Streets of Rogue

Review

We all know what politicians are about, don’t we! They promise the moon, the Milky Way and all sorts of things to be elected, whatever echelon they are aiming for.  Well, you haven’t heard about this Mayor’s tactic. His slogan was low taxes (how original) and free beers for all his constituents as soon as he sits in the Mayor’s office. That my friends, is a fabulous policy if you enjoy beer and I understand why people would vote in his favour. But the little rascal did exactly the opposite; not only did he raise the taxes so high that you might reach the milky way sooner rather than later, but he implemented a prohibition policy instead of free beers. You have been doomed, you idiot! The only way to get rid of this impostor (what did you expect) is to join the resistance and kick him and his goons out of town, in Streets of Rogue!

Streets of Rogue is a pixelated action/rogue-lite game developed by Matt Drabrowski and published by tinyBuild and was fully released on the 13^th of July 2019 on Steam, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

Your first task will be to go through a small tutorial which will fatally impress the first leader of the resistance (he actually explodes from excitement). Then you’ll be invited into the resistance Headquarters, where you’ll be able to unlock traits from the doctor in the infirmary room and unlock rewards by speaking with the thief. Bear in mind that you’ll need a certain number of chicken nuggets to pay for them (umm . . . yes, chicken nuggets were also banned by the Mayor and they are more valuable than the golden ones). Bear in mind that you’ll receive one trait each time you successfully leave a map and one reward each time you complete a mission within the map. The good news is that you’ll receive a couple of nuggets as an additional bonus when you finish a mission or leave the map. There is also a soldier at the HQ from whom you can buy interesting items to take to your next playthrough, as long as you have enough chicken nuggets on hand. There is also a room where you can initiate a co-op mode game or play online. When you’re ready, head up to the teleporter, select a character (there are plenty and you can customise them) and start a game.

Each stage has three maps (all randomised), and your goal is to complete all the missions within each map and reach as many stages as you can before your inevitable death. The missions vary from eliminating someone to rescuing hostages to retrieving documents. There is an optional big quest in each level where you have to destroy a certain number of generators and receive extra points when you leave the map. The first two usually have between 2 to 4 missions (including a mission given by a shopkeeper) while the third one will have an additional feature implemented to make it a little bit tougher. You might have a contract on your head and therefore all gangs and drug dealers and might be on your tail. You might enter into a riot or a war zone, but that’s not all, as toxic liquid might spread quickly throughout the entire map and take away health points when you walk on it. The other funny one is that bombs will drop on the street every 15 seconds and you’ll have to enter a house to avoid instant death.

There are usually several houses to visit per map and most of them will be locked, so you’ll need either a lockpick or a door detonator, or you can simply knock at the door and wait for someone to answer it. Some of them will have a chest in one of the rooms but these houses will be well guarded. You’ll either need to eliminate all occupants to reach the chest or put a chemical liquid into the air-conditioning unit outside the house (if there is one) to force people out for 15 seconds and attempt to reach the chest and its goodies. But there are more complex residences where you have to avoid cameras, flamethrowers, traps, turrets and other obstacles to reach each chest, and these ones can be quite challenging.

As you eliminate people, they may drop weapons, coins or objects that you can pick up and use to help you through the level.

A vendor, a store, a clone and an ammunition refill machine will be spread out within each map for you to use. You can also hire thieves and gang members for protection, but it won’t be cheap at all.

As you go through the stages new characters will be introduced, such as vampires, cannibals and more. Personally, I haven’t passed the fourth stage yet, so I can’t give you any more detail about that.

This game is full of humour and extremely addictive! Each game you play will be different due to the randomised levels, and also because of the option of selecting a different character at the start of each game. Some will be faster than others, or better at a melee or using weapons than others. Plus, some of them have items while others have none. It’s an extremely well-thought-out game.

Lovely pixel artwork and the game runs very well. You can play with mouse and keyboard or with gamepad.