Rocket Knight returns to XBLA, PSN and Steam in early 2010

by Ludwig Kietzmann on Oct 5th 2009 3:05PM

We wish for a million dollars!

...

Well, after the return of classic adventure games -- and now Sparkster -- our magical roll of granted wishes was bound to come to an end. 1UP and Konami have revealed a brand new game for the powerfully propelled opossum, set to debut on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and Steam in early 2010. The 2.5D sequel (not a remake!) comes 15 years after the last game, which is a period more wasteful than the gap between the original Star Trek TV series and the first feature film.

Sorry, our nerd analogies flare up when we get excited.

Rocket Knight (as the game is tentatively dubbed) is being developed by Climax, which previously worked with Konami producer Tomm Hulett on Silent Hill: Origins. The team is currently finishing up the promising Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

Rocket Knight

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Tags: Action, Climax, Climax-Studios, konami, Microsoft, Platformer, psn, rocket-knight, rocket-knight-adventures, sparkster, steam, Tomm-Hulett, xbla, Xbox-360, xbox-live-arcade

Reader Comments (60)

yes! totally forgot about those awesome games from back in the day

Those graphics don't exactly fill me with as much joy as seeing Sparkster again does. Textures, anyone?

never heard of this, so anyone care to fill me in on this and why its got Ludwig Kietzmann so happy

Rocket Knight is Konami's jump into the mascot-bandwagon of the 90's. Unlike Bubsy, Sparkster was pretty good, but never was much of a success, so it's kind of a cult classic.

imo: cult-classic= win, i may have to get the demo to try this out

IMO, rocket knight adventures is the most underrated game of all time. an excellent, varied, and innovate platformer that's a favorite of most anyone fortunate enough to have played it.

even if climax only does half as good a job as the original game, this will still be an excellent game. day one purchase for me, easy.

what a fitting developer.. considering how awesome this game looks i might just...

o shit..

....rocket knight in a long time.

let me finish!

Get a job, schooling, partner, etc.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!

I bet you still think Rick Rolling is funny.

I was very excited about this game (rumours started a few months ago at NeoGAF)... but now, I don't know what to think... this is like ReShelled again... the art style is not as good as the original... why don't they use high quality sprites, instead of 3D?

And also... I have seen some pictures at 1UP website... the enemies are not pigs! That's wrong.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=17896476&postcount=205

I think that the art style is okay, the problem is with the colors. Sparkster was vibrant, this is too plain and "Crash Bandicootesque" for my tastes.

Am I the only one that kind of likes ReShelled's art style? It was everything else about the game I absolutely hated (full 3D movement). I think this game looks amazing, loving the art style in the screens.

And what about pigs? There are wolves in some of the shots.

Oh... Just read the 1-up article, they refer to the enemies as pigs. Ha, idiots.

"In a Nakazato homage, the new game's backstory is fairly dense: Sparkster saved the opossum kingdom of Zephyros (and its princesses) back in the day, but found himself disenchanted when the villainous pigs he battled in the first game were allowed to take up residence in Zephyros. He moved away with his family -- and notably didn't marry the princess -- and lived in quiet and peace until he looked up one day and noticed a war raging in the sky over Zephyros. To his surprise, though, his former enemies (the pigs) were fighting on the side of the opossums against an army of wolves; even stranger, his former nemesis, the nefarious Axel Gears, had become the kingdom's rocket knight in his absence. And so Sparkster puts on his gear and launches into the fray."

That's why there are no pigs.

i guess all the positive reactions are driven by nostalgia... or blindness

the game is looking bloody awful, art style is completely wrong, the originals were set on a cool steampunk pig empire, very creative stuff, now this looks like a Looney Tunes hack job.

geez... this shit really pissed me off LOL

how can a game's visuals be wrong????? if you want them to release the original rocket knight adventures for download, then campaign your heart out. but get it in your head that this is a sequel, which means that it's an original and creative work, and it's NOT going to the same as the game you played before.

since for some reason that seems to disqualify the game from automatically being good, then don't buy the game. some of us, though, actually give things a chance before passing judgment.

who needs a life when you're first?

NO WAY

WAY

Thank the lord! How long have we wished for Sparkstet to return ever since the recent remake boom started? And now, finally, the return of one of the Genesis' best!

That looks absolutely beautiful. I love the tilt shift look. Bravo.

Technically, there were only about 5 years between the end of ST:TOS and the start of projects which would eventually evolve into ST:TMP. They did waste a bunch of time wallowing about trying to make a movie, then a new series, then a movie, etc., though.

As for the topic at hand, I am reminded of Thexder: both are topics which got a lot of excited anticipation in Joystiq comments but which I've completely never heard of. Of course, I did just get Thexder Neo yesterday and enjoyed it, so I'm not going to just ignore this because of earlier ignorance.

Sweet I loved the first one and I'd love to have more

Original for Virtual Console as a consolation prize for this not being at wiiware please ? =3

Hell, put the original three on Virtual Console so people with both Wii and PS360 consoles can play all four games!

3?!? There were that many rocket knight games before this?!? Wow...it definetly brought back memories, but I apparently missed out terribly! Yes, do bring these out for VC or Xbox arcade!

I believe there were only two games, unless there's some really obscure Game Gear version.

The third one was on the SNES.

What's the second game then?

Rocket Knight Adventures was released on Genesis. Sparkster was released on SNES and probably on Genesis too. Those are the only games I know of.

Holy fucking shit yes.

That's really all I have to contribute so I'll repeat myself.

Holy fucking shit yes.

Rocket Knight Adventures! i have the original and all i can hope for is please bring back the level where you get to jump in and control the giant MECH!

1st day purchase for me.

I remember describing how Rocket Knight Adventures for the Sega Genesis was one of the best games on the system, and everyone acting like I was making up lies about flying sword wielding opossum knights. NOW THEY'LL BELIEVE ME.

Two Words FUCK YEAH!

* Game looks ugly
* Western developer
* Someone on NeoGAF actually gets it right (Fernando Rocker's link)
* Nobuya Nakazato isn't involved

No sale.

Nobuya Nakazato wasn't involved in RKA2 or Sparkster either, and both of those games turned out great.

RKA2 or Sparkster were decent at best, the first RKA is far better but it's only available for the megadrive/genesis and it was massively overlooked..

this new one is a travesty

What's it like living in early 2010 rubAdub?

Not much to say but: (unless it's totally disappointing) YAY ROCKET KNIGHT! Let's see how it plays.

Holy fuck, yesssssss

YES!!! I loved Rocket Knight Adventures.

Wow, will I have to beat it on Maniac to see the true ending like the last game?

That was like a life achievement for me.

Looks fucking groovy. Love the style, even if I have no experience with the original. Moar great games please!

Never heard of the original, but I love the style of the game so I'll definitely keep my eye on it.

FUCK YES! I bought all 3 rocket knight games on Genesis on snes in 1993-1994 and still own them to this day and still play them.

Buy them end of subject.

The genesis and snes sparkster was like there own separate games when I rented them both, so I ended up buying both. I would rent both versions of a game I planned to buy to see what one sucked the most, Konamis games was like animaics and sparkster was totally there own games so you should play both sparksters.
the first rocket knight I did not rent and just bought on the fact it looked bad ass and had the name “rocket knight on it and I saw the movie the rocketeer in 1991before, and it had a fricking opossum in a knight suit.
The rocket eer games sucked when I rented those so I was not sure If It would have been a good just by something that looked like cross between the crappy rocketee r games sonic, and any general knight sword game.
99% of I did not just right out buy games for my snes and genesis then with out renting them but RocketKnight loked safe I took a chance and I am happy I did I got my moneys worth.

(though I should have ordered some of the baddass sparkster t-shirts and stuff in the back of it's manual I am still angry I did not every time I open the manual and see the order form...)

I have been sending emails and using there suggestion box every few years to konami asking for just this, it is about time it was one of konamis finest games easy provides competition with Sonic, Mario and mega man I hope the new game sells ass loads, I might buy it on ps3 and xbox 360 just for thrills and support.

Now I hope konami does not screw it up like capcom did with megaman and that asstastic god awful megaman legends. (that is impossible since mega man legends is one of the worst things capcom could do to mega man next to mega man star force)

I have long hoped for a new rocket knight game and today I am so happy I could go out and make little sparkster suits for random opossums complete with jetpack. I will them film the results and be reported for animal cruelty.

"His rocket... no longer fires consecutively; instead, Sparkster can fire a quick second rocket burst while in mid-air as a sort of Klonoa-style double jump to give him added distance on a jump, though not extra height."

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUU-

Goemon next, please Konami!

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Rocket Knight returns to XBLA, PSN and Steam in early 2010

Rocket Knight

Reader Comments (60)

Posted: Oct 5th 2009 3:09PM chrisyz said

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