Full Circle Magazine FR

What do you get when you mix high speed vehicles with football? You get Rocket League, a very interesting idea for a sport that may some day be a reality – but for now is a fast-paced video game. Rocket League is self described on their website as a futuristic Sports-Action video game where soccer meets driving. It’s built a pretty impressive online competitive following since being released on Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4 in July 2015. Developed and published by Psyonix, Rocket League was later also released for OS X, Linux and Xbox One in 2016. The game can be single-player or it can also be multi-player with up to 8 players at a time. The multi-player mode can be local or online. If played locally, the game can be split in either 2, 3 or 4-player split-screen mode. Not an original concept, it’s in fact the sequel to Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars which was released in 2008 for PlayStation 3 and, although not a huge success, it gained enough of a loyal following that fueled enough momentum to deliver its sequel, Rocket League. Rocket League sells on Steam for around $19.99, or you can go to the Rocket League Store to buy it and download it – but this will then redirect you back to Steam, so you may as well just go there first. I originally got Rocket League for free when I purchased my Steam Controller, but had to wait until its Linux release to play it.

Quel est le résultat d'un mélange de bolides et de foot ? C'est Rocket League, une idée très intéressante pour un sport qui pourrait devenir une réalité un jour, mais qui, pour le moment est un jeu vidéo effréné. Rocket League se décrit sur leur site Web comme un jeu vidéo futuriste de sport et d'action où le foot rencontre la Formule 1. Depuis sa sortie sur Microsoft Windows et PlayStation 4 en juillet 2015, le nombre de ses adeptes concurrents ne cesse de croître en ligne de façon impressionnant. Développé et publié par Psyonix, Rocket League fut sorti plus tard, en 2016, sur OS X, Linux et Xbox One.

Le jeu peut être mono- ou multi-joueur, avec jusqu'à huit joueurs à la fois. Le mode multi-joueur peut être local ou en ligne. S'il est joué localement, l'écran peut être partagé entre 2, 3, ou 4 joueurs. Le concept n'est pas original et c'est, en fait, la suite de Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars, sorti en 2008 pour PlayStation 3. Bien qu'il n'ait pas connu un grand succès, il a convaincu un assez grand public fidèle et c'est celui-là qui a entretenu la dynamique rendant possible la livraison de sa suite, Rocket League.

Rocket League se vend sur Steam pour environ 19.99 $ ou vous pouvez l'acheter et le télécharger sur le Rocket League Store, mais vous serez alors redirigé vers Steam ; ainsi, c'est aussi bien de commencer par cela. Au départ, j'ai eu Rocket League gratuitement quand j'ai acheté un Steam Controller, mais j'ai dû attendre sa publication sous Linux pour pouvoir y jouer.

I’ve been playing the game mostly with an Xbox 360 game-pad controller and have enjoyed it immensely. Playing this game is fairly easy and, though a training tutorial is included for anyone interested, it’s not necessary to go through it unless you want to learn some of the more complex moves that you see other people making. The game consists of two teams, with up to four players each, battling it out in an arena that roughly resembles a football stadium. Players drive cars and must work as a team to hit the ball into the opposing team’s net. Anyone who’s ever played football (or soccer, as one country calls it) will be familiar with Rocket League. Living in the USA, where soccer is not as popular as it is in other parts of the world, I was rather surprised to find out how popular Rocket League is among gamers. After playing it for a couple of hours and seeing other players make moves that I didn’t know how to make, I decided to check out the included training which is split between Rookie, Pro and All-Star. The Rookie Option showed me nothing I didn’t already know, things such as accelerating, turning, braking and other basic moves. The Pro and All-Star portions of the tutorial showed me some interesting moves that helped my game improve tenfold by the time I’d finished the tutorial. I learned how to hit the ball sideways instead of always in front of me. I learned how to jump and hit the ball in the air. I also learned how to glide through the air after jumping a higher-than-normal distance off the ground, flipping my car and hitting the ball in mid-air. Scattered throughout the arena are booster markers which you need to drive through to accumulate booster charges – which are activated when you press the booster button. These boosts release a cool-looking smoke from the rear exhaust while also giving you, as the name implies, a momentary speed boost. Depending on how aggressively you play, it’s also possible that you completely obliterate and destroy other cars but this doesn’t give you any extra points, it only slows down the other player since they’ll have to re-spawn in a different area of the stadium, usually far from where the action is.

There are three modes that you can select to play from the menu screen. The choices are Online, Exhibition or Season. The Online mode sets you up with other players to play up to four vs. four in online play. Exhibition is just a single locally played game where nothing is at stake. Season is a locally played mode also, but it differs from Exhibition in that it sets you up in a season consisting of anywhere from 9 to 36 weeks and, depending on how well you play, by the end of the season there are playoffs to be played which culminate in a championship game – which will reward you with a nice shiny trophy if you succeed in winning this championship game. It took me about a week to get through a season while playing between 20-30 minutes daily until I eventually won the championship. I had mentioned earlier that Rocket League is a popular online game but just how popular it is will probably blow your mind. Since its release about a year ago, it has been such a huge success that it is now one of the top video games in all of E-Sports. This year, the Rocket League Championship Series has been home to competitive Rocket League matches all around the globe. The RLCS lasts about three months, and matches are held in North America as well as Europe. The victors of the current RLCS (November/December 2016) can expect an estimated prize of $125,000 for first place. Considering the fact that we’re talking about a one-year-old game, this is pretty impressive. Already, Rocket League has become affiliated with eSports League as well as Major League Gaming which are two of the top eSports leagues in existence. The online playing experience is a true delight. You’ve got a few choices to make before beginning online play such as 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 regular games, snow game, rocket labs game, hoops game (basketball inspired), etc. If you’re interested in doing more than just your average find match/play match mode, you can choose from some of the competitive options which will rank you and pair you up with others with similar ranking to yours. The ranking system needs a minimum of 10 matches to calibrate so as to get a better idea of what ranking to give you thus dictating the type of players with whom you’ll be set up. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that you need wait at most only two minutes to enter an online match and, unless involved in the competitive scene, you can join and/or drop out anytime. The response and latency from the online experience was extremely smooth and left me more than satisfied.

As far as the choice of vehicles you get to drive, the choices seem to be endless. As you play the game, you unlock new vehicles as well as decals, paint jobs, tire rims and other cosmetic items. In addition to these unlockable items, you can also purchase a ton of DLC. Some of the DLC items worth mentioning are vehicles such as the Batmobile from the Batman V Superman motion picture and the DeLorean from Back to the Future, among others. Part of the proceeds from these purchases goes toward funding Rocket League’s eSports events and their prize pools. This game’s sound and graphics are pretty much on par with most of today’s sports video games with one possible exception. Since this is a fictitious sport that exists only in this video game, some of the stadiums in which you get to play are rather futuristic, extravagant and outrageous buildings. In most of these stadiums you can even drive up the walls and onto the ceiling for as long as momentum allows. Then there’s the issue of the cars themselves, some of the boost activated effects that come out of the exhaust are colorfully unique and even funny. These include the flower boost smoke and the money sign green smoke that no actual car has ever actually released from emissions, not even in my peace-loving, environmentally conscious home state of California. The soundtrack that comes with the game is pretty diverse and plays its music in random mode, but you can also change the station with the push of a button.

This was most definitely a fun game to play. Lots of us in the Linux gaming community had been waiting for this game’s Linux release for quite a while so we’re more than delighted to finally have it added to our Linux library. Having played the game for about 6-8 weeks, I still haven’t been able to find anything I don’t like about it. It’s got many Pros and, in my opinion, zero Cons. The Season Mode which is intended to be played locally is a good place to start and to get to know the game while you learn some more advanced moves. The graphics and sound, as already mentioned, are quite superb. The gameplay is very responsive, even in online mode. The online mode, which as most players seem to agree, is how the game is intended to be played, runs extremely well on Linux. Finally, the entire experience on Linux makes it feel as if this game was originally intended to be released on Linux, thus I give this game a perfect rating.

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: OS: Ubuntu 12.04 or higher CPU: 2.4 GHz Quad Core Memory: 2 GB RAM HDD: 5 GB HD space GPU: Nvidia GTX 260 or ATI 4850 Broadband Internet connection