Rock Of Ages Review: A Hilarious, Pythonesque Tower Defense

If Monty Python made a video game about historical figures and myths fighting, it may have ended up looking something like ACE Team‘s Rock Of Ages.  Players find themselves in the role of Sisyphus, but this king isn’t ruling anything at the moment.  Through a series of hilarious and varied encounters, he will use a large boulder to exact revenge on various historical figures throughout history.  No door in the land will be able to hold him back.

The humorous journey in the game was a real delight to experience, and many moments will elicit at least a chuckle or two.  Simple but effective is a great way to describe the experience, because while the game lacks an abundance of things to do, what it does present, it presents in a great way.  The graphics are stylized and cater to the time periods present, most of the jokes make sense when paired with the characters involved, and the ever more challenging maps show that it isn’t just a simple pick up and put down boulder rolling game. The story is likewise simple, but is presented in a manner that adds a real charm to it.

Rather than being content with keeping the characters contained to one place, the game sees the story go on a trek through various places across the world, which was great because it ensured that there would be an abundance of different figures that could pop up, which is honestly where the game shines most.  Since the gameplay itself is pretty simple, the game goes double time in presenting these figures and making players wonder who they’ll come across next.  One downside to this is that if you’re looking for more accurate portrayals of these folks, this is absolutely not where you will find it.  It very much plays the jokes up, and I believe this is to its benefit.

Rock Of Ages is available on Steam for $9.99.

Story: Sisyphean Door Busting

We follow the story of the Ancient Greek king, Sisyphus, cursed to eternally attempt to push a giant boulder up a hill, only to be stymied and forced to start again.  The story sees Sisyphus finally get so tired of his impossible task that he uses the very boulder he was cursed with to bust down the door of Tartarus and escape.  From here, free once more, Sisyphus uses his boulder to pass through many new lands and time periods, from Ancient Greek to Romanticism.  There isn’t much flow to the story presented beyond the rather humorous cutscenes that play when introducing a new figure.  The Pythonesque nature of the cutscenes makes the game feel like a series of sketches that follow the same continuity in a way.

Sisyphus was cursed to repeatedly roll a boulder up a hill, but that same curse would enable his escape from the Underworld

The story is centered on the encounters between Sisyphus and whatever historical or mythological figure he might come across before getting into a boulder fight.  I thought the range of people featured was pretty great, ranging from Leonidas I to Marie Antoinette and Vlad Tepes, showing just how much the developers could get in the game without it being overloaded.  Beyond this however, there isn’t to much to say when it comes to the story of the game otherwise since what you see is pretty much what you get with this game.

Gameplay: A Tale of Rock and Wood

The main gameplay of Rock Of Ages comes in the form of a unique twist on tower defense.  As Sisyphus, Players will use a skyview to view the map layout and to plan defenses for their door.  Once a boulder is ready, players will launch the boulder and guide it through the map to their opponent’s side.  The main gameplay takes place during this and the controls are not amazing but do work well.  using the W,A,S, and D keys along with the mouse and space bar, the idea is to build up speed and smash the boulder into the opponent’s door to break it down.

The main goal of the game is to roll the boulder along an ever more challenging course to break the opponent’s door down.

Skyview

In Skyview, players can do several things.  The most important thing here is buying defenses to protect your door, and the game makes things rather easy to understand too,  By hovering over the item, players can see what an item will do and the game marks what land they can put it on as well.  This includes things with different effects, such as war elephants that push the opposing boulder around and chip at its strength and trebuchets that attempt to knock it around from a distance.  This also falls under resource management, because these defenses cost gold, which is earned by smashing through houses and structures found on the course, so players will need to plan out where the defenses they want might work best, which gives an ostensibly simple premise much more depth.  This gold can also be used to purchase upgrades to the boulder, like adding a band of iron to it or making it a flaming ball of fire, which costs much more gold to do than the defenses,

Skyview is used to scope out the course and plan out defenses, as well as purchase items.

Boulder Rolling

This is the core mechanic and star of the game.  When the player’s workers have constructed a boulder, they can launch it and guide it down the course to smash it into the opponent’s door.  Guiding the boulder is simple enough, and navigating the courses only really becomes a chore in the later levels when the courses became very convoluted.  The game wants you to build up speed to do more damage, but doing so on later courses can be a risk, often leading to rolling right off the cliff or into an defense that will damage the boulder and cost a lot of built up speed,  While the risk of falling or damaging the boulder happens all to often later on in the game, I find the play here to be mostly a fun time learning the course and planning out a strategy.

The main gameplay element is rolling a large boulder toward the enemy base, gathering up speed and smashing through obstacles to ram into their door.

Graphics And Sound: Delightfully Artistic

When looking for the technical side of the game, while they aren’t the best I’ve ever seen, the graphics do impress in another way.  All the backdrops and characters are portrayed in a way to suit their time period, whether that be Sisyphus and Leonidas I looking like they came straight off Ancient Greek pottery or the portrait painted figures of Vlad Tepes or Marie Antoinette.  It gives the game a big way to stand out and honestly could be a draw to the game on its own.  Not a technical marvel at all, but it absolutely helps the game get noticed and gives it a sense of identity.

Soundwise, the game definitely focuses on the music, since most voice lines are few and far between.  The game changes music styles to fit each era, ranging from ancient sounds to classical pieces reminiscent of Mozart or Bach.  This would sound like it would give the game an identity crisis, but the music blends so well with the backgrounds and the gameplay that it all just ends up flowing so nicely.  The whole this looks and feels like art come to life, and it is beautiful for what it presents. 

Rock Of Ages was reviewed on PC.