The ‘fast and furious’ part is a delivered promise in these modes, which are as follows:Īrena – This is a 3v3 with various types of matches. The goal of Rocket Arena’s gameplay is to lead these wack-a-doodles through various modes that equal out too fast and furious gameplay. That will certainly bring in a younger audience that might adopt it. Rocket Arena does its best to add more personality and panache to its line-up of playable characters, which certainly helps to sell the playful personality of its gameplay design. Other personalities include a perceived over-powered pirate named Blastbeard, and a futuristic badass named Rev, who sports an exhaust-ridden hoverboard that she rides around on. Such personalities include a man named Boone, a young Allan Quartermain look-a-like, that flies around a map thanks to his pterodactyl friend. The idea of this multiplayer game is to just have some wacky fun led by cartoon-like characters. Maybe there will be more, but it’s tough to see it. This week, I have dived into Rocket Arena, an EA Original, that tries to offer up a different meal, but ends up short and leaves you wanting more. Repeating a formula over and over again can lead to a missed opportunity to redefine a genre that desperately needs a change. There have been so many released over the last 5-10 years that getting it right is more about offering up what you can do differently. What could be a fun and lighthearted shooter from First Strike Games and EA is instead a punishingly hard and inaccessible experience for Deaf and hard of hearing players and will leave console players with mobility issues at a major disadvantage due to limited control scheme options.A developer takes a real chance when it comes to creating and releasing an arena fighter. Rocket Arena is, once again, a testament to the fact that just because you have an accessibility menu does not mean you have an accessible game. But not so luckily for me, I had no idea I’d been shot at, or that an opponent was even near me, until they were close enough to easily get a KO. Luckily, my opponent missed me in the above image. But Deaf and hoh players have no way of knowing this until they see this: In fact, I captured this image right before the opponent behind me hit me with a rocket. In the image above, there is plenty of shooting going on around me. Because there is no visual indication that a rocket has been fired at you, aside from the sound, until the rocket hits you. The biggest problem I had in Rocket Arena, once I’d put my thumbs back in their sockets, is that I was the one being launched into oblivion. We’re playing to shoot things, with rockets, and launch our opponents into oblivion. I’ve said it before, but I doubt many are playing an online shooter for the engaging story. In terms of deaf/hoh accessibility, while the subtitles are great, this game isn’t particularly story-driven and the game can easily be enjoyed without ever knowing what’s being said. You’re required to do this twice, so my thumb dislocated itself twice.Īnother massive barrier, once I finally could access the menu upon completing the painful tutorial was that even though there are eight control scheme options, not one of them leaves nothing bound to stick presses. Because the game goes right into the tutorial on first launch without allowing players to change any options, the control scheme forces players to use a right stick press to dodge. The first (of many) barriers I faced came when the tutorial was making me go through the dodge ability section. The subtitles, while not resizable, are a decent size and the background makes them easily legible for most throughout every part of the game. Subtitles are on, with the high contrast option toggled, by default and that’s a wonderful thing. The first problem I ran into was being unable to access the menu until after I’d finished the tutorial. The game has an accessibility menu, which one would assume means it’s an accessible game but that’s not always true. Each of the heroes has unique abilities and backstories and the arenas in which you have your shooty, rocket fun are wonderfully designed for just enough challenge. Rocket Arena, developed by First Strike Games and published by EA is an online 3v3 shooter, a genre not particularly known for robust accessibility. EA is doing such good a11y work and yet, Rocket Arena is an accessibility failure on two fronts. It’s very hard for me to review games when I know people at the publishers and studios behind them and know they’re trying their hardest to push for accessibility, especially when the game I’m reviewing just misses the mark.
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