Will Rock Preview

And don't get back up again

After the murder of his mentor and abduction of his true love, mild mannered accountant, Will Rock, takes on the Gods themselves in Sabre Interactive’s forthcoming shooter. With the Titan Prometheus sharing his body, Will must journey through Lost Olympus before Zeus claims Will’s girlfriend as his new wife. Prometheus, on the other hand, has his own agenda. Lending Will his power in return for Will setting him free, Prometheus seeks to wreak bloody vengeance on Zeus to punish him for robbing Prometheus of his physical body. Just how Prometheus’ vendetta and Will’s crusade tie together remains to be seen.

Insane amount of enemies

It's not just country songs that have Rings of Fire

Will Rock is a first person shooter that borrows heavily from the PC budget title Serious Sam. The player is dropped into a succession of richly lit and textured (albeit geometrically simple) levels with a very large amount of ammunition. The graphics are a little strange; although many of the textures are almost photographic, they are mapped onto fairly simple geometric shapes. As a result, a beautifully mapped rock lying against a beautifully mapped cliff face, still manages to look incredibly artificial. The level then begins to fill up with an insane amount of respawning enemies, all of whom are hell bent on devouring Will’s spicy brains. Or something.

Progression through the levels is largely a case of “get the key, find the door” but, in common with Serious Sam, if you wanted a puzzler you’d have bought a different game. Will Rock is all about blowing stuff up, and it does it marvellously. From the circling harpies and charging minotaurs in the first area, through to the titanic bosses at the end, Will Rock provides a fantastic amount of different things to stab, shoot, burn, blow up, and eviscerate. Cerebral? No. Fun? Oh yes.

Secrets of the Ancients

Argh! Attack of the bouncing rat/kangaroo things!

Will Rock is played over ten multi-stage levels, each inhabited by its own breed of monsters and bosses. Based around ancient Greek mythology, the levels portray a broken world of beautiful pillared architecture, marbled floors, burning torches and eerie catacombs. The creatures that infest these tunnels are nicely modelled and beautifully animated. There are also a lot of them. From the very first level, the player is attacked from all sides, and even the simplest of puzzles becomes very difficult when an army of foes is harrying you.

On the other hand, with pistols, shotguns, crossbows, flamethrowers, and even miniature atom bomb launchers at your disposal, you at least have a fighting chance. It would be unfair of Sabre to give you all those toys and nothing to shoot them at. As well as these active weapons, Prometheus has provided Will with some Godlike supermoves; increased speed and reaction time, and limited immortality. Will Rock is very difficult, and you’re going to need all the power you can get.

On your own, or with a friend

Ah'm comin' tae get ye!

As well as the single player solo mode, Will Rock also offers competitive multiplayer modes for up to eight players. Capture the Flag, Deathmatch, and Treasure hunt are all available to play in one of the six specially provided multiplayer maps.

Will Rock has a very unique feel. The slightly “too real” look of the textures and “too bright” lighting lends the game a very surreal ambience. Coupled with enemies who have a disturbing tendency to leap out from behind things when you least expect it, Will Rock will give the player more than a few shocks. It’s also worth giving a special mention to the shatter effects. Large amounts of the Will Rock scenery can be hacked, chopped, and blown up, and will break apart quite dramatically. Although this adds very little to the gameplay, it does add an element of satisfaction to those of you who don’t like antiques.

Rock and Roll

Hope you're good at jumping....

Like the rest of the game, the music is wonderfully schizophrenic – Twisted Sister’s “I wanna rock” on the opening screen, followed immediately by an orchestral score that sounds like it came out of Act III of Wagner’s Parsifal, can be a little jarring, but it all seems to work very well. The sound effects are ridiculously over the top and match the gameplay perfectly.

The preview code I played was a little rough here and there, but the only major problem was that the mouse occasionally went berserk, making it practically impossible to control the character. The game is very nearly there and is scheduled for release at the budget price of £19.99 on 13th June. At that price, I’m looking forward to that date with great anticipation.

Expected system requirements: Pentium III 500 with a GeForce II or greater.