DLC #177 - Rocket League - Supersonic Fury

After 9 packs later, which is incidentally the most out of any game in my current collection, we're finally there.

I was actually a little bit surprised to see from the stats screen that my overall completion time for Rocket League clocked in at just over 30 hours. It seemed a little bit light for a game that came with a Platinum trophy, as well as 9 DLC packs, but this does also equate to almost 400 games, which sounds more reasonable for the amount of time I feel like I've spent with this game.

This final DLC pack, which was also actually the first one released for the game, is purely a customisation pack. I know Utopia Colosseum preceded this, but those trophies were released as part of a content update (just like the Clubs update was), and was not an officially listed piece of DLC obtainable via store download. 

The customisation items include a couple of new car shells, a handful of decals and paint-jobs. Some new wheels, boost trails and a few other things are also thrown in. It's a very vanilla piece of DLC, though given the fact it was the first one released, it was probably treated as a warm-up for everything else that was to be subsequently released later down the line in the form of more fleshed out content packs with new game modes, features and arenas.

There are 6 new trophies on offer, most of which are related to performing specific tasks whilst using the 2 new car shells. These are very easy requirements too. If you equip the Dominus shell, stick a decal on it, play a game, and perform a 180 slide in that game, you'll grab 3 trophies in 1 go.

You'll also need to complete a Season Championship using the Dominus shell in every game, which isn't too bad against a team of bots, depending on which level of bot difficulty you choose to play against. I personally opted for All-Star bots, which is the hardest, and loaded up a Season of 10 teams, playing 18 games, followed by 3 knockout rounds. I actually lost a couple of knockout games going for the trophy, which caused me to have to start over. A little frustrating, but this was always a good way to pad up the shots on the goal for the "Rocket Repleter" trophy in the AquaDome pack, so it never felt like the effort was ever in vain.

The other trophies within this pack for using a specific boost, and travelling 10km with a specific set of wheels, can both be accumulated whilst progressing through a Season Championship. They haven't all been as straight-forward as this, and I think 9 DLC packs culminating in 88 total trophies is a little bit too overcommitted, but the variety has been enjoyable on the whole.

DLC #176 - Rocket League - AquaDome

One of my favourite things to experience in games is references to other games that have driven content or sparked inspiration, especially when the crossover is so unexpected.

This is exactly what AquaDome does. It adds the underwater arena reminiscent of the sea-based environments of Bioshock, and the references are even less subtle within some of the trophy requirements.

The AquaDome arena is cool. It's dynamic with sea creatures that roam on the outside of the playing area, such as sharks, jellyfish and turtles, and just about visible through the murky waters are other synonymous objects such as shipwrecks, coral and seaweed.

A couple of new car bodies are also added, as well as the new Rumble game mode - A variation on Soccar where modifiers are triggered at set intervals that influence the flow of the game. These include the ability to freeze the ball dead, reverse your opponents controls and magnetise the ball. It's a wild game variation and I was a little bit disappointed it didn't have a heavier focus within the trophies on offer here.

Speaking of which, there are 7 available, with a random assortment of tasks throughout.

As mentioned, there are a couple of trophies dedicated to Rumble mode, but these are fairly easy to obtain, as well as a couple of nice references to Bioshock for performing specific goalscoring actions on the AquaDome arena - Slightly more challenging, but easy enough to set-up yourself in exhibition mode.

However, the random nature of these Rocket League lists means you never know what's waiting for you next, and courtesy of this, there is a standout Gold trophy that will require some decent grinding;

Rocket Repleter - Make 535 Shots on Goal

The "Rocket Repleter" trophy, awarded for Making 535 Shots on Goal, isn't exactly cryptic in it's description, but it is a seriously high volume.

I didn't initially have this on my radar, because I felt that, despite this being a pretty big total to amass, I would be able to make fairly great strides towards it as I went through the other DLC packs over the course of time.

However, as I approach the end of this journey, I had to consciously check my progress, and whilst at first it didn't appear I was that far off my target, I also didn't realise that the "Shots on Goal" statistic recorded within the profile menu, is actually also not an accurate reflection on my progress because the progress towards this trophy is only tracked as of the AquaDome update, and everything recorded before this is unaccounted for.

So when my profile read 470 underneath the "Shots on Goal" statistic, I was in actual fact, on around 370. The trophy triggered for me on exactly 700, and I ended up just having to play the game casually to accumulate the remainder - Which wasn't really an issue, it just meant it took longer than I anticipated because the trophy overworks you for what is already a fairly steep requirement.

I did accidentally discover a solid tactic fairly late on this journey. There is a game mode called Heatseeker, where every time you hit the ball, it'll gravitate towards the opponents goal. This is a guaranteed shot on goal every single time, and is an easy way to accumulate towards this target. It would have saved me alot of time had I discovered it sooner, and I probably wouldn't be talking about this particular trophy in the same way, but we live and learn.

You should be able to naturally tandem this trophy with everything else across all DLC packs. After all, that was always the plan - I just wasn't aware of the fact the shots on goal only counted from the update onwards, and were not retrospectively tracked, which made things a bit grindier than I first thought. Had I also discovered Heatseeker sooner, this would have been a complete breeze.

Either way, just one more pack to go before we finally put Rocket League to bed for good.

DLC #175 - Rocket League - Clubs Update

There's not actually too much to say about this content pack. It wasn't released as an open piece of DLC, but was instead included as part of a patch update.

In fact, the update doesn't seem to add much at all. No new customisation items, no new arenas or game modes and no new features, although this makes sense given the fact this was a content update, and not a piece of downloadable content. What doesn't make much sense is how dull this update actually is.

The new clubs system allows you to now invite friends into your club, where they'll sport certain chosen club colours and a club tag, but that is literally it.

It's a little bit confusing how bare bones this feature is, and even to this day, it still hasn't been fleshed out with any new additions or ideas over time. It feels like the framework for something bigger that just got ignored and left to fall by the wayside.

You can access your club from the main menu, and from within, you'll be able to see the clubs members, set the teams colours/club tag and create private matches - Presumably to play amongst each other.

I did some additional research, just to make sure it wasn't just me missing something glaringly obvious, but it just seems to be a hub for absolutely nothing. No club leagues or tournaments, no club levelling system, no ability to openly challenge other clubs, no club records. It not only feels like a wasted opportunity for something that could have added something great to the game, but it also feels utterly pointless. Strange.

However, it does add 6 new trophies, and you'll need at least 1 club mate to tackle them with.

Creating your club and completing an online tournament game can be done on a solo basis, but the remaining 4 trophies will rely on playing with a club mate, so you'll need to grab a co-op partner to complete this list with.

None of the requirements are too strenuous, and you should be able to achieve all the trophies within the same amount of time it takes to complete 10 matches with a club mate, which you can do through either Tournament, Competitive or Casual play. It's recommended to start at Tournament play, as you'll need to win the MVP award in a Tournament match for one of these trophies.

The "Squad Goals" trophy, awarded for Scoring a goal while in a Club Match, has the potential to be tricky, because you'll need to matchmake against another club, and not just 2 random people who have been matched together against you, and whilst this happened normally for me, this is down to random chance, and I'm not sure how many people who play together are also part of the same club, so just be aware.

Outside the 2 solo trophies, I managed to grab the 4 co-operative trophies within less than 2 hours according the to trophy timestamps - This was also achieved within just 1 game session, so my experience here was seamless. It's an easy pack if everything falls into place, but just be aware that you may need to play longer than anticipated if you can't find another squad within the matchmaking environment to score a goal against.

DLC #174 - Rocket League - Dropshot

It's become apparent to me that one of the strongest suits of Rocket League is their variation of game modes. Having previously reviewed the Neo Tokyo pack - which introduced Hoops and Snow Day - this pack further introduces the Dropshot game mode.

Where Hoops and Snow Day were easy to explain off as just variations on Basketball and Ice Hockey, Dropshot is a little bit more complicated to explain. The new arena in which Dropshot takes place (Core 707) is a Hexagonal shaped field, split into 2 halves, with each half containing a certain number of hexagonal tiles that make up the floor.

The goal of Dropshot is to break through the floor of the oppositions side of the arena using the ball, exposing gaps, and subsequently scoring via knocking the ball through any space in the ground.

In regards to the goalscoring process, the floor consists of 3 stages. A weak shot (which does not electrocute the ball) will damage a single floor tile. A stronger shot (which will electrocute the ball) causes radial effect damage to a number of surrounding tiles. Any damaged tile which is subsequently hit a second time will cause the tile to break, exposing the floor below it, and giving you a goalscoring opportunity if you can then knock the ball through that space.

The more you do this, the more of the overall floor you'll expose, thus increasing your chances of scoring. Games are the standard length of 5 minutes and whoever has scored the most goals within that time, wins the game. It's a simple, but fun concept, and it's probably my favourite Rocket League mode.

As ever, the pack also adds a bunch of additional cosmetic items, some new arenas to try out and 6 additional trophies. Half of these are focused on random requirements and the other half are focused on Dropshot itself. Most of it is fairly easy, but you will need to spend a reasonable amount of time in Dropshot here for one particular trophy;

Full Course - Score a total of 18 Goals in Dropshot.

The "Full Course" trophy, awarded for scoring a total of 18 Goals in Dropshot, might not seem like anything too tasking on face value. However, for as much as I enjoyed playing Dropshot, it is a game mode that feels like success comes at a premium when it comes to scoring goals.

This isn't like Soccar, or even Hoops and Snow Day, where you can score with a single shot and witness games just erupt into pure goalfests out of nowhere. The nature of Dropshot outlined above means games are generally very low scoring, and in my personal experience, it was rare to see games end with anything more than 3 or 4 goals between each team.

When I say "the nature of Dropshot", what I mean is, there's alot to do to score a goal. Floor tiles need to be broken before the process of scoring is even possible, and when you do eventually score, the opposition's floor completely resets, so you have to begin the process all over again. When you combine this with the fact games are still only 5 minutes long and Dropshot is played on a 3 v 3 basis, meaning tough competition to score against team-mates, it does mean 18 goals is a slow burner.

I'm not sure how many games it took me to do this in the end, but when I was attempting to keep track, I was playing out alot of games without even scoring. This is mainly down to limited opportunity, but I do also believe it's a much harder variation of game mode to play and learn, especially compared to traditional Soccar.

I suppose perseverance is the key. You may get lucky with some flukey touches that go in and will credit you with the goal, but that's Rocket League all round. As long as you're prepared to watch the games go by where you chalk up a big zero, then it's OK, but almost certainly don't be expecting to get this done within a handful of games. There are a couple of other trophies to earn from Dropshot in tandem, one of which is awarded for damaging 320 tiles across all games, but I had this done way before I notched up 18 goals.

A fun mode, at least, which prevents the looming feeling of pointless grinding, especially when you start to rack up the games where you draw a blank. If you're going to get nowhere, you might as well have fun doing it, and it always make the trophy a bit sweeter when you do eventually grab it.