Each time you play you can feel yourself improving, and your first properly good goal – not one where you’ve accidentally tapped it in with your bumper – is a memorable moment. If you want, you can switch it entirely to a game of hockey, with a puck instead of a ball. You can team up with a squad and really dive into the tactics, rotating goalkeepers and trying to score the perfect team goal. You can gather some friends on a sofa and set up a casual 1v1 tournament, with bonus scores for the flashiest goals. The great thing about Rocket League is that it’s fun at both of these levels.
But as you get to grips with the controls, it turns into an aerial acrobatic show with front flip assists, mid-air twirls and last-second winners. Rocket League is, to the beginner, a fast arcade sport where vehicles slam into each other at 100 mph and occasionally bundle the ball into the net.
Football, but with cars: it’s that simple, and that complicated.
