Rogue Warrior was the worst game I played at the Penny-Arcade Expo. I felt as though every moment my hands gripped the cold Xbox 360 controller was some sort of small brand of torture, like those fake electrocution machines at arcades. Why did I continue playing? Likely for the same reason I continue to hold on as the metal shakes and emulates an electrical charge. It was a test to myself, trying to see exactly how long I could hold on until removing my numb hands, cracking my knuckles, and grabbing my tickets. In this case, however, there were no tickets to redeem, no stuffed animal to win, just the knowledge that I spent five minutes playing Rogue Warrior when I could have used that time doing something better in Seattle, like playing Halo ODST or throwing myself off of the Space Needle.

As a shooter, Rogue Warrior felt unresponsive. The controls were hard to get a hang of, and it was difficult to ever find the aiming reticule on an enemy. Instead, it felt easier to run from enemy to enemy and just let the main character do his flashy instant-kill super move. These moves usually ended with the foe having their own gun put in their mouth (lucky) or a knife plunged into their temple (I wish). It was rewarding, I suppose, but it was the only thing the demo had going for it. There are different animations depending on the situation, but it seemed more related to the location of the characters than the actual situation. At times, during combat I'd find myself behind an enemy when I executed the special attack. Even though the enemy was more than aware of my existence, the animation was sometimes still a stealth sneak up - not exactly fitting.

Character models look good, but that's where the the praise ends for the visuals. Other objects look embarrassing, with some door and wall textures looking like they were borrowed from Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64. I've heard that one of the selling points for Rogue Warrior is the main character, who is to be voiced by Mickey Rourke and will be spouting out obscenities and nonsensical rants throughout the game. It was a bit too loud to hear any of this, though I honestly, truly doubt any voice can save this game from how awfully generic it feels.

Alright, maybe Nolan North, but that's it.

I went in optimistic, but my playtime with Rogue Warrior left me wholly unimpressed, and I'm easily impressed by shooters. Even a bad first-person shooter, usually, has enough going for it to rope me in for a full play-through, if not just to try out the different weapons and enjoy the developer's take on the genre. Rogue Warrior left me with an awful taste in my mouth, one that won't be going anywhere anytime soon. It reminded me of Velvet Assassin in that way, and I almost feel as though you can likely find any review of Southpeak's stealth bomb and replace "stealth" with "shooter" and call it a day, accurately predicting review scores for this title a few months in advance.

We'll have more on Rogue Warrior in the future.