Unearthing a forgotten game: Will Rock

Curiously, this picture pops up as you -exit- the game, for some reason.

 

 

You know, Amalia is many things.

 

She's a tulpa, a friend and companion, a lover of fish and an overall interesting person.

 

And also, Amalia's a big nerd.

 

And because of that, she's got a bit of a hobby. From time to time, one of us will think of an old video game that i played, but never finished, in my younger years. And when that happens, Amalia likes to nudge me towards playing those games to completion with her.

 

Some examples would be games like the original Operation Flashpoint, Stubbs the Zombie, or some of the old games in the Emergency franchise.

 

But today, i wanna tell you about a game that we recently dug up together that you've most likely never heard of. And if you had, then you had probably forgotten. 

Will Rock

 So, just so you know my history with this game: A little over 20 years ago, little pennyless Michael played a lot of game demos because he couldn't afford many full games. But he played those demos quite a lot, and Will Rock was one of them.

 

Now, i've forgotten many things from those years, but that demo level is one of those things that burned itself into my mind. And with it, the name and general vibe of the game did, too.

 

Will Rock. A game that we've not seen mentioned -anywhere- outside of my childhood memories. But alas, my dear Amalia decided that we should play it, so digging we went, and we got it.

 

Well, game starts and we're greeted by the first notable part of the soundtrack. You see, the main menu music is "I Wanna rock", by Twisted Sister. In a game called Will Rock. Awyep, this is gonna be pure cheese! 😜

 

A little extra surprise for us: This is the first game made by Saber Interactive, of Space Marine 2 and Snowrunner fame!

 There's a couple more notable bits of soundtrack later on, but we'll get to that. For now, let's start a new game and....

 

Oh. Dearie me, that's not right. Okay, one dgVoodo wrapper setup later and...

 

Alright, much better. So, let's get the story out of the way first, because it's a short topic. It goes like this:

 

 Y'got all that? You're Will Rock. Terrorists took your girlfriend hostage and you've gotta go kill Zeus to get her back. Off you go!

 

Also, we never actually see those terrorists again. From here on out, it's all greek mythology.

 

Yeah, so the story is...... quite as basic as shooter stories get, really. But hey, the ancient greek theme is fairly unusual!

 

There's exactly 2 of these comic-book cutsecenes in the game, by the way. The intro and the ending. Other than that, the story simply doesn't exist. You could argue that Prometheus (Who is possessing Will) is a kind of narrator to the game, but he only pops up to go "Defeat our enemies, mortal!" and suchlike every now and then.

 

He also likes to say "Now darkness will rain for a thousand years!" when you die, but in a bizarrely "aw shucks!"-kind of tone. Ah well.

 

The ancient-greece-theme is pretty cool, actually. Lots of statues and whatnot. And many of them are actually enemies. Atlas-Statues throwing exploding globes and whatnot.

 So, onto the meat of the game and it's systems. And imma say this right away: This game is -way- different than little babby-Michael remembered from the demo. I seem to remember it being a normal corridor shooter of the time, but actually, no.

 

This is Serious Sam, but in ancient greece.

There's some linear parts here, but many times, this game throws you into a big arena, then spawns in waves of enemies for you to fight. And unfortunately, i literally mean "spawns in".

 

A very common way for enemies to appear in this game is to literally pop out of the ground, with an animation, a sound effect, a crater decal on the floor and everything. It's better than some modern slopware, where enemies might just appear out of thin air, but it can still feel a bit arbitrary and cheap like that.

 

 

The start of the demo level. Getting here gave me a wild wave of nostalgia, along with the model and sound of the lever-action shotgun in the game.

But yeah, it's sort of an arena shooter, so we don't necessarily expect the most thoughtful or fleshed out game design. These games were all about enemy and weapon variety, and Will Rock does deliver decently on both of those counts.

 

In terms of weapons, you've got your more standard stuff like a pistol, shotgun, machine gun and rocket launcher, but beyond those it does get a bit more eccentric, with things like the chemical gun that makes enemies bloat up until they burst, or the medusa gun that functions kind of like a flamethrower, but instead of fire, it shoots a sort of gas that turns enemies to stone.

 

Bit of an issue here, though: The weapon balance is a bit off. There's some situations where using a specific weapon is beneficial for one reason or another, but generally speaking, we've found that 9 times out of 10, the minigun is just the best choice to go with, because it'll reliably mow everything down.

And since the game gives you absolute loads of ammo for all weapons, it's quite rare that you run out of ammo for one of your guns. In other words, you -can- in fact use the the OP minigun most of the time.

 

Also, just as a note of curiosity, this game does that thing where you don't find weapons on dead enemies or stuff like that. Instead, new weapons will prominently float on a dais for you to pick up.

Because in this ancient greek setting, why wouldn't a rocket launcher or machine gun be on prominent display like that?

 

It's very typical for games of this sort, but it just kinda occurred to me how weird it actually is as i was writing this.

I guess it's one of those "don't think too hard about it"-kind of things.

 

The multibarreled i-win-button that usually ends up saving the day!

 But enough about the weapons, what about the enemies you use them on?

 

Well, there's a decent variety here, too, some more fun to fight than others. There's basic animated skeletons that work as super-fragile cannon fodder, shattering from just about any hit, satyr archers who kind of function as the game's snipers, gladiators, tigers and more.

 

A really notable one are the minotaurs.

They're one of the very first enemies you encounter, and they remain as one of the most common enemies throughout the entire campaign.

Unfortunately, they're kind of annoying.

See, they carry axes, with which to melee you, but they can also throw them, in which case it becomes a flaming projectile that does some splash damage, which makes them kinda hard to dodge, when they're being thrown at you from all directions.

Compounding that, however, is the fact that when you kill a minotaur, they burst into bits, and two of those bits will reshape themselves into...... more minotaurs! This "second generation" won't do the same thing upon dying, but they -do- still have the flaming throwing axe stuff going on.

 

There's ways around this multiplication-stuff, like using the medusa gun to turn the minotaurs to stone, or the crossbow, which shoots flaming bolts and burns them to ash, but nevertheless, the minotaurs can turn a battle into a bit of a slog.

 

Literally killing it with fire is one of the best ways to deal with the minotaurs.

 Beyond the normal enemies, the game has 4 Bosses.

There's a cyclops, who later becomes a normal enemy, same with the second boss, who's a sort of giant with a hammer and a peg-leg.

(Might be a prominent figure from Greek mythology, but well, we wouldn't know. 😜)

 

The third boss is Medusa. Though curiously, in this game, she's not a half-snake as usual. She's more of a harpy? She flies and stuff. You run into her twice, and shoot her a lot, that's all it boils down to.

 

And then there's the final boss. I'd warn you of spoilers here, but this game's 22 years old and the final boss is entirely unsurprising, considering the basic premise of the story. It's Zeus. You defeat Zeus by shooting him with a minigun (other guns are available) while he sits on this throne, lobbing lightning and cannon fodder at you.

It's kind of anti-climactic, but to be fair, a lot of games of this era had this phenomenon of getting a bit weak towards the end. I'd guess it's because the budget's mostly used up by the time they get to designing the final boss. Oh well.

 

Skeletons are among the most common enemies in the game. They're fast, but mega-fagile. Shooting a shotgun into a group of them often takes out a whole bunch of them in one shot.

The gameplay loop is ultimately..... a bit shallow. I mean, it's sort of what you'd expect, once you realize that it's mostly an arena shooter of the early 2000's.

 

There's some interesting bits of level design, some light platforming and dodging obstacles, a handful of places where you fire yourself over a wall using a catapult, and other bits and bobs of interesting level design, but by far the predominant feature is shooting things.

 

Lots and lots of shooting things.

 

So much shooting things.

 

-Too- much shooting things, frankly.

 

I know it's a shooter, and in shooters, you're meant to be shooting stuff, but it kind feels like this game overdoes it.

I know it's not quite fair, but comparing it to something like Half Life 1, which came out 5 years before this, really shows off why the plot-driven shooter buried the arena-shooter over time. 

Because HL1 had plenty of quiet bits, making room for plot development, giving the game space to build tension and so forth. Meanwhile, in Will Rock, it feels like 90% of the game, you're holding down the left mouse button and slogging your way through yet more enemies, because why would a shooter involve anything other than shooting stuff?

 

It does get rather old, and it feels quite dull at times.

And let's not even mention the fact that Half Life 2 came out the next year. That would just be rude. 😉

 

 

Behold! One of the rare bits when you're not shooting stuff! Well, until enemies start spawning between the swinging blades, anyway.

 

 

So, i mentioned the soundtrack, earlier. Well, mostly it's what you'd expect. Some greek-style atmosphere tracks, and more rock-y combat themes. Nothing bad here, but nothing super-memorable, either. Except for 3 bits.

 

The menu music we already mentioned. Beyond that, there's a couple of levels where suddenly, someone starts slapping the bass and everything gets a bit funky.

 

Actually, rather surprisingly, we found a playlist with the entire soundtrack on YouTube, so we can show you what we mean!

Behold! Will Rock's odd funk music!

 

Sounds like a tycoon game theme, doesn't it? I mean, we certainly don't mind. We like music that stands out, but boy is it odd to hear slap-bass and electric organ in a game like this. 😏

 

But there's one more part of the soundtrack that really, -really- stood out, to the point where it almost felt like we were having a fever-dream or something. Behold!

 

 Yeah, your ears do not deceive you. That's what you think it is.

 

It plays right at the start of one of the levels, where the game surprises you with a properly massive fight, loads of enemies and stuff, Hall of the friggin' Mountain King blaring, and it is, without question, one of the best bits of the game.

 

 I mean, it's cheesy as heck, and yes, you're still just shooting stuff, but the game caught us totally off-guard with that wild, bombastic shift in tone, and it felt sort of surreal and glorious.

Kinda makes me wonder actually. Would it have been better if they kept that sort of all-out pace throughout the whole game?

Probably not. It probably would still get old eventually. Moments like that are much more effective when they stand out, rather than being the norm. But to be fair, we definitely would have liked a couple more moments like that.

 

Like seriously, the start of that level is one of those proper, permanent gaming-memories, now. Thanks Saber Interactive! 😉 

But anyhow, i suppose when talking about video games, it's customary to mention graphics. Neither Amalia nor myself really care much, as long as a game doesn't hurt to look at, but still.

 

Will Rock looks..... better than you'd expect when you hear "2003", actually. It's got style. Much of it comes from the design of the enemies and environments, rather than raw graphics power, but yeah.

 

Obviously, playing it back then, i played in on a 4:3 CRT-Monitor, probably at 1024x768, or even 800x600 if i didn't have the insane, raw graphical power needed for Will Rock, but yeah. 😜

 

Playing it now, in a modern resolution and keeping in mind how old it is, it's actually a rather pretty game!

The level design does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to the game's looks. Nice architecture, and the more nature-y locations have a lovely greek-countryside vibe.

So yeah, that just about concludes our little expedition into this old childhood game that little me played the demo of, back in the day.

I won't deny it, there were times when i -hated- how much of a slog it could be, with more, and more, and yet more enemies to endlessly fight through, and i especially dreaded those darn minotaurs, because when they showed up, it was time to switch away from the OP minigun to use different weapons that stop them from multiplying upon death.

 

But overall, it ended up being a fairly pleasant romp through the past. You might even say that the sloggy parts made the highlights stand out more. 

 

Especially in some of the level design, which not only looks good, but is also the main thing giving the game some variety. And as mentioned, the sometimes rather unexpected soundtrack.

So, Amalia and i believe that this game deserves a solid....

 

Unexpected Grieg!/10