Summer Gaming 2026 Part 1 - Rogue Warrior (2009)

During periods of excessive temperatures I often play some games that don't cause the CPU or GPU to output excessive amounts of heat - and in turn are less of a danger to cause either component to overheat either. Rather than replays I do try to pick out a few from my huge backlog that I'd have likely picked up for free or for peanuts somewhere - this is Summer Gaming

The first on the list is Rogue Warrior. This is actually lauded as one of the best "worst games of all time", a game adaptation of a series of fiction books written by the legendary Richard Marcinko, the US Navy commander who created S.E.A.L. Team Six and Red Cell.

Now with a Metacritic score below 30% and an average game publication rating of 1.5 out of 10 I knew it was going to be shit when I installed it. After spending a hour of downloading user-created fixes for the aged technology Rebellion used in 2009 and another hour actually playing the game I felt I couldn't put myself through the additional 3 hours it's suggested the game would need to play.

The graphics were not the worst of era to be fair and the gunplay was OK but the animations and the enemy AI were abysmal. The opening cutscene direction made Marcinko's highly trained ex-S.E.A.L.s look like extras from a 1970's comedy movie and then we had Mickey Rourke. 

Literally the only draw this game ever had was that you as Marcinko was voiced by Mickey Rourke, the year he won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA and was nominated for an Oscar! But here nearly every sentence in the limited script contained a variation of the word "fuck" to a point where it was hilariously out of place the first few times but would have prompted Quentin Tarantino to say it might have been to excessive.

Final Verdict: No. Just no. 

Technicals: 1 hours playtime through Steam using a Nvidia RTX5080 @ 3440x1440/175Hz with max settings on Windows 11.

 

Bugs: The vanilla installation is likely broken. The game requires several fixes and installed workarounds to emulate older DirectX components and frame syncing depending on your system hardware or experience within the game outlined on the PC Gaming Wiki page. Without these the game will stutter, randomly, show the desktop and/or not fit correctly to your screen be it 16:9 or 21:9.

 

Availability: Rogue Warrior is available for €4.99 on Steam which is a price I wholeheartedly do not recommend anyone pay for this unless like me you want to genuinely see how bad it is. Review copy purchased from from Fanatical for €1.24 in 2018.