Rocket League review

[Administrator]

If you're even slightly disappointed by the feel of the Batmobile in Arkham Knight, the X-Devil body with Almas tyres will give you all the Batmobile you could ever reasonably need. Sure, chassis and wheel types are cosmetic here, but still: what a beast! That particular visual combination is the final ingredient to a car that already hugs the ground tightly as it roars along, yet can spin on a dime and do crazy, dreamy backflips in mid-air. It barrels through enemies - they certainly feel like enemies anyway - and hits top speed in the blink of an eye. You can even customise the colour of the flames that blast from its exhaust when you reach for turbo. Oh yes, and it is pretty handy at headers and shooting from corners, too.
Football with cars: that's the premise behind Rocket League, and it's to the game's grand and eternal credit that it never dulls this glorious idea with over-complication. A sequel to 2008's Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars, Psyonix latest feels like a design that has found its true voice and its true focus. Season mode and cosmetic customisation bring a sense of shape and personal flair to the basic flow of matches, dedicated servers make it easier to find stable games online, and the decision to release on PC as well as the PS4 - and allow cross-platform play - greatly expands the audience in the first place. The original game always felt like it was headed somewhere strange and promising; this one feels like it has arrived.
And - again - it is so simple: two teams of glossy, full-throated muscle cars. A tight pitch with ramps at the edges leading to walls you can drive up. A huge ball urging you to knock it into one of the colossal goals at which point it explodes. This is the beautiful game, and it is further enlivened by a handful of very simple additional tricks that leave you feeling extremely powerful. A double-jump with a lovely squashy feel to it as you push through the air, a smooth drifting turn that allows for quick repositioning and nimble whacks of the ball with your rear-end, and a powerful boost, charged up by running over little nodes on the pitch: ka-chunk.
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