Rogue Aces review for PS Vita, PS4, Switch

Platform: PS Vita
Also On: PS4, Switch
Publisher: Curve Digital
Developer: Infinite State Games
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: E10+

Playing Rogue Aces, I kept waiting for some kind of twist. I mean, when was the last time you heard about a plain old 2D air combat game? The premise seems like a leftover from another era, and I was sure there had to be more to the game that it first appeared.

Eventually, it dawned on me that the only ?twist? to be found here was that the levels are procedurally-generated, and that otherwise, Rogue Aces was about as straightforward a game as you could possibly imagine. And you know what? All things considered, there are much worse things to be.

It probably helps that the game is designed to be played in short bursts, rather than for hours on end. I could imagine that, over an extended period of time, quests like ?Shoot 2 enemy bombers out of the sky? and ?Blow up that battleship? would start to get pretty repetitive fairly quickly. Playing them over a couple of minutes at a time, by contrast, makes for pretty compelling gameplay when you?re just looking for something to kill a few moments during a commute or between classes.

Rogue Aces is also helped by the fact that its controls are simple and straightforward. There are no complex combos to remember here: you fly around and fire your weapons. There?s the odd power-up to be found, but those are more bonuses than core parts of the game.

All of which is to say that Rogue Aces is a very good addition to the respective libraries of the Switch and the Vita. It?s not the kind of game that justifies your purchase of either device, but it?s a fun little game that?s a lot of fun to play on the go.

Curve Digital provided us with a Rogue Aces PS Vita code for review purposes.

Grade: B+