Lego Rock Raiders is a 1999 Lego RTS game from Data Design Interactive, and is often called their ‘only good game.’ Which may come as a surprise since Rock Raiders released to mixed reviews and ended up being lost to the waste bin of history.
But while adults in 1999 mostly dismissed this game, the kids who loved it have grown up and created a SURPRISINGLY active community around keeping it alive. The efforts continue into the modern day, be it through mods or the 2019 project, Manic Miners, that intends to fully remake and improve upon the game.
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if god is so good, why did he let my rock raiders cd break?
"A 6 year old could play Rock Raiders unassisted, but i can not say that about Manic Miners"
Ma dude 😂 the first thing that went flying into the trash can was the Manual while my dumb little brain beept and boopt every pixel of the screen till it bend to what i wanted like a waterbender in avatar does… or rather the game mechanics clicked and i knew how to do stuff. Just saying, that little text will stop no one from playing the game, just ups the experimentation needed. 😋
Great video Review! Thanks for sharing that and all the work that went into researching, recording and cutting it. Heres a Medal 🎖 i know its no cookie and rather a useless piece of round alloy but it has to suffice 😉
7:12 Noticed that, yeah. Definitely feels like Dungeon Keeper 2, at least in terms of presentation and controls. Which is a good thing, even if overall I don't think I'd ever play a LEGO RTS.
I really like how you admit your biased for the game and even then you’re able to point out it’s numerous flaws and how the game could have been improved. I sadly didn’t play this because it came out before my time (born the year it came out). I really like the art style and a lot of the small details. It’s really too bad that they didn’t have the time to properly flesh this game out (I think the fact they also had to make a radically different PlayStation version adds to this).
I wish that Lego would officially rerelease their old games with quality of life improvements, bug fixes, and new features to increase the longevity of the game. Fortunately there’s fan remakes and projects to resurrect various dead games.
That’s really funny how after doing research into the multimedia stuff you came back with basically nothing because there was no real substance. It’s interesting how Bionicle (favorite Lego them growing up) and Ninjago were able to succeed were most of Lego’s themes bombed out.
Great video! My favorite part was how you had the cat on your shoulder like a parrot😹
I had a decent pile of the Lego games back when I was younger. Maybe it's time for a nostalgia trip, thanks to pointing me towards an open source community even if I've not had as much ties to Rock Raiders itself.
everyone always talks about the playstation version, this is amazing
Loved this game as a kid, even though it wasn't my first RTS even. That honor, and the honor of my first video game goes to StarCraft, at the ripe old age of 5. Both games were pretty opaque to me as a single digits aged human, but you know what's pretty funny? I think I actually did better with StarCraft than I did with Rock Raiders. Couldn't really tell you why, it probably had to do with that aspect you mentioned a couple times "patience". Thanks for the video and the news (to me) that there's a playable remake of this hidden energy-crystal-shaped gem out there in the wild just waiting for people to go play it.
i love this game
I'm sure it's because I also played this as a kid, but honestly, this is still the only real-time strategy game that's truly clicked with me on a deeper level. I've tried other ones and I've enjoyed them and everything, but something about Rock Raiders' simplicity-on-the-surface makes it easy to pick up and just get creative with. The objectives still have to be fulfilled, but the way you plan out your base, what you build and when, vehicles and monsters, so on and so forth… as a kid, I had tons of fun just playing the early missions, designing my bases however I wanted, and then just exploring instead of finishing up. I don't really know any other RTS games that take such a chill approach, at least at the start.
Why does he keep saying the ps4 game? Is he talking about manic miners? Or is he misrembering that the alternate version was a ps1 game?
I grew up playing this game and sunk countless hours into it! It is a BEAST to try and get it to run on modern systems, but it's ultimately doable and worth it in the end.
Why did you say "for PS4", when the game is for PS1?
I have never felt such a connection with someone I do not know. Holy guacamole everything this man said about this game is 100% my experience as a child. it was the bomb! It was awesome! it was radical dude! I didn’t care if the first person view was not a good way to play the game. It sure as heck was a good way to experience the game. those graphics! chef kiss chef kiss! I grew up playing total annihilation and StarCraft brood war. I know what a good RTS is. didn’t matter. This was heck fun. My only complaint was that you couldn’t save during levels. my parents had a rule that we were only allowed to spend 20 minutes on the computer at a time and when your timer beeped one of your siblings could kick you off. if they were nice they would allow you to spend another 10 minutes but that is about as much grace as you can get. that pretty much caps you out at halfway through the game before the levels are too long to play.
I was 6 when I played this… Thanks for unlocking a core memory
You know what's funny how you kept referring to 6 year Olds playing this game I think I was actually 5 or 6 when I discovered the game. I remember I was able to pick it up and play just fine until the later levels because I didn't understand the mechanics and work with the wonky system
Oh man, I haven't thought of this game in 20~ years!
Dude leave the cat alone… it clearly wants to get off
This took me back to my childhood, holy shit. I was bad at games then, so now i kinda wanna have at this beast again, and finally beat the damn thing
Forgotten? This is an OG!
Not gonna lie, it was kinda fun listening to you talk about a game you loved as a kid.
Kinda sad I’m too late for the DDO thing though
Of course lego is a tabletop property, it has minifigures!
There WAS music for this game! 3 tracks, specifically. BUT. You had to have the CD in the drive while you played as I assume the music played directly off the CD. You also had to have the Advanced graphics version of the game installed or the music wouldn't play at all. Source: this was my hyperfixation game as a 10 year old
in dungeon keepers 2 you can actually take some of your stronger creatures with you intot he next fungeon, if they don't die there, youc an do it again and keep them…
That hack line got me to subscribe, great video sir. This was my second RTS after StarCraft
I loved playing Rock Raiders when I was a kid. It was probably a large part of how I became more interested in playing video games in general. Thanks for the nostalgia trip!
Can you do a similar (shorter) video on the PS1 version and how it differs from the PC version?
I sought out videos on this game because I just today fired up my old windows 98 computer and finally beat frozen frenzy. Got all the way to the last level and I’m glad my disk still works
when you say PS4 multiple times… do you mean PS1? PSX?
Had to pirate it because I can't put a disk in modern pc and i even installed Windows 7 on it (from 10.0)
The funny thing is i played this game as a kid aswell, and my name is william. So watching this video at times makes it feel like he is narrating this game to me and my experiences as a child.
The german localization is hammered into my brain to this day. Good times.
God I wish I could get this to work with Windows 10 but it refuses, spent countless hours on this gem as a child!
I've got my original CD version and tried every conceivable patch going, but to no avail. D:
Edit: Now playing Manic Miners and I'm very pleased! Nigh on perfect remake.
um
is your dad single
Hi, voice of Sparks in the Manic Miners remake here.
Great video, this always was my favorite game.
Ah yes, LEGO's "next big thing" that they sunk millions into only to (perhaps wisely) abandon it for Bionicles shortly after.
Wow I loved this game when I was a child. Thanks for the nostalgia trip!!!
It's a damn shame that it didn't blow up like Ninjago did… We deserve more Rock Raiders content xd
This and Lego island extreme stunts were my games as a kid. So amazingly fun as a kid. Both were terribly coded, horribly buggy games, but man the mechanics were absolutely perfectly designed for children.
i never get to finish this game, the pc i had was already XP and it just kept crashing and crashing, the lego chess was even more depressing, couldn't even launch the game at all. games weren't cheap back then….
i was thinking how could that be the first rts when warcraft was around for longer? warcraft 1 and two were awesome.
Those energy crystals look an awful lot like Tiberium. Hmmm. A sudden crossover plot comes to mind.
When you recognize RR Slugger's OST for Rock Raiders in the background
Me, playing Deep Rock Galactic for the first time: "why does this feel like coming home?"
Me reminded of this game and seeing your review: "things make sense if you dig deep enough and far enough."