I actually needed to love Agefield Excessive: Rock the School. It wasn’t shy about carrying its Bully influences on its letterman jacket, and Rockstar certain doesn’t appear thinking about a sequel. However six missions in, I feel I’m able to drop out of Agefield Excessive. Bathed in hole early-aughts nostalgia, it seems like the adolescent hallucination of somebody who’s by no means set foot within a suburban American highschool. Its faux-punk, juvenile tone felt extra like a sauceless ChatGPT redux of American Pie-era comedies filtered via a No Extra Heroes sidequest than a cheeky, Rockstar-style lampooning of Anytown, USA.
I’ve biked from nook to nook of Agefield, delivering meals, preventing bullies, sustaining my GPA, and studying to slot in with my fellow rejects. And after dabbling in as a lot important and facet content material as doable, I’m struggling to seek out something redeemable about this recreation past a gag. The stuff I noticed was unpolished, uninspired, and flat. I don’t see the big-picture stuff enhancing, even when Agefield Excessive’s rougher edges – specifically its buggy gameplay and wonky physics – get sanded down earlier than its quickly approaching August launch date.
Groundhog Day
Agefield feels prefer it’s about to bubble over with applicable angst. Adults are caught in dead-end jobs and loveless marriages, academics don’t know what they’re doing, the aged are consistently complaining about “youngsters lately,” and everybody at your faculty is shaking the bars of their fluorescent-lit enclosure, able to get on with life. However in comparison with a few of my favourite coming-of-age comedies, it’s all skin-deep. It doesn’t have interaction with tradition, time, or place in a approach that measures as much as the motion pictures it’s borrowing from. I used to be two years outdated in 2002 and even I can let you know this can be a hole knock-off.
I’d really feel insane too if I lived in a city the measurement of 4 metropolis blocks and heard the similar few strains of dialogue in every single place I am going. I didn’t maintain a strict depend, however I feel most sorts of NPCs (divided by age and intercourse) every received about 5 strains. Some characters like your mother, the faculty bully, or particular academics get their very own. I swear I’d heard all of them inside an hour. I feel I’ll lose my thoughts if I hear one other “[sound up]” “[sound up],” or “[sound up].”
Are We on SNL?
That ought to offer you a very good understanding of the sort of script Refugium Video games are working with. Its by-product concepts and un-cartoonish caricatures provide nothing to set this particular shade of gray aside; every cutscene will go away you sighing and rolling your eyes at its parade of cliches. And what’s memorable or noteworthy is dangerous. At the very least, typically it’s funny-bad.
That is all made worse by Agefield Excessive’s dogged makes an attempt to undermine every cutscene with uncanny valley characters, whose faces and mouths transfer and alter simply sufficient to be unsettling, however not practically sufficient to be taken severely. Naturally, that is all framed with a few of the worst cutscene digital camera selections I’ve ever seen in a online game. Practically each cutscene or mission will begin with a close-up of a personality’s face that lasts seconds longer than it must – each time. And each time, they simply stand there, staring blankly, typically straight into the digital camera. It’s hilarious, simply not for the causes the writers need.
Good Bike
I might forgive poor tone or a foul script for some enjoyable gameplay, however Agefield Excessive forged no such lifeline. I spent most of my time with the demo biking round city. Generally I used to be operating from a bully or racing towards a clock; different instances I used to be assembly up with my pals in the park. You are able to do methods on the bike you earn early on in the recreation, however I used to be by no means actually inspired to reap the benefits of them except for a couple of ramps scattered round city. There’s additionally a skate park near the middle of city, so I’ve a sense the ultimate model of Agefield may lean extra into that. If there’s something redeemable in the chunk I performed, it’s this.
The biking isn’t essentially superb, but it surely’s actually the solely a part of the demo that felt proper. Crashes even finish with that goofy, GTA-like ragdoll, simply with wonkier physics. However each occasionally, failing a mission or getting knocked out would respawn the bike in a spot that softlocked me from finishing the mission. Fortunately, Agefield is filthy with bikes you may decide up ought to your bike spawn in a foul spot.
Stable (Garter) Snake
Once you’re not hell on wheels, chances are high you’re sneaking round someplace you shouldn’t be. Most missions ended with some sort of stealth, in actual fact. This type of teen comedy virtually begs for some stealth-comedy with its panty raids and academics’ lounge housebreaking. Sadly, these sections aren’t very polished. There’s all the time an indicator someplace on-screen telling you while you’re seen, however I swear I’ve been seen whereas exterior of the clearly broadcast imaginative and prescient cones in your HUD, typically even via a wall or on one other ground. It’s simply irritating how fast-and-loose these things felt. Fortunately, these sections are all fairly quick, so slipping up – or getting caught by somebody with X-Ray Imaginative and prescient – received’t set you again an excessive amount of.
However typically you’ll get caught and have to combat again. That is by far the most egregious a part of the gameplay, and likewise the most irritating. The fights I performed all went the similar approach: throw punches whereas locked onto your goal, block a couple of blows, push your enemy to interrupt their guard, kick a couple of instances, and hope that the whole lot connects. Whereas there’s a lock-on, there’s no monitoring, so every assault is disjointed from each different motion, together with motion. So that you cease shifting whereas punching or pushing. This breaks any momentum or hyperlink between assaults you throw out, inflicting a number of punches to whiff although they seem like they’d join. It’s sort of a miracle of physics that the punches are weightless and the motion is heavy.
Examine Corridor
Your misadventures cope with a rigorous educational schedule that’s lined up with an in-game clock. English, German, Geography, Math, and Music courses all include a minigame to finish, every ending with a letter grade primarily based in your efficiency that determines how a lot of your allowance you truly make. All of them, aside from music, are the very same a number of selection quiz simply with German vocab swapped out for figuring out nations on a map or filling in lacking letters in a phrase on a spelling quiz. The minigame for music class, which additionally will get utilized in considered one of the final missions of the demo, is a shoddy Guitar Hero-like rhythm recreation whose inputs don’t hit with any oomph and usually really feel offbeat.
You don’t have to attend class, however lacking courses will make it tougher so that you can earn an allowance, thus providing you with much less cash to spend on new garments, a haircut, or a snack from the scorching canine cart. The tutorial even prompt that you simply may get the consideration of the police when you miss sufficient courses. In the event you minimize class, it’s most likely to take a look at the different facet content material that’s equally repetitive. I noticed two totally different chore-like missions: a lawnmowing minigame that’s ripped straight from No Extra Heroes, and a meals supply minigame which is a good way to earn some additional in-game money. There are additionally some one-off sidequests that take you to new elements of city, however they comply with the similar construction as the important stuff.
Grimacing-Face Emoji
Each inch of Agefield feels gray, flavorless, and flat in a approach that makes me surprise if AI was used. That’s not an accusation, to be clear, but it surely’s at the very least an indictment of what’s being offered. There’s no sense of originality or model like in the video games and films it’s so clearly ripping off. It doesn’t assist that some characters bear uncomfortably shut resemblance to real-life individuals, like the outdated man on the town named Clint who will look acquainted to any fan of Westerns.
A variety of the mechanical wonkiness might probably be fastened or constructed upon, however most likely not in time for launch, as this recreation is out subsequent month. I simply don’t see its feeble skeleton of Leonardo DiCaprio pointing-level references and unbearably dangerous writing enhancing in any significant approach over the remaining handful of missions. I might see this attaining cult standing… however most likely extra like The Room or Guide of Henry than Superbad or Napoleon Dynamite. I’ve a sense that followers of the long-sidelined Bully franchise who hoped Agefield Excessive would recapture even a bit little bit of that traditional’s magic will likely be completely dissatisfied when Agefield Excessive: Rock The School releases on August 12.
Charlie is a contract contributor for IGN. You’ll be able to attain them through Twitter or Instagram at the deal with @chas_mke.