It almost goes without saying that, for better or worse, in the large scale FPS genre EA's Battlefield series reigns king. Games like America's Army have carved themselves out a small niche of the pie, but for the most part the genre really needs a title that takes a different approach and bring fans of the genre something different than the modern day warfare that pervades it. War Rock is the latest title to enter the fray, and while it does come at the genre with a somewhat fresh take of things at the same time it seems like very little effort was actually put into refining the gameplay itself.

War Rock takes place in a fictitious modern day where war has broken out between two factions in the middle of a blazing civil war. The title's overarching plot revolves around how the once-dominant Derbaran Army seems to be hiding something called “War Rock” and how the National Independence Union is attacking remote areas inside of Derbaran for unknown reasons. That is the extent of the story, or at least the extent that has been released thus far, and the plot is both short and unrefined even by the genre's standards. On the other hand the plot has very little attachment to the game at large and just serves as a “this is why you are shooting each other” backdrop in it's most basic form.

This does lead to one of the flaws of the title, however. In actual gameplay there is very little difference between the two sides, and almost nothing to identify with about your faction. There are no “good” or “bad” guys, and there is no “this side gets the AK-47 and this side gets the M-16” or any reason other than random choice on which side you play as. With War Rock there are five classes (Engineer, Medic, Sniper, Assault, and Heavy) and each class starts off with the same default equipment and overall future weapon selection regardless of which side you play as. Indeed the only real difference between the two sides boils down to what skins your factions models use and on some maps one side might get a slightly different tank.

War Rock approaches the genre with a unique concept not entirely different from the general idea behind Counter-Strike's purchasing system. As you play through rounds your profile gains both rank experience and dinar, the game's currency. Dinar is used in the game's marketplace to rent weapons and equipment for a set period of time. For instance, to purchase the Stinger missile launcher which can be used at rank 1 (the starting rank) by the Heavy class you have to pay 4,000 dinar to unlock it's use for 7 days. The problem with this is two-fold; at that rank you only get about 130 dinar on average per round played meaning that you have to play for about thirty rounds to get enough funds to rent the weapon. The other problem is that the 7 day limit is based upon real world time and not time played, so if you pay the dinar to rent a weapon you'd better play as much as you can with it over the time limit. Granted new accounts start off with a fair amount of dinar (Approx. 70k) but even renting fairly low-end rank 1 weaponry for 30 days can cost upwards of 20k.

To offset the slow pacing of gaining dinar players can elect to spend money per month to play as a Bronze, Silver, or Gold player at $6, $10, or $15 a month respectively. The packages have various benefits such as how the Gold level nets you an extra 55k dinar per month, boosts your exp gain per match by 50%, and unlocks a 5th weapon slot on every character. The issues surrounding these packages though is that if a player elects to stay as a non-paying member it is nearly impossible to remain competitive once the initial dinar runs dry against players who are spending the $15 a month for the dinar and experience boost, whether they downloaded the client freely from the web or spent the $30 to purchase it retail.

The gameplay of War Rock itself takes place in one of three modes; Close Quarters Combat (16 players), Urban Ops (24 players), and Battle Group (32 players). The Close Quarters Combat mode takes place in fairly small urban environments and is entirely based on infantry combat and wiping out the opposing team. The Urban Ops mode ups the ante by adding vehicles and large maps that contain spawn points that must be captured into the mix. Finally, the Battle Group mode is almost entirely vehicle based and hosts some of the biggest battles seen in the game. The CQC mode is arguably the most fun as War Rock does have compelling infantry combat, while the BG mode can be entertaining given the sheer amount of vehicular combat that takes place. The UO mode is the most hit or miss of the bunch, if only due to the balance issues that are faced when you pit infantry against vehicles and especially helicopters in War Rock.

Yes, War Rock fell into the same pit of overpowered aircraft that has plagued pretty much any title in the genre that features them. The issue here is not that the helicopters in game in and of themselves are overpowered, but rather that to get in them you don't have to pay a thing while to shoot them down you either have to be a repeatedly lucky shot with a tank or spend the 4,000 dinar for that stinger missile launcher from before. The disparity in vehicle balance doesn't really stop there. On one hand a tank can be defeated and completely destroyed by sustained small arms fire coming from the default rifle of the Assault class, and yet on the other you need to spend 4,000 hard-earned dinar and have a fair amount of skill to shoot down aircraft.