Rogue Trip: Vacation 2012

Rogue Trip: Vacation 2012
Developer(s)SingleTrac
Publisher(s)GT Interactive
Director(s)Kellan Hatch
Producer(s)Scott Campbell
Designer(s)Scott Campbell
Kellan Hatch
Programmer(s)Steve Poulson
Artist(s)Owen Richardson
Composer(s)Chuck E. Myers
Tom Hopkins
Platform(s)PlayStation
Release
Genre(s)Vehicular combat
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Rogue Trip: Vacation 2012, also known as Rogue Trip, is a vehicular combat video game developed by SingleTrac and published by GT Interactive for the PlayStation in 1998. The game is set in an apocalyptic fiction alternative history version of the year 2012 where mercenaries fight against each other using vehicles, and various weapons as they pick up tourists, hitchhikers, and passengers paying them fares for bringing them to vacation destinations around the remnants of the destroyed United States, and these mercenaries call themselves "auto mercenaries".

SingleTrac found prior success in developing games for publisher Sony Computer Entertainment in the early years of the PlayStation's life cycle, including the vehicular combat series Twisted Metal. Following a contractual dispute with Sony, the developer was bought by GT Interactive and Rogue Trip was produced as part of an agreement with its new publisher. Rogue Trip utilizes an overhauled version of the game engine of the first two Twisted Metal titles, sharing many of their design elements. The player controls a vehicle in third-person perspective on a 3D map and is tasked with eliminating all other opponents by using ballistic projectiles, bombs, and other weaponry. The game further features a secondary objective in which the player competes in picking up a tourist for photo ops of landmarks found throughout each level. These provide money that can be used for power-ups like weapon upgrades and health refills.

Review publications heavily compared and contrasted Rogue Trip with SingleTrac's past Twisted Metal games and the 1998 PlayStation vehicular combat titles Vigilante 8 and Twisted Metal III. Reception for Rogue Trip has been mostly positive. Critics praised the familiar gameplay, play control, and level design, but had mixed opinions on its sound design and music. Impressions of the game's graphics somewhat varied too, but have generally been considered inferior to other releases of the era.

  1. ^ Muldoon, Moira (October 9, 1998). "videogames.com's Calendar [date mislabeled as "March 14, 2000"]". GameSpot. Red Ventures. Archived from the original on January 16, 2000. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Release was invoked but never defined (see the help page).