Others say..."Sam will kill Will"People here have compared Will Rock with the Serious Sam games. All I have to say is Will Rock has got nothin' Serious Sam.
While the spectacular kill fest in SS nail you to you seat, WS has you yawning after an hour of tedious gameplay.
Why. The games are similar in some respects, but SS has that certain je n'ais c'est quis that WS sorely lacks.
"You Wanna Rock!"Short version: Just grab your wallet, hop in your car, drive to the nearest software store (or try Amazon.com by all means), and buy a copy of Will Rock.
Long version: I've been a shooter fan since the days when Wolfenstein 3D was cutting edge, and lately I've been having trouble finding a really good shooter. However, after purchasing a copy of Will Rock and playing it through to the end, I highly recommend it as the most fun PC game I think I've ever played.
Much ado has been made about the similarities between Will Rock and the earlier, Serious Sam. There's no doubt about it: Will Rock is obviously greatly influenced by Serious Sam. You battle hoards of enemies that come after you in one wave after another. Nevertheless, Will Rock is a unique game that expands and innovates on what other shooters have done. It has a different setting (classical Greece) with different enemies and weapons. So you need not worry that you'll be getting a Serious Sam clone with Will Rock.
Will Rock has so much to offer. Unlike any other shooter I can think of, Will Rock combines jumping puzzles with combat, and many of these puzzles can be great fun. The graphics are first-rate from a technical standpoint, and the artwork is superb. I really loved the level design which not only looked very nice but made the gameplay that much better. The sound was really good, too.
Nevertheless, this game isn't perfect. On some of the levels the successive waves of enemies became sometimes overwhelming, annoying, or monotonous. It took me a little while to get used to the gameplay which involves destroying statues that attack you as well as destroying other "inanimate" objects to find something. I thought that at some points the game became too difficult, and make no mistake: Will Rock is not an easy game. You really need to be on your toes to survive.
But any problems with Will Rock are minor and are easily made up for by all the great things it has to offer. It's the most fun I've had with my computer in a long time, and I plan to play Will Rock again and again.
"... Kicker + 1"This game is the greatest. One day im looking for a new game at [a local store]. The only reason i picked up Will Rock is because it cost [$$$]. But when i paid for it and got home i found it was the FPS i had ever played. I've played Wolfenstein 3d and Half-Life... They have nothing on this game. Its like playing Doom because of the monsters and weapons but its also like The Gladiators of Rome because of the enviroments. I love the bullet-time thing as well, it's like the matrix. Guns, Bullet-Time, Monsters. What are you waiting for? ... and by the way, you can fix the bugs with the patch found at [the will-rock website].
"Strangely Enjoyable"Having played Will Rock before Serious Sam, I had no expectations (the game came in a Radeon 9200 pack so I didn't intentionally purchase it).
However, apart from the over corney script, this game is actually very fun to play.
The graphics are very smooth, crisp and full of eye candy. A step ahead of Serious Sam: Second Encounter.
Though the AI won't burn out any brain cells, I personally found the battles very satisfying. Especially the bosses.
Many Computer Game websites have given this game the thumbs down, which co-insides with the fact they give thumbs up to games I hate. Will Rock is about killing thousands of mythical monsters, with plenty of weapons and great scenary. Putting a bullet into a statue throwing worlds at you and watching it collapse into thousands of pieces will put an evil grin on your face.
If you're not expecting the next best thing, the game is worth the cheap price.
PS: Avoid getting your hands on the bundled version (the one that comes with a gigabyte radeon). It cannot be patched and therefore you cannot get rid of the annoying mouse bug. I still enjoyed it however :)
"Not smart or original, but still fun"
I have to admit that I almost stopped playing Will Rock after seeing the intro. The story is about as ridiculous as they come, and having finished the game I can say that it really doesn't get much better. That said, who plays shooters for the story? When it comes down to it, Will Rock is one heck of a stress reliever.
Every review I've seen of this game says that it's a Serious Sam knockoff. All right, I admit I've never played that game so I can't say for sure. The point of the gameplay is quite simple- blow away everything in your path and get to the goal. You'll often find yourself in massive arenas full of enemies that throw themselves at you in homogeneous waves. Sound dumb? It is, but it's also strangely enthralling in a 'me blow stuff up' sort of way.
There are a few tricks to finding your way, but nothing particularly stupefying. Rather, the difficulty is getting past the hordes of monsters that will come at you. They pop out of the ground, out of statues, even out of bolts of energy fired by altars. This usually happens en masse, and if you sit still you are a dead man. Happily enough, the individual enemies are weak, and your weapons are formidable. I know enough to say that the arms aren't particularly new for a shooter, but it's still highly satisfying to spray a horde of resurrected ancient Greek monsters with a minigun.
The game graphics are all well done, with good looking enemies and better looking bosses. The areas are quite nice, with a Greek motif (I found the Underworld to be especially cool) and level design is quite good. If you have any problems finding your way around, there's an included Black Box guide. The narrator is a lady with a British accent that is downright hilarious- I played the walkthroughs just for laughs.
There are times, however, when you can see that this was a budget title. Aside from the concept being 'borrowed,' a lot of the art looks like it was scanned out of an encyclopedia, and some of the music is 'borrowed' as well. It's all good, though, and even picky players will find themselves too preoccupied blowing stuff up to notice. The AI has minimal intelligence- melee enemies will charge maniacally your way no matter what you've got aimed at them, and ranged enemies will stand in one spot and shoot until you find the time to blow them away. Masses of enemies will group and be decimated by your area-of-effect weapons or even their own allies. The damage you take will largely be a result of strategically placed spawn sites and splash damage rather than enemy tactics.
Despite its lack of intelligence and originality, Will Rock is quite a value. It's a decently long game, and has enough action to keep you going. I have to admit that it was just the thing for wasting time and pleasing that sadistic alter-ego. So long as you don't expect anything new or revolutionary, it's a lot of plain dumb fun.
