Will Rock

Moby ID: 9903
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Description official descriptions

Will Rock has been described as Serious Sam set in Greece.

A budget First Person Shooter where you take the role of the title character, an archaeologist named Will Rock. Your mentor has been murdered by a cult calling themselves the Olympian Restoration Army.

This of course leads to you running around Grecian ruins shooting at hundreds of bad guys and mythological monsters. Like the aforementioned Sam, Will Rock relies more on spawning dozens of bad guys at a time and furious combat than story.

Spellings

  • Will Rock. Š“ŠøŠ±ŠµŠ»ŃŒ Š‘Š¾Š³Š¾Š² - Russian spelling
  • åØå°”ę“›å…‹ - Simplified Chinese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Windows version)

79 People (59 developers, 20 thanks) · View all

Game Design
Level Design
Project Lead
Lead Engine Programmer
AI Programming
Network Programming
SFX Programming
Interface Programming
Art Director
Lead Artist
Level Artists
Character Artists
Texture Artist
Lead Animators
Level Integration
SFX and Weapons Guru
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 65% (based on 25 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.2 out of 5 (based on 12 ratings with 2 reviews)

Fail to repeat the magic of Serious Sam, but is worth-playing.

The Good
Well, I really liked Serious Sam's fast-paced action style, and I decided to play this game. For those of you who don't know SS, I'll explain it. This game puts you in large places, many of them looking like an arena. Then an army of enemies spawn at every side of you and... guess what you will have to do, right? The spirit of this game is only killing. It doesn't have profound plot or any real puzzle; it really is a game for the ones who like non-stop shooting, like me. Some weapons are innovative, like the sniper crossbow, acid gun who makes enemies grow fat until they explode, and a medusa gun who turns enemies to stone. The scenario is ancient Greece, and your objective is to kill Zeus to rescue a girl.

The Bad
Well, the first thing i didn't liked is that the enemies are very weak; most of them you can kill with your pistol. They don't cause much damage and there are tons of health and ammo distributed through the stages, which makes this game pretty easy in the normal difficult. Unlike Serious Sam, you don't really fear the enemies; I needed my rocket launcher (called fireball thrower here) and minigun very few times. Seriously, you can beat this game only using the basic weapons (pistol, shotgun, machine gun). Many times the enemies just spawn in front of you, asking to be killed. The majority of them have the same type of attack, which is throwing a weapon, like an axe, mace, knife, and others. Most of the "secrets" in this game are very obvious to find, like a treasure hidden beneath a stair. So, if you're trying to repeat the challenge of Serious Sam, forget about this game.

The Bottom Line
If killing a lot of enemies is fun to you, try this game. If you want a challenge, try the hardest difficulty. It is an extreme FPS, so if you aren't a fanatical by gunfire, don't buy this game.

Windows · by Carlos Costa (1) · 2008

A decent shooter with some nice touches, in the Serious Sam mould.

The Good
With Russian developer Saber Interactive second FPS Outing, Time Shift, just around the corner, I thought I would throw in my two cents about their first baby, Will Rock.

As a game in the vein of Serious Sam, Rock sails a bit close to the wind in terms of ā€œinspired game-play,ā€ as this has just a few too many strong similarities to the aforementioned game. But weā€™ll give Saber a fair trial here however, causeā€™ after the dust has settled, I found it to be a good time killer with some welcome frills.

In terms of game-play, Rock moved well enough, and rarely had a dull moment. The action is fast and frenetic, where here sensibility takes a back seat to controlled bursts of insanity, where big guns shooting even bigger nasties are the upmost order of the day.

Often the flow of action is erratically disjointed, where you bounce around kinetically on trampoline things, get flung great distances on catapults, and concurrently battling with a cavalcade of nasties all at once, making for some genuinely hectic fun.

As in all Russian shooters, puzzle elements have been dispersed throughout, counterbalancing the more action laden moments. This facet of the game mainly constitutes much toggling of switches to bring about some kind of reaction, such as drawing a bridge, or summoning an elevator etc. Though, some more observational style head scratchers have been thrown in the mix, for example in one instance, you must somehow employ a giant Trojan horse, in order to . . . yep, you guessed it, gain entry into a fortified castle.

One of the things that grabbed me with this title was the ā€˜Titanā€™ power-up system, with such abilities as temporary invulnerability to enemy attacks, a damage multiplier for your weapons, and a slow-mo ability (read: bullet-time), OK, so the last one is really clicheā€™ now, but is still cool.

Whatā€™s interesting however, is here you have to find secret gold hidden around in the various nooks and crannies around the level structures, in order to buy the power-ups from special stations you find at predefined points during the course of the game.

Three keys are assigned to the keyboard for each special power, and any or all can be activated at will, and each lasts for a limited time, and is helpful during those heated firefights when you need that extra edge.

All of this stuff has been greatly expanded on in recent times, with the likes of the classic Polish shooter ā€˜Pain Killerā€™, but it was interesting to see where the concepts originated.

Your arsenal here is one of the gamesā€™ strong suits, with some suitably outlandish weapons. Of which incidentally, are smartly weighed out slowly during the course of the game. So there is an extra incentive to stay with this, as things get more fun in the latter stages.

One of my favourites had to be the Acid-Gun, which works as a burst of spray rather than a projectile, and makesā€™ enemies expand in a balloon like fashion, and ultimately explode into a green splat, which makes for a rather amusing effect, and proved to be a particularly satisfying way of doing away with enemies. Another neat inclusion is the Medusa-Gun, which, well, you probably have already figured it out. All the more traditional weapons are of course included, like a handgun, shotgun, machine gun, heavy machine-gun, grenades, rocket launcher, and so on.

Perhaps the gamesā€™ biggest asset is the very slick proprietary ā€˜Saber 3Dā€™ engine. The visuals here are very crisp, colourful and pleasing on the eye. The overall styles of the proceedings have a kind of subtle cartoon flavour which contributes to an aesthetically pleasing feel.

The animation of the various enemy models is suitably well realised in this outing. A particular standout is the enormous Roman statues which suddenly come to life with gusto, prying themselves from the shackles of their stone slabs, and proceeding to bound about the level scapes, and in turn crumble into dusty heaps when you destroy them. The articulation of the movements in action simply looks astounding, as such really draws you into the action.

There is a good mix of enemies from incessantly chattering skeletons, axe wielding Minotaur beasts (that subsequently split into two independent nasties when you shoot them), through to giant cyclops creatures, which often liberally fill the busy screens of gleeful mayhem.

As this title is a few years old now, so if you have even a half decent rig, you can go right ahead and crank up all of the advanced graphics options, such as full scene anti-aliasing, sky blooms, shade effects et all, for optimal effect.

No slouch in the audio department either, this one has a good array of meaty effects to compliment the action, especially the gun fire and explosions. The shotgun in particular has suitably crunchy accompanying sounds that are well satisfying.

There are some speech samples included in the form of hilariously bad quips and wisecracks from the protagonist, for example when you first encounter a skeleton warrior, Rock says ā€œIs that you Grampa?ā€ and in another instance which involves tigers, he exclaims ā€œHere Kitty, kittyā€, among other similarly silly things. Concerning the music, of note is mainly the good licensing of the ā€˜Twisted Sisterā€™ song ā€œI wannaā€™ Rockā€ that cheerfully plays at the title menu screen.

The Bad
Your progression is very controlled in most instances, e.g. only one route is usually available in order to progress, and as you go on, the new areas are opened up one at a time in a linear fashion. Being granted a choice of direction is rare, so moreover play can feel a bit one-dimensional in this respect.

A minor gripe is that some levels have occasional lulls due to design which includes a bit much backtracking. Given the environments are often quite large, makes for some tedium.

The Bottom Line
Okay, there isnā€™t too much I disliked about this one. It does what it sets out to do well enough, though may disappoint some, as this is admittedly not quite as frenzied as Serious Sam. The game has a general lack of originality, sure, but honestly, has its share of good moments, as there are enough surprises that crop up along the way which keep your interest alive in the long-term. Not to mention some of the best animation featured in a FPS to that point. Couple this with some genuinely entertaining weapons, and the odd thought-provoking puzzle thrown in for good measure, and the somewhat cool Titan powers - even though its sort of gimmicky, ultimately manages to elevate this above mediocrity.

Windows · by Nick Drew (397) · 2007

Trivia

Level design

To create the distinct Ancient Greek/Roman setting of the game, Saber Interactive employed experts in architecture of Classical Antiquity to design the various locations and structures in the levels. Some of the areas are recreations of real-life ancient sites. For example, the palace entrance in the beginning of the game is copied from the exterior of the famous Al Khazneh temple in the city of Petra. The starting area of the second level recreates the Petra amphitheatre. Wall textures used for interior decoration include reproductions of Roman frescoes.

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Related Sites +

  • Will Rock
    Official Website
  • Will Rock Interview (Jan 8, 2002)
    GameSpot talked to Matthew Karch, manager of business development at Saber Interactive, about Will Rock, the company's upcoming first-person shooter.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 9903
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Atomic Punch!.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Indra was here, Jeanne, Klaster_1, MrFlibble.

Game added August 3, 2003. Last modified January 22, 2024.