Review – Agefield High: Rock the School

I’ve been wanting Rockstar to remake or create a sequel to their distinctive Bully sport for fairly some time. The unique reveals its age fairly a bit now, and it might be good to get a graphics and gameplay overhaul for it. Sadly, it doesn’t appear to be that’s going to occur anytime quickly. Long gone are the times the place Rockstar branches out extra and does one thing completely different, or creates a brand new sport that doesn’t take six or extra years to make. That being stated, I used to be intrigued by Agefield Excessive: Rock the College as a result of its inspirations had been clear, they had been making a Bully styled sport.

In Agefield Excessive: Rock the College you play as Sam, who simply moved from a giant metropolis to a small city. He’s attempting to assimilate to the methods of a small city and discover his footing with the cliques within the college. In fact, being new means it’s important to cope with the college jock bully and his group of buddies attempting to destroy your life. Befriending a boy named Axel, he has a plan to take down Seth the jock and throw an enormous occasion to go away his mark on the college.

On paper this all sounds simply positive, and that’s why I used to be initially actually excited to offer Agefield Excessive: Rock the College a good shot. Sadly, I didn’t have one of the best time with this sport. The truth is, it’s in all probability one of many worst I’ve performed this yr, and I performed I Am Jesus Christ. I’ll be upfront in telling you I didn’t end your complete sport, but it surely wasn’t from an absence of attempting. I’ll be going into extra of why the sport let me down, however the closing straws had been all of the bugs and crashes I had that set me again generally an hour or so of gameplay every time. With that out of the best way, let me get into why total I used to be not impressed by this title.

First off, I’d prefer to acknowledge that I do know that is an indie mission and it’s not truthful to attempt to examine this to a sport from Rockstar. It simply isn’t going to have the identical stage of polish, and that’s okay. Nevertheless, this isn’t 2006, and there are expectations for higher wanting and working video games with how far Unreal Engine has come. From the start you instantly get the uncanny valley side to the character fashions. That is total a problem with Unreal Engine normally, but it surely doesn’t assist that there wasn’t a lot work into making them look extra pure.

The principle solid is ok wanting I suppose, however facet characters aren’t so nice. Nevertheless, it’s not simply the general high quality of the fashions that throw you off; it’s how they converse, work together, and transfer that make it off placing. Throughout cutscenes and conversations I don’t assume the characters ever truly have a look at one another a lot. They simply transfer and wave their heads round so much. It lingers on lengthy off stares with awkward pauses typically, and never for comedic timing. General, it simply pulls you out of the scene due to how unusual all of it feels.

Outdoors of the unusual character fashions and animations, the final world of Agefield Excessive: Rock the College appears okay. It’s not the worst factor I’ve seen, but it surely’s simply form of boring. It lacks attraction or something actually fascinating. It’s a reasonably customary wanting suburban map with some parks, a faculty, and a small market space. It’s not a giant map, doesn’t should be one, but it surely simply isn’t fascinating or filled with sufficient distinctive issues to make it enjoyable to discover.

The whole lot in Agefield Excessive: Rock the College  feels a bit half baked and that goes for the gameplay and quest design. There are a good quantity of missions to do (not less than from what I used to be in a position to get by way of), that vary from college, buddies, or facet jobs. Nevertheless, none of it feels cohesive. There may be clearly a deal with college and making your mark, however college simply appears like an afterthought. In addition to the only a few and much between fundamental missions that have you ever go to high school, you don’t even must attend or go to your every day scheduled courses. There isn’t any repercussions, however the one profit is that you’ll earn cash. Relying on how properly you do within the class, you’ll earn as much as $20 for an A and it drops $5 with every lowered grade.

What sort of college is that? Why does attending college earn you cash? I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense, and actually neither does having cash normally. Fundamental missions, even ones that comply with your different classmates, will occur through the day as a rule, and apparently you simply skip college on a regular basis. Like I stated, there are not any repercussions to not going to high school. It’s positive although since you aren’t actually lacking out on something enjoyable. The minigames are boring, it’s only a sequence of questions relying in your class. English, Math, and Geography simply have a number of selection questions. Within the Music class you get to not less than play a guitar to a Guitar Hero-styled minigame, however the notes don’t even line up with the music.

In addition to the classroom college actions, the opposite stuff is lackluster as properly. The vast majority of the missions come right down to stalking individuals, stealth, or simply working round to varied locations. I can’t inform you what number of missions the place you’re simply stalking and watching different characters. Comply with Seth house to get better a motorcycle, comply with Seth and take photos of him kissing women, spike Seth’s occasion drinks with medicine. I swear, Sam and his buddies are extra obsessive about Seth than Seth cares about them.

A number of different missions contain stalking a husbands spouse that he thinks is dishonest on him, and stalking a trainer who’s peeping on the college women round city. Or you may ship meals. Even once I thought it was going to do one thing not less than completely different with a haunted home, that they had been ditching college to take a look at, it simply became strolling round the home after which a brief cutscene of a cabinet slamming and them freaking out. Stalking, stealth, and unhealthy combating are mainly most of what you’ll be doing in Agefield Excessive: Rock the College, exterior of using bikes round.

Truthfully, probably the most enjoyable Agefield Excessive: Rock the College has is using the BMX bike and bunny hoping over every part. I discovered it enjoyable to simply bounce proper into pedestrians and cops who don’t actually react a lot aside from a “damned youngsters nowadays” grumble. There are two sorts of bikes you will get, quick bikes made for asphalt and concrete that decelerate on grass. Or mountain bikes which might be quick within the grass, however not a lot on the road. Sadly, you may’t bounce with the mountain bikes, so that you’re simply caught using round like regular. It might have been good to have some selection like a skateboard or moped or one thing, but when the cops don’t even have autos, why ought to we?

Sure, there are cops within the sport, however they’re form of pointless. In case you do go round punching strangers, cops will come after you at all times on foot. It’s very simple to simply out run them or hop on a motorcycle and take off. It’s humorous seeing motorbike cops strolling across the city, however none on an precise motorbike. Once more, simply extra so as to add to the under-baked pile of concepts.

Talking of punching individuals, there’s fight with primary punching, kicking, pushing, and blocking. You may lock on with holding left set off, after which simply merely smash enemies with probably the most unsatisfying melee fight ever. You may’t seize individuals, or kick them once they’re on the bottom. Nothing, you simply punch and kick till they’re achieved, and that’s it. I by no means misplaced a combat, however I’ve taken harm. You may devour meals and snacks by shopping for them, but it surely’s pointless because you simply regain your life in every mission you begin, and they’re by no means lengthy sufficient or have sufficient fight to want it.

I performed on an i7-12700kf, RTX 5070, and 32gb of DDR5 RAM, and for probably the most half the final efficiency was positive. Not that this actually ought to have any framerate points. It’s not an excellent wanting sport anyway. My fundamental points got here from the final jankiness of the gameplay, bugs, and crashes. There have been a number of cases the place I needed to restart a mission as a result of I bought caught behind a door that swung open once I walked by. Since you may’t truly transfer the doorways your self, I used to be pinned within the nook by an immovable door. I bought caught on prime of a cop’s heads whereas bunny hoping over them. A number of instances my bike would clip by way of objects and ship me launching. In addition to that, I had two deadly crashes that worn out hours of gameplay, and that was my closing straw to not proceed anymore.

Sound design continues the development of not impressing with an total lack of effort within the voice appearing. Among the line deliveries are simply god terrible, and it solely makes it worse that the script is horrible. I get that a few of it’ll be dumb and cliché: that’s what they’re going for typically right here. It’s simply how every part is ready up that makes it not land. It’s simply overly cringey and with poor execution it comes off as dumb greater than humorous. The random traces the residents have across the city are restricted, so that you’re going to listen to the identical stuff time and again. I swear if I hear: “males are all the identical. Tiny pricks.” yet one more time, I’m going to crash out. Soundtrack can be not nice. There are a small handful of songs that can be repeated always. Or you’ll hear the identical ones as vehicles drive by always.

Agefield Excessive: Rock the College is sadly not what I hoped it was going to be. Whereas it tries to duplicate and spin-off from a sport like Bully, it severely misses the mark on nearly each stage. Whereas I can sometimes forgive lack of manufacturing worth for indies, its largest situation is that it simply isn’t fascinating. It doesn’t attempt to do something new, and finally ends up being an affordable knock-off that doesn’t convey something distinctive to the method through gameplay, story, or silliness. It’s a product that structurally feels prefer it ought to be in 2006, however is by some means nonetheless worse in some ways. The bugs and crashes had been the ultimate nail within the coffin for this irritating throwback.

 

Poor UE5 fashions with an uninspired world design. Character fashions typically don’t even have a look at one another throughout conversations.	Janky, glitchy, and doesn’t convey something new or completely different gameplay-wise to the desk.
Voice appearing isn’t nice, and the script is by some means worse. Soundtrack is boring with a small handful of songs on repeat.	There actually isn’t a lot enjoyable available right here, it’s throughout a reasonably poor expertise. It doesn’t do something distinctive to assist look previous its main shortcomings. Glitches and crashes had been the ultimate straw.
Ultimate Verdict: 2.0

Agefield Excessive: Rock the College is offered now on PC (Steam).

Reviewed on PC with i7-12700kf, RTX 5070, and 32gb of DDR5 RAM.

A duplicate of Agefield Excessive: Rock the College was offered by the publisher.

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