Rock of Ages Review

Rock of Ages might be the weirdest game I've played all year. It takes the tower defense genre in a creative new direction, tossing in charmingly bizarre story sequences and clever adaptations of classic art. But problems start when you have to build your defenses, with the time limit becoming an increasingly annoying problem – especially against the A.I. and when using a controller. Battling another human opponent offers a more spirited competition, though, making multiplayer my go to way to rock some rolling stones.

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The core gameplay of Rock of Ages is simple: take direct control of your rock, guide it through the course, and smash down your opponent's castle door. Smashing the door takes off a chunk of the castle's life bar based on how hard you hit it, and between rolls you're given downtime to build defenses. Defenses range from towers to slow your opponent, to animals that can smash into them and push them around. You get currency for smashing the door and destroying things on your opponent's path, so a high degree of strategic spending occurs between your rock's rampaging rolls.

I like building defenses; I just wish the system for it functioned better. Using a controller is slow and clumsy, leaving me feeling inaccurate with my placement. It's also sluggish, and I often felt more rushed, impotent and frustrated and less like a strategic genius. You see, your building phase only lasts as long as it takes to build your next rock (done to the left of the screen with what ostensibly look like faux-slaves) for another roll, and if you spend too much time creating towers your enemy will get a head start on you with their own attack. Defenses are important, but in my experience it's vastly more important to roll ahead of your enemy to win. Chances are if you're playing a human they weren't able to build anything all that useful to stop you either. Overall building is better with the mouse and keyboard on the PC version, but then you also sacrifice analog controls for your rock.

Some of the most prized and beautiful pieces of art appear in Rock of Ages, but never in the way I expected. The campaign takes you through the ages, ranging from ancient to modern times. Each historical period you play has art drawn directly from it, only animated and voiced in an utterly ridiculous manner. I found myself laughing or smiling all the time during the campaign, due to nothing more than seeing traditionally serious paintings come to life and act beyond silly. The campaign story is inconsequential, but Rock of Ages is better for it. You're not inundated by a shoe-horned in tale, but instead just given enough of a premise to have a range of charmingly idiotic characters introduced.

Having mastery over your stone makes all the difference in Rock of Ages, too. Constructing towers makes up only a small part of the fight, as most of the time is spent guiding a rock down a harrowing course. I get so much satisfaction when I pull off an awesome jump, smash through my opponent's defenses, and manage to run a course like a pro. Just like classic games such as Marble Madness, surviving the course and fighting the physics of your rock is simple, yet engrossing.

It's even better with a pair of players, either in the classic War mode, or in the great, multiplayer only Skee Ball mode. Yes, it's just like skee ball in the arcade, only now a pair of rocks race down the same track, pushing one another around and competing to see who can be the first in the many holes at the end of the course. A skilled player can score crazy multipliers if they manage to aim their ball correctly, though this is risky since it gives the other player a chance for a cheaper, albeit lower-scoring shot. The mode sounded so stupid to me when I first read the description, but in truth it's the most addicting mode in the entirety of Rock of Ages.

Editor's Note: This article was mistakenly published with an 8 in the Gameplay break down score instead of a 7.5, which was what the editor intended. It has been changed to reflect the original intent of the author.

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