Rock of Ages 3: Make & Break Review

"Breaking Through Time"

Campaign

August 6, 2020 at 3:47am
By Jason Stettner

It’s surprising, but this is the third Rock of Ages. It’s a series of games with a unique humor to them, and this sort of stretches what you can do with this style to what I believe is the limit. This is largely a refinement of the previous title, with some minor adjustments and additions. This is another roll through the times as you deal with folks from throughout history.

They have a sort of dream lake that you sail through to reach missions, with the stars you earn being what’s used to unlock new areas. These spots will feature a selection of levels and challenges to play. You’ll get a main back and forth battle, alongside some smaller mini games.

Things such as obstacle course battles, time trials or even sillier options. They have fun with it, at the same time it doesn’t seem too blown up over what came before. As expected, this hits on the marks of history featuring Caesar, Krampus and even the legendary Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The latter of which was my player character, quite humorous for sure. It’s certainly a deep look at our history. There’s definitely a fair bit of content to work through when it comes to the story, with minor cinematic segments littered throughout. If you want something more, the game features some in-depth options for level creation.

This leads into a sort of open area to play the maps online. You’ll be able to get into an online lobby to compete against others, or the AI across a variety of custom creations. A nice touch, but I never ran into anyone else. It also had a weird delay in loading a map to the point I’d click on another since I wasn’t sure if it was working.

Gameplay

At its core, the game is based around being a large boulder. There is a large selection of them to choose from as you progress, with each boulder offering something unique. If you’re not being a large rock, you’re setting up defensive items which also offer a wide selection of choices. You set them up, with certain restrictions on re-placing these items down.

This is basically a waiting ground in regards to getting set up for another roll. The visuals and atmosphere are actually fairly solid. They look pleasing, and capture distinct eras in time. You get a wide range of settings to visit, and they have some unique music to match. I did notice some performance issues while playing, and also smaller graphical issues while hopping along. Sometimes the physics didn’t quite feel right, and or certain objects didn’t quite function as how I felt they should.

I did honestly find the setup of the competitive areas to be a tad boring in this one, and they didn’t necessarily do a whole lot to truly refine the boulder experience. When it comes to the building aspects, that’s actually fairly streamlined and intuitive which is nice. This is a game that can be played alone, in two player local multiplayer or also four player online multiplayer. It’s setup for groups, and can bring in some fun times.

The Conclusion

Rock of Age 3: Make & Break is an alright continuation of the series, it doesn’t however take too many strides in regards to refreshing the formula. There are some neat additions, but it does feel very similar to the previous entry. I liked the themes that were presented, and the style of gameplay can be fun at times. I’m not a fan of star based restrictions for progression, but it wasn’t too bad and offered open exploration across such a lovely timeline map puddle.

Visually this is decently impressive, it could have used a tad more polish however. There’s a fair bit of content to this, I do believe they’ve sort of pushed this series as far as it’ll go though. They could very well innovate upon it I suppose, but this seems like a sort of full release of their ideas, with minimal upgrades over what came before.

I like the humor that’s present, but the story structuring could have also had a deeper narrative to it. It definitely has its moments, yet at times I felt slightly bored. It has some nice online components, and a good level of hilarity at times. I just wanted something more from this I suppose. There’s nothing really wrong with it, and if you like this series you’ll have a good time with it.

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Rock of Ages 3: Make & Break Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by Tinsley PR

Rating Overall: 6.6