I've been really into Rocket League the past couple of months. You're probably already aware of what it is but just in case, it's a soccer game where you're in cars that can jump and have rocket boosting capabilities. The pros in this game can pull off some seriously insane stuff, but the controls in this game such as driving, drifting, jumping, timing, and flying in the air, make this game extremely competitive, and it has one of the highest skill ceilings of any competitive game.

I'm not great at the game. I've been working on my accuracy, powershots, goaltending, and aerials, but I feel there's a long way to go before I get to the "next level" of players. I've made it to Gold in 3v3 but I struggle with those 4 things which are pretty critical.

Most of my friends aren't nearly as good at the game as me, and a lot of Rocket League players tend to act as if the gameplay is a second nature to all humans. It takes a lot of work, and training, but there is a lot of resources out there to help people improve.

I have a few issues with the players in this game. A lot of them are younger, quick tempered, and not very good themselves. Aside from the usual trash talking of opponents, people are particularly aggressive towards their teammates. If you're playing for the first time with voice chat on, expect to get cussed out by a teenager or wannabe twitch streamer. If you're playing with the game's preset text options, expect most of your mistakes to end with a teammate spamming something like "Wow."

There is a ban penalty for leaving a ranked match. This doesn't stop Rocket League players from leaving games when a single goal is made against their team, no matter how many goals their team has made, or how much is left of the game. You'll be left with a 2v3 or 1v3 a solid half to three quarters of your games with most of the game left to play if you're a new/intermediate player.

I'm a big fan of the soundtrack. It has a lot of amazing Monstercat songs and fantastic EDM songs.

The cosmetic system I have a small issue with. The game runs on the same kind of Battle Pass system other games do, so you have to level it up to unlock more. They started counting different colors of cosmetics as totally different things to unlock, so it doesn't offer nearly as many unique designs as one would hope. The shop system is pretty expensive as well. If you wanted a new goal animation, it might run you the equivilant of $25-$35, and only what's available on that day. Then, there's blueprints that you unlock by levelling up that simply gives you the ability to buy the cosmetic it's for at full price. Finally, you can trade in 5 items of a certain rarity and get a random item of the rarity above it. Not a huge fan of the system or the prices but there are some REALLY nice looking cosmetics in the game.

Overall, I'm a big fan of the game, not a huge fan of the attitudes people have in just about every game I'm in, but there's enough in it that's exactly to my taste and it gives a great opportunity to learn and grow in a very challenging video game.

How about you? Do you play Rocket League? Do you play ranked? If so, what are your stats?

I'm honestly really surprised that Rocket League has remained relevant for as long as it has. I supposed the viability of the game as a competitive e-sport probably has a lot to do with it. I played Rocket League a little bit when I was in high school (around 2015 or 2016 I want to say) but I haven't played since then.

I used to play the game a lot, and back in the day I was really competitive and on a pretty decent ranked team for a few months. But then I switched from PC to mostly playing in on the PS4 and then I switched again to the Switch version and I started playing less and less. Right now I probably do a few matches a month but it's usually against bots since I don't really have anyone to play with.

I haven't played Rocket League in years, back in highschool when someone would bring their switch to play it in class.

I was horrible. I know a lot of people that still play and are actually quite good and high ranked. But I imagine the player base has fallen off quite a bit in the last few years so being high rank doesn't mean as much as it used to.

I have rocket league installed, played it since 2017, but haven't really touched the game in awhile. If anything i only really play with bots nowadays. I dont really enjoy playing matches online anymore, mostly due to the toxicity. I've even completely avoided competitive because of that.

Honestly, I haven’t touched that game willingly since 2020. I used to play it with friends and even got some DLC cars from it but as time went by, the game kind of went stale for me and the games becoming rather toxic like any other game. Haven’t played it with friends since 2020 but haven’t touched it at all and uninstalled it back in 2022 when a friend wanted me to play it and it just doesn’t have that spark it had once before. The fact I’m on an Xbox while she’s on a switch kind of made things hard when trying to play with a bit of teamwork. The r toxic environment is almost as bad as fifa and I just stray away from it.

I do, but ever since 2019-2020 I haven't played much. I used to play a lot in 2018-2019, but, I don't know, it just doesn't appeal to me anymore, I should maybe see what I think of the game now.