, the Nimah, you must make the difficult decisions and stay one step ahead of the robot forces in order to achieve success. You ship has a strong crew, with whom it is beneficial to confer to arrive at the best plan of attack.
There are 2 main game modes: Story and Quick Play. Nineteen maps are available in Story mode and another 15 in Quick Play, 5 per difficulty level. Maps on easy level are somewhat small and square-like. As you play more difficult levels, the maps become more widespread, with bridges and various paths to follow. When choosing maps and characters, you will see that many are locked from the start, requiring you to play through the story mode to gradually unlock these characters and places.
As this is a turn-based game, you and your AI opponent take turns repositioning units, creating new units, or attacking the enemy, with the ultimate goal being the annihilation of the opposition. Selecting a factory allows you to choose a new unit to create, as well as giving info and stats about each unit. Movements take place within a grid system, which shows areas that you can and cannot move to. Selecting a unit and a location brings up options to move, attack, repair, kamikaze yourself, and more depending on the situation or unit. Attacks take place in split screen. Everything is clear and well-portioned. You can pinch to zoom and swipe to pan. It all seems fairly intuitive and works well, so far. Each unit can only engage in one activity per round. We can not stress enough the need for an effective strategy in this game.
Graphically, Rogue Planet is pretty impressive. The gameplay screens show nice detail, including weather effects, and there is plenty of info available at the touch of a button. Animations are fun to watch. Cut scenes on the ship have beautiful drawings as backdrops while you read over the dialogue. The game shows a lot of polish and attention to visual detail. The soundtrack is pretty cool, too, adding some atmospheric presence to the game without feeling intrusive. It does not appear that you can use music from your own library as an alternative, though. The mechanical sound effects and weapon noises are crisp and add to the feel of the game. The control system is pretty standard fare for this type of game. Lots of tapping to determine what you will do, where you will do it, confirming your decisions, and the like.
Depending on your familiarity and strategic know-how, it seems that the time it takes to complete a map can vary greatly. As we are relatively new to the game, it took us a while to get the hang of what we should be doing, though a seasoned vet can probably do the same in half the time. It’s hard to tell how smart and aggressive the AI is, though they appeared to give us several chances to hang in the game, so seasoned players may find it a bit on the easy side. For newbies, however, it feels like a good balance overall. It would appear that a proper understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each type of unit (and there are plenty) is the first order of business to catching on and finding success.
There is a multiplayer option, though it is only local wi-fi and Bluetooth at the moment. We were unable to test this out and would love to see full online multiplayer in the future. Gameloft tends to release games without this option, but promises it in future updates, so we’ll have to wait and see. There are no global leaderboards with a well-known system like OpenFeint or Agon, but Rogue Planet does integrate with Facebook, so we suppose that’s better than nothing. Replay value is good, as testing different strategies in battle can certainly produce a wide range of results. There are even 4 profile slots available so that you multiple people can play without affecting another’s campaign. We previously tried Robocalypse and just couldn’t seem to get into it. Command & Conquer has recently released, bringing name recognition and similar gameplay. Without having played that, we imagine Rogue Planet could give C&C a run for its money. It only costs $4.99 to pick up Rogue Planet, half of the normal price of C&C. With its great graphics, engaging gameplay, and interesting storyline, Rogue Planet is a 4-Dimple offering that’s worth the effort.
Rogue Planet gets our AppSmile 4-Dimple rating:
