You’re going to love Rogue Warrior. Oh wait – you’ve played quality first person shooter games like Modern Warfare 2 and Half-Life? Oh. In that  case – ouch.

Bethesda Software’s (yep, those are the guys behind Fallout 3) so called character driven shooter is nothing short of a game in shambles. It’s cheap, it’s uneven, it’s not fun – in short, the game is just plain broken.  With so many quality shooters hitting shelves this season, gamers are strongly urged to stay away from this one at all costs.

Set in 1986, Rogue Warrior loosely follows the true story of Richard “Demo Dick” Marcinko, as he and his fellow Navy Seals are attempting to infiltrate North Korea to track down a mole with information on a secret project. Before long, things go awry and Marcinko’s squadmates are lying dead on the floor as a result of enemy grenade.  As you’d expect this doesn’t sit well with ole’ Demo Dick, and he goes on a one man killing spree to avenge his buddies death while securing the information he set out to find in the first place.

"...there’s no rewarding moment in this game whatsoever."

Rogue Warrior’s plot is so incredibly flawed that it’s laughable. Marcinko is supposed to be a Navy Seal – remember? Then why does he seem to forget all of his training and make some of the dumbest decisions you’ll ever see? Seriously, the virtual version of Marcinko is less Navy Seal and more Dolph Lundren. You’ll stab guys, shoot guys, blow up grenades and cause max explosions – roll credits, the end. Seriously there’s no rewarding moment in this game whatsoever. If there’s one redeeming quality here – it’s that the game can be completed in about three hours, and the fact that once you finish – you’ll never have to touch it again.

We’ve come to accept that mature games are more than likely going to include cursing, but Rogue Warrior does it so much that it becomes comical. Literally every other line drops an F-bomb, or other four letter words. Seriously, after killing a group of soldiers guarding a door, Marcinko uttered the ever poetic phrase “eat sh—f—kbag!” Wow, that’s right up there with “the cake is a lie.”  Look, I’m no prude or anything, but sometimes silence can be golden. What makes the language more comical is that Marcinko is played by Mickey Rourke, who turns in the booze-fueled performance fans of Randy the Ram have come to expect.

If you’re hoping Rogue Warrior will make up for its lackluster campaign with solid gameplay and mechanics, you’d be wrong – horribly, horribly wrong. The game does its best to mix action gameplay with stealth missions but in the process, manages to screw both up. The controls are stubborn, the animations are robotic and the AI is so incredibly flawed it goes from frustrating to laughable very quickly.

"...nothing feels like it should, and nothing is consistent in any way."

The game’s action sequences basically revolve around running into a room filled with enemy soldiers, clearing it, and then doing it all over again. Oh wait, sorry – you’ll blow some stuff up in the process.  The problem with this is that nothing feels like it should, and nothing is consistent in any way. With some enemies, you’ll shoot them a few times and they’ll go down – like they should – but others you’ll empty clip after clip into and they’ll just keep moving. Add to that the fact that none of the guns feel that fun to use. Each one is sluggish and it feels unnecessarily hard to line up a good shot. Hey developers -- when your shooter game has issues shooting – it may be time to tweak a few things.

Then there’s the stealth gameplay, which boils down to using awkward movements to get close enough to an enemy until an icon appears above their head and you can perform a special kill. Sounds easy right? All too often said icon won’t appear at all, causing you to alert your enemy, give up your position and be forced to use the game’s horrid shooting mechanics again. When it does work, it works almost too well. Initiating one of these special stealth kills makes you utterly invincible until the canned animation ends. That being said, you could go through most of the game hacking and slashing until the end

Multiplayer? Yeah, Rogue Warrior has it, but you’re not going to want to play it any more than the campaign.

It’s amazing that a game like Rogue Warrior even made it to shelves. Bethesda has pretty much kept the title quiet, and it’s easy to see why. From the broken shooting, to the lackluster stealth mechanics, there’s almost no redeeming qualities here. With so many good titles on shelves this year – this is a game that should be avoided at all costs.