SemperAptus.com - RocketElite: Wireless Gaming for the Pocket PC (Review)

Featured Article

Don't Be Shy -
Show 'Em Your DNA!
Put your DNA on a shirt
or sweatshirt - for a fee.

RocketElite

Imagine you're playing Asteroids in a beautiful color environment. Then imagine that you have mission objectives and instead of dumb asteroids to destroy there are AI opponents of varying difficulties that fight back with powerful weapons.

You've now joined the RocketElite. A mission-based space game where you must jet around a spacescape, manage your inventory of power-ups and maintain your fuel and shield levels. "Pick-ups" on each level allow you to upgrade your ship's Fuel System, Deflector Shield, Tractor Beam, Weapons, and Defensive Systems. And once you acquire an upgrade, you get to keep it until you complete the campaign.

The game offers four different difficulties (with "insane" being the toughest) and each level of difficulty offers significant changes inside the game to keep the game challenging. And challenging is the right word for RocketElite, as the game provides many, many hours of single player fun.

RocketElite brings arcade style action to the Pocket PC.

MULTIPLAYER MADNESS

But, the point of this review is multiplayer gaming, and RocketElite really delivers. Like Space Tactics, RocketElite requires you to enter an IP address to play via LAN. However, RocketElite earns major kudos (and an extra ½ star) for actually including the device's IP address on the multiplayer screen! All the levels in the single player game are available in multiplayer death match, so users that play alone often will be rewarded with familiar scenery while in multiplayer mode.

It almost seems like RocketElite was designed as a multiplayer game as it plays quite fluidly in LAN and IR modes. The game style and action lends itself more to two-person gaming. At the end of the level, you and your opponent are graded on your kills, suicides, pick-ups and upgrades.

ADD-ON-O-RAMA!

In addition to the levels that ship with the game, RocketElite includes the ability to create custom add-on levels and missions. As of this writing, there was a Star Trek themed total conversion and a dozen additional levels.

	Pros: Insane arcade-style action. Killer multiplayer gaming. Modifiable game for limitless possibilities. Online scoreboard.
	Cons: Registration is a royal pain in the ass. Tough to understand all of the nuances of the game right away. Online scoreboard requires a manual entry, not a simple upload from the Pocket PC.

Buy Rocket Elite for the: iPAQ | MIPS | SH3
[ Return to the Main Review ]