Aerial arcade shooter Rogue Aces coming to PS4 next month

Infinite State Games has announced that Rogue Aces, a 2D air combat role-playing game for current generation consoles, is finally coming to PlayStation 4 and PS Vita on April 12.

Charlie Scott-Skinner, CEO of London-based independent video games developer Infinite State Games, made the announcement on the official PlayStation Blog and also released a trailer if players prefer explosions over reading.

Rogue Aces is a procedurally-generated aerial combat arcade rogue-like. Players begin on an aircraft carrier at the outskirts of a series of islands with three 1940s style propeller planes at their disposal.

With them players will be blasting their way across 100 randomly generated missions to locate and destroy the base of an invading enemy force. This is not an easy task especially as the enemy is sending wave after wave of increasingly nasty artillery after them.

To counter this, players gradually build up the power of their plane, such as fire rate, fuel capacity etc. By the end, the firepower will be nearly unstoppable, but the same can be said about their enemies as well.

Capturing the feel of flight

For Rogue Aces, Scott-Skinner said they wanted to give players the exhilarating feeling of flying something through the sky.

This was approached the scientific way and they modeled the way the plane controls on an MIT flight model. The player controls the power going to the plane’s propulsion system, which means there’s scope for fantastic acrobatics, more lethal bombing runs and evasive manoeuvres.

Scott-Skinner said the game is the culmination of three years work prototyping, tweaking and perfecting but they also had lots of help from friends and special guests.

The voice of Jonny Bravo, Scooby and Shaggy

Marc Silk has provided the vocal talent for the voice of Jonny Bravo, and Scooby and Shaggy.

Scott-Skinner said recording with him was one of the most hilarious times of their lives, and they blasted through the lines in between him making them roll about with laughter doing every voice from their childhood.

Silk also ended up freestyling most of the VO once it was established that he was doing the voice for a couple of entirely unhinged cartoon characters.

The game’s art style and music

Video game veteran Tony Hager has created the art style and graphical assets. He has worked on Amiga classics such as Brutal Sports Football and the seminal ‘Carl Lewis Challenge’.

For the music, Kevvy Metal was called for his talent. He hails from Dundee in Scotland and is the most brutal, triumphant guitar shredder ever encountered.

He also plays bass in the metal fest ‘Fat Goth’ – but for Rogue Aces, he wrote the screaming hot riffs that a game about flying an irresponsibly overpowered plane should have.

Rogue Aces will be available on April 12, when players will have a taste of some of the insane aerial action.