Rocket Chase

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs

GAME DESIGNER:Olli Haanperi & Kaj Bjorklund
GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware
GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware
Copyright 1999, Olli Haanperi & Kaj Bjorklund

Rocket Chase is among my top faves in the caveshooter genre. Well-thought and balanced gameplay is one reason. One are fantastic bitmap graphics – many levels are simply beautiful – which bring a classic arcade feeling to the game and give it a really polished touch. One is the fact it runs fine on my old 486SX, better than AUTS actually. And the most important one is the way you can configure this game from a traditional PC caveshooter gameplay (with thougher ships) into a really hectic suddendeathmatch, where your rocket explodes as soon as it touches a wall, floor or any such solid obstacle.

Which happens a lot unless you’re careful, fortunately you can also set the number of lives for each level. This mode often leads into players trying to distract each other by telling very bad jokes and other mischievery.. that’s a sign of a compelling game if any.

And of course there’s a load of powerfull (or just fun) weapons, numerous power-ups, a selection of ships and a system which keeps record of a few player statistics – rather nice if you play a lot – plus a “hidden” worm game on top of it all. This, make no mistake, is a great game. (I still feel like grinning they made it freeware, , , )