By Brian Perry

Most games when you sit down to play them are either good games, that you enjoy, or bad games that you can turn off and be comfortable knowing you didn’t miss anything. Rogue Warrior strangely manages to sneak into that androgynous zone that is technically solid, and yet makes you wonder why you bothered to play it.

First, notice the developer’s love of repetitive profanity. You will hear a constant stream of each four letter word, which can be used, in the proper context, to add a level of gravitas or maturity to an otherwise bland title. Rogue Warrior, however, seems to have sunk into that 10 year old mentality of “if I said it once I was cool, If I say it 100 times I’ll be 100 times as cool”. It isn’t 100 times as cool, it just makes me 100 times less likely to play it around children, the elderly or just about anyone.

Sadly it would seem the dialog writers had some pull in the story department, because the plot manages to be just as deeply flawed. Taking place in the 1980′s, the stories main character, Richard Marcinko finds himself dropped into North Korea. Conveniently, his entire team dies in a horrible crash/ambush. Marcinko, stuck alone behind enemy lines, travels from cliché to cliché culminating in an absurd climax that makes you wonder which bad translation of “Delta Force” they screened in the writing room.

Despite it’s many flaws, the game manages to be a solid game on a technical level. With minor tweaking in the menus the game handled smoothly, the shooting felt solid, and the “stealth Kills”, while sometimes funnily absurd, were a pleasant break from the average rendition of Gears of War’s stop and pop game play.

When I started Rogue Warrior I felt like I was pushing myself through the game, wanting to finish the game only so that I could write this review and be rid of it. As the game progressed it managed to hit that mysterious Zone where it’s not fun, and yet you want to finish it because it’s so bad it’s actually kind of fun. So, I can say “Congratulations!” to Rebellion Developments for entering the realm of Bad Cult gaming. It’s rare that I get to compare a game to such movie classics as Zardoz and Dark Star, and today, I can.

Score: 4/10