Rogue Trooper is an action game based on a comic strip originally conceived by Dave Gibbons. It was initially released back in 1986 as an isometric shooter by Piranha Software for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. The 16bit Amiga and Atari ST title was released in 1991 by Krisalis Software but with totally different style and graphics, playing like an appealing 2D platform shooter with some added pseudo-3D shooter levels. The game has four levels combining different styles of gameplay.
Review
STORY / GAMEPLAY The story is based around the Nu-Earth War where a group of G.I. (Genetic Infantrymen) were betrayed by a mean General. Most of the group's members were slaughtered and only one finally survived. Collecting up the dead troopers' bio-chips, our hero turns rogue and sets off to avenge the death of his war brothers and kill the traitor. The action takes place over four levels, combining different styles of gameplay. Initially you need to escape from the Nort prison playing in beat 'em up (and shooting when needed) style until you find your way out and then proceed to the next level where you fly on a spaceship and battle with hostile crafts in a Space Harrier style gameplay! During the 2D levels there is quite a lot of interaction with the backdrops. You collect several items and need to operate certain spots to unlock doors and collect advanced weaponry and armor. Each level is swarmed by guards varying from armored androids (the Norts) to hovering robots. You may collect money as well that'll help you buy extra armor. The flying-shooting levels are the next part. These levels play like Sega's Space Harrier and have you flying low and fast over the Nort area. Credits can be collected upon destroying incoming enemies, increasing the power of your puny craft! Rogue Trooper is a good game and definitely worth a look. It offers great gameplay with some great visuals and sound, although a little more variety would have been awesome.
GRAPHICS / SOUND The graphics on the Amiga, although not eye-catching, are good and run pretty smooth. The sprites are nicely designed and well animated. There are several details on the interior scenes (but they seem quite repetitive) while the flying levels look great with some impressively smooth, parallax scrolling. The game's sound on the Amiga version is great, with lots of sampled sound effects and a cool in-game music which, although repetitive, is among the best on the Amiga games library.
GAMEPLAY SAMPLE VIDEO On our video below you may watch both the Atari ST and Amiga versions of the game.
The Amiga version is at 08:08.
CPU: Motorola MC68000 7.16 MHz MEMORY: 512KB of Chip RAM (OCS chipset - A500), 512 KB of Slow RAM or Trapdoor RAM can be added via the trapdoor expansion, up to 8 MB of Fast RAM or a Hard drive can be added via the side expansion slot. The ECS chipset (A500+) offered 1MB on board to 2MB (extended) of Chip RAM. GRAPHICS: The OCS chipset (Amiga 500) features planar graphics (codename Denise custom chip), with up to 5 bit-planes (4 in hires), allowing 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 color screens, from a 12bit RGB palette of 4096 colors. Resolutions varied from 320x256 (PAL, non-interlaced, up to 4096 colors) to 640x512 (interlace, up to 4 colors). Two special graphics modes where also included: Extra Half Bright with 64 colors and HAM with all 4096 colors on-screen. The ECS chipset models (Amiga 500+) offered same features but also extra high resolution screens up to 1280x512 pixels (4 colors at once). SOUND: (Paula) 4 hardware-mixed channels of 8-bit sound at up to 28 kHz. The hardware channels had independent volumes (65 levels) and sampling rates, and mixed down to two fully left and fully right stereo outputs