Rotastic is a new 2D arcade/puzzle game developed by Dancing Dots and published by Focus Home Interactive. It didn’t exactly create much buzz before its release so let’s see what we can learn from its horrendous title. Everyone bring out their dictionaries.
-tastic
-adj combining form
jocular denoting excellence in a specified area: the fun-tastic theme park ; their poptastic new single
Judging by just the title of the game itself, it seems that Rotastic wants to deliver excellence in rotating and a lot of it. After playing it though, I can report that this did not turn out to be the case. Sadly, the apparently thrown together title isn’t even the worst thing about this Xbox LIVE Arcade game.
You play through the game as various Vikings and creatures that swing from suspended points in the air. There are seven worlds to unlock and each world contains about ten levels. To clear each level you are tasked with various objectives. These include collecting gems, avoiding monsters and hazards or destroying objects.
You only use two buttons to control your actions on screen. You push A to release/attach to a point and either LB/RB to reverse the direction of your swing. Things starts off nice and easy during the beginning levels but once things get a little more complicated, any mistimed attachment can lead to death. Combine that with the need to replay levels and limited controls, Rotastic ends up being a very furytastic experience.
I know what you’re thinking. How could a Viking trapeze game be bad? Take a swing past the break and I’ll let you know.
You know that feeling of not being in control? I hate it; especially in games. Rotastic wants you to accomplish levels by swinging through a predetermined path quickly and efficiently. If you get it going, it actually feels nice. When I try to think of a comparison, my mind goes to Capcom’s latest 3D Bionic Commando game. Â Now if you played that game, you know it had its fair share of problems. But the best part of that game was the swinging. When you got it going and everything was smooth, it felt great. The same thing goes with Rotastic.
Your flight path is always easy to see. The gems will all be blue around one point and then green on the other signaling that you should let go of the point you’re on and transfer to the next point. Unfortunately, it is not easy to complete like intended. The game doesn’t give you enough controls to help you recover when you go off your path. There is no undo button. There is no way of shortening your rope if your swing is too big to collect gems. This becomes especially frustrating when the game introduces obstacles like saws or cannons that will kill you almost instantly every time you run into them. You can always exit out and start over but I found myself passing most levels by just sheer luck.
That in it self wouldn’t be too bad but the game scores you on how well you complete the levels. You unlock Viking helmets based on your time and point total. You can get points by bouncing off walls or for completing certain shapes with your flight path. Completing a figure-eight will get you the ‘Rotastic’ point bonus while doing a square will award you ‘The Big O’ bonus. To unlock worlds you need a certain amount of these helmets. Unless you complete each level as intended through your first play through, you’ll have to replay prior levels sometimes two to three times to get enough helmets to continue.
There is a multiplayer component to the game as well. You can play with up to three friends (locally only) and compete to collect gems as well as a deathmatch where you compete to cut each other’s ropes to fall out of the sky. These are just as straight forward as they seem and get boring really quickly. The inclusion of online multiplayer might have helped with my other biggest complaint with the game: its price.
Rotastic’s art style is very cartoony and you can tell that the game doesn’t take itself too seriously. There is nothing wrong with a casual experience. Except that Rotastic is currently selling for 800 Microsoft Points. That is ten real dollars people! This is a game that should be selling for three dollars at the most. If this was on your mobile platform of choice, it would be a .99 cent app to kill five minutes when you needed to.
With all these issues, it is hard to recommend Rotastic on any level. I know it is scheduled to release on PC and PSN in the near future. Hopefully some of the control issues can be resolved in these versions as well as a proper price. Anyone with 800 Microsoft Points burning a hole in their virtual wallets would be wise to look elsewhere for an entertainment fix.
