Rocketmen: Axis of Evil

Rescue a damsel in distress and lead a ragtag rebellion against an evil galactic empire in this space adventure. No, we’re not talking about another Star Wars game; Rocketmen is actually based on a popular tabletop card game from WizKids. (We’ve never played it either.)

Starting with a simple character-customization phase, you design a hero to fight for the Alliance of Free Planets to liberate Earth from the tyranny of Martian invaders. Choosing to play as a Human, Venusian, or Mercurian will give you varying physical strengths, which you can upgrade after each of the campaign’s 10 story-driven missions. We dug the variety of weapons littered around each level: Vulcan miniguns and rockets go a long way toward mowing down hordes of mindless Martian minions.

Less impressive, however, are the robot and alien “menaces,” who slowly march toward you like zombies…on qualuudes. This would be less irritating if they didn’t also have perfect aim, although the forgiving respawn penalty makes dying less aggravating. Four-player online co-op also takes the sting out of the dumb A.I., and it showcases how this $10 game should be played.