Hello, and welcome to something unheard of. This week, I’m doing something I never normally do. As I stated last week, I’m aware that Rocket League is a very different experience for better players than it is when you’re not so good. I knew that anyway, and I had a few comments from last week’s video, basically telling me to practice a little more before concluding that the game is so bad. So, I thought I’d take that advice and see if my opinion on Rocket League changes.
Before we get started, I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who watched, liked and commented on my Rocket League review. I appreciate every interaction I have, plus the advice on improving my game. So here I am trying to improve, and it’s time to ask the question: Can Rocket League make a fan of me?
There’s No Rocket League Without Training
I started my journey in the place I was told would help me improve the most: Goalkeeper Training.
After a few embarrassing fails, where I seriously began to regret my decision to revisit this game, I eventually composed myself and saved all ten attempts at my goal. The game was feeling glitchy, but I’m not blaming that for my performance. Maybe my issue is that I’m so flimsy mentally. Come on, Jordan. Stay positive. You’ve got this!
With one objective completed on All-Star difficulty, I was ready to attempt the shooting drill. This is where I noticed that I’m a far better goalkeeper than I am a striker. All this time, I refused to defend because my frequent mistakes led me to believe that I was awful in goal. Yet, after doing these training exercises, it’s clear that my shooting ability isn’t as good as I thought it was. I could barely shoot on target. If it’s a tap-in, then I’m fine, but anything more than that, I’m totally useless. This is clearly an area of my game I need to work on.
Is this Task Useful or a Waste of Time?
Free-Play was also recommended to me as a way of mastering Rocket League’s dribbling and movement. After a few minutes of aimlessly moving around the pitch, I decided to move on to the next task. There were a couple of useful aspects to the Free-Play mode, but I mainly felt lost due to certain buttons having multiple purposes.
Everything had become very confusing.
As I was lost, I decided to move on to the Aerial training drill. Big mistake. It took me a long time to work out the flight of the ball. Just getting close to hitting it was a success in itself. After many attempts, I finally managed to make contact with the ball. At first, I was surprised I could even hit it, but after I got my bearings, I actually managed to 100% the objective. Much to my astonishment, I could only conclude that perhaps my ability isn’t as terrible as I thought it was. With this newfound confidence, I decided to brave the scary world of competitive Rocket League.
Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire
Thanks to my training, I felt like I was driving on air as I scored the first goal of the game. Then we conceded, and I was reminded of my perplexity for the other Rocket League players. One of my teammates clicked ‘What a save’ when the other missed the ball. Welcome back to the toxic underworld of depression. In fairness, both of my teammates were terrible, and I didn’t enjoy my experience as we lost miserably. Even after training, my attempt at climbing the ranks seemed futile.
In my second game, I was frustrated to find another toxic teammate, and I decided that turning off the game chat was the best thing for my mental well-being. It didn’t feel like I had made much of an improvement, and another one of my useless teammates wanted to forfeit the game instead of fighting back. Thankfully, in my last duos game, I did get a teammate who showed some grit. We fought back from 4-1 down to win the game in overtime, and I was in danger of starting to enjoy myself.
Unfortunately, that feeling didn’t last long.
I gained an early lead against my 1v1 opponent, and then they stopped playing. When I got the goal to make the score 5-2, I was feeling pretty confident that the game was won. What happened next was horrifying. I don’t know how it happened, but it felt like my opponent had passed the controller to their older brother. I’m not sure if I touched the ball again, and I lost the game with the last touch. Pitiful. Enough was enough.
Has Rocket League Made a Fan of Me?
I decided to give Rocket League a second chance because my first review felt harsh. It can be fun when playing with friends, and we’ve experienced some crazy moments down the years. The atmosphere feels a lot cleaner when the game chat is turned off, and it does feel like I can improve as a player if I train enough. I also want to make it clear that I do respect Rocket League’s difficulty. Multiplayer games where players rely on a lot of assistance ensure that not many wins feel validated. Whereas, in this game, you’re grateful just to hit the ball.
That said, I stand by a lot of my frustrations. Teammates are too timid. The servers are weak, and there just isn’t enough satisfaction to keep me playing for long periods of time. Maybe my love is dying for multiplayer games with ranking systems, designed to keep you playing for ridiculous hours just so you can compete. Give me a story game any day over the long grind of nothingness that multiplayer games have become.
I do respect Rocket League more than I did thanks to those who explained the game to me in more detail, but in the end of the day, it’s still just a game where cars play football.
Verdict
My overall rating for Rocket League has improved to 5/10.
Thank you for allowing me to clear a few things up, and I promise I’ll be playing something different next week.
The video for this blog post will be uploaded to YouTube at 6 pm BST. Link: https://youtu.be/2I7Uh0iqR1Y
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