I’ve been waiting to play Rocket Cows for quite some time since it appeared as pre-order on the App Store. Although the game can be played in both AR and standard viewing mode, I found the AR mode to be superior and much more fun to play than the standard mode game mode. I will talk about it more in the gameplay section. OK, so without further ado, let’s jump straight to my review.
What is “Rocket Cows”?
Rocket Cows is an Angry Birds-like physics-based puzzler. It tells the story of cows who are fed up being abducted by aliens and now that the aliens have taken their princess, they decide to fight back.
The game features 80 levels. In each level, you need to aim a cow with a rocket on its back towards where the aliens are located. The goal is to eliminate all aliens in each level. The cow carries a rocket on its back which allows it to fly towards the floating islands where the aliens are. The rocket also detonates on impact. Think of it like a kamikaze suicidal cow that had enough of getting abused and now it makes it own plan for a sweet revenge.
You can eliminate the aliens by making sure a cow hit them directly, or by destroying the structures so they hit the aliens and destroy them. You can easily detect when an alien is eliminated because it does a funny voice, you can see the number of remaining aliens decreases at the top of the screen and you can see an alien ghost flying up to the sky after it was eliminated.
Furthermore, there are 8 unlockable rockets with different impact effect. To change a rocket you just drag it from the list of rockets on the left and place it onto the cow which is currently first to fly towards the islands. You have a total of 5 cows to try to eliminate all enemies.
If you’ve played Angry Birds before you’ll feel right at home. The game controls are very simple, just drag the crosshair, aim and release to shoot the cow. The developer also made it even easier, allowing the player to see the exact projectile pathing. I actually think that it makes the game much easier like that.
After each round, you’ll get a 3-star rating, score, and gems based on your performance in the previous round. You can use gems to buy new rockets from the store.
As for now, the game is a singleplayer game, but according to the game’s description on the App Store, we might see a multiplayer mode coming soon, probably Worms-style gameplay! The developer also mentioned maybe more unlockable characters and a level editor.
Gameplay Experience in AR and Standard Mode
The gameplay is super fun and addictive. You can play the game in AR mode or in standard mode, but the levels are the same, not separated. So if you progress in standard mode, you also progress in AR mode. The AR mode is just to give you the option to play the level you are currently playing in Augmented Reality.
I actually found the game to be much more fun to play in augmented reality (AR) than in standard mode. The controls in standard mode are not that comfortable. You swipe up to get close and swipe to the side to rotate, but the rotation is slow and inconvenient. I found it so much easier to just move around the environment in AR and even easier to find out hidden aliens that either were stuck underneath the wreckage or were hidden behind a wall.
Rocket Cows can be played in a very small area, I’ve played it on the table and on the couch without a problem. You can also place it in an even smaller area, but part of the fun is actually moving around the islands and spotting the best place to shoot the cow at.
The game is really funny. I mean, seeing a cow moo-ing while flying into the air is hilarious. I mean, seriously, who thought about this idea of putting a rocket on the back of the cow and make it go kamikaze—it’s really a superb idea. I also like the beautiful, large and splashy explosion effects. It’s really fun being able to complete a level with a single shot, destroying all the buildings and aliens in a huge explosion.
Instead of choosing specific cow classes, the developer has decided to just to use replaceable rockets. The thing is that if you decide to use only cows, it won’t be that interesting using cow classes because of the fact that they look more or less the same. It’s not like Angry Birds where you can be more creative and better humanize the character using different types of birds.
OK, enough talking for a second, let’s check out some crazy gameplay!
Plenty of content for a first release
Rocket Cows feature 80 levels, so there is plenty of content to keep you busy for many hours. I’ve played it for like 3 hours and I am still stuck at the last level (probably need to buy more powerful rockets, but I need those gems).
The game isn’t difficult but not too easy either. I found myself failing from time to time. Still, I think the game should have been designed to take better advantage of the different rockets. I found myself being able to finish most levels with just the basic rocket or the second slightly more powerful one. Of course, I gave myself the pleasure to try out all of them. I really liked the nuke bomb that deals a massive amount of damage over a very large area and the rocket that splits into three projectiles.
If you are a completionist you probably want to try to finish all levels with a 3-star rating. To do this, you need to finish the level with the minimum amount of rockets. It won’t be easy, you probably find yourself needing to buy those more expensive rockets that cost around 400 gems. To do this, you can either repeat the other levels that you’ve finished or buy gems from the store for real money and use it to purchase new rockets.
So bottom line, there is plenty of content. However, I don’t think it is enough to convince users to stay after they have finished the game. We need something else, like a. online multiplayer game mode, level editor, etc. The developer seems to be aware of this and we might see one of those features coming soon.
I didn’t have any significant issues with the game to report. I mean, I experienced some minor issues like the screen was blinking (like a low refresh rate display), maybe it’s due to the AR framework used in the game. Second, sometimes the islands start moving down. I think it’s because the AR framework just lost track of the surface. It happened when I move the device towards the islands where the aliens where. This is probably caused due to the type of surface I was playing the game on, which isn’t optimal for AR.
Third, dragging bombs onto cows felt awkward and I found myself needing to crouch to be able to activate the bomb, even then it was kind of wobbly.
Overall, minor issues, nothing that has any negative impact on the gameplay itself.
Conclusion
Rocket Cows is a fantastic AR game. The gameplay is super fun, funny and addicting. The controls are simple and intuitive and the presentation is great. The game is obviously inspired by the popular Angry Birds game but it feels like a new experience when you play it in augmented reality. Furthermore, the game has plenty of levels and different themes to each zone.
I can only praise the developer for making this a hybrid app so people can play this game when they are on the bus, in a dark room in their bad, and in order situation where AR is not applicable.
Rocket Cows isn’t free, but it definitely worth its asked price—Highly Recommended!
Download Rocket Cows for iOS from the App Store here.
