You can always depend on a man called John. It’s such a solid, honest name isn’t it? Remember Rambo, that nutcase who tears through the jungle stitching himself up and generally being hard as nails? His first name was John. I rest my case.
It’s a principle that Recoil Games seem to have realised when naming their eponymous hero for their upcoming PSN title. Fortunately, they also seem to have realised that calling a game “John” wouldn’t be the most glamourous of beginnings. They’ve chosen our hero’s last name for the title: Rochard.
So who is John Rochard and what can he do? Well, he’s a simple astro miner who finds himself in a sticky situation and endeavours to use all of his wit and intelligence to puzzle his way out of that situation while climbing and leaping around platforms. John has a G-Lifter, presumably a piece of mining equipment, tha enables him to control gravity like some sort of space-based physics wizard. The tool will be upgradable as you play through and will eventually give you a range of abilities.
It looks a little bit like the wonderful Shadow Complex and it sounds like a cross between Alien Breed and Dead Space, with a little bit of Half-Life 2’s gravity gun thrown in for good measure. We think that sounds like a combination that could be on to a winner and we’ll look forward to having a closer look at the game before its release this Spring.
Here, look at some screens:
Source: Press Release
DrNate86
Anything even remotely like Shadow Complex is a winner, it was a superb game. Shadow Complex crossed with Dead Space and the HL2 gravity gun? Pant stainingly good.
scavenga
Ferrero Rocher reference? Not too shabby :)
hazelam
these lame puns are one of my favourite features of TSA. :)
Tuffcub
Is everyone pronouncing, as Peter has obviously assumed with the nutty-choc reference, as ‘Ro-shard’.
Gaming naming convention dictates butch names are a must, so surely it’s ‘Roc-Hard’.
Good thing his first name isn’t Edward.
colossalblue
I went for the soft “ch” to aid my sub heading joke but if you hover over the logo image you’ll see that I went for the hard “ch” to point out the other possibility.
SImply, I don’t know how it’s pronounced but I wanted to make a Ferrero Rocher joke :D
Tuffcub
And I made a knob gag. This is why you are in charge :)
bunimomike
I’m with tc on this one. Pornstar name, surely!
Anyway, it’s looking great fun. Like Rolling Thunder with a gravity gun! :-)
Consider my interested ramped up to “well, hello!” levels.
Delriach
>____< I didn't even think of pronouncing it as Roc-Hard. I am teh fail.
hazelam
sounds good, some of the best times i’ve had playing half life 2 were spent with that gravity gun thing, so any game that lets me use a similar device to creatively kill who knows how many NPCs, is ok in my book. ^_^
Smallville2106
This looks great. Hope it will play well and live up to the screens.
aerobes
Looks like a 2D Team Fortress graphically. No bad thing, it certainly has all the right ingredients to make a very tasty game.
BryOnRye
So are space engineer types the new bald space marines?