Rocket League - Getting Started

Blasting off in Rocket League

Congratulations, you’ve just purchased Rocket League, which I highly recommend if you haven’t already. This high octane little gem has already claimed many hours of my own time, and soon you’ll see why. It’s as accessible as Hearthstone, the games last barely longer than five minutes, and it can be quite exciting. It’s great for taking up some quick slivers of time before you have to go, something that you couldn’t do with a game like League of Legends. When you’ve got the time, you’ll find that it easily takes up a large portion, it’s so easy to just keep searching for one more game.

Cars and Accessories

Everyone wants to be unique, and they definitely want for the replays on their goals to be as sick as possible. Rocket League gives players the opportunity to pick their own cars, wheels, boost stream, antennae and even a little hat. You can choose different colors, types of paint and purchase a small and cheap DLC package with more options. As you play and earn more experience points, you level up and earn different items like pirate or fireman hats as well as different kinds of boost streams like bubbles and nitrous. Each car and customization aren’t any different from each other, even the hot rod functions the same as the large van, so there’s no need to worry about preference getting in the way of efficiency.

Basics and Training

Once you’ve got the sweetest race car to ever grace the internet, hop on to the training. Like any sport or skill, the fundamentals will create a strong base for your victories. At the very least you need to finish the basic tutorial. It’ll teach you the bare minimum of the game; how to drive and steer your car, how to use boost, kick the ball and combine those all together.

Beyond that, the game offers more advanced training, but some of them are actually quite hard. From personal experience, you’ll end up redoing many of the drills, but you learn new mechanics by doing so!

Communication

Because Rocket League is such a quick paced game, there’s little time to type out what you want to do. You can do so, but instead the game has a full array of handy macros on the numbers one through four. Tapping a combination of two keys produces statements like "Defending", "I got it" or "e;Nice shot!" If you take time to learn the communication macros you’ll be able to convey what you’re doing to your teammates and they’ll be able to go at the ball with the best knowledge.
Playing with friends, online or in person, is also some of the most fun I’ve had with a game. Being able to do away with the communication macros and just shout to each other is convenient, but the feeling of giving your mate a sweet pass into a goal is a ton of fun.

Keys to the Game

I’ll use the 2v2 as the base for strategy, but it boils down to one player pushing the ball down the field, into the corner and centering it so that the teammate can come hurtling down the pitch to knock it in. That’s where communications like "Centering…" and "Take the shot!" come in to play.
On the defensive side, it’s really helpful to have at least one person sitting as a goalkeeper. They sit there and can, for the most part, easily block any incoming shots, especially those shots coming from the corner. Going into the game with an established strategy on who is going where and doing what can set aside a victory, but it’s imperative that a team be flexible and adaptive to whatever may happen; games don’t always go your way.

On a smaller, individual scale success in Rocket League comes down to knowing your car and the mechanics and having some of the best timing in the world. Being able to hop up and hit a ball after a big bounce can get you way ahead of your opponents in terms of skill, but timing it just a half second wrong can spell a point for the other team. I don’t know how many times I’ve said "I got it, I got it," and I’ll see the precise moment where I’ll hit the ball away, but I completely whiff and go flying underneath. It can be pretty funny, but frustrating when it gives points away. Overall, the trick is to play enough that you feel comfortable playing, but also staying conscious of what your opponents are doing to you. You can learn quite a few moves from more experienced players and turn them around onto others.

Robert Wery