I've come to expect a lot less from the Ars Technica "Masterpiece" series. Super Metroid was the first one, and that made sense. Then Final Fantasy 7 -- another given. But there have been some less than credible entries, and the omission of Deus Ex and Fallout 3 (the latter on the fence because it's so recent, but it IS a masterpiece) made it worse.
But you know what? This article sold me. I've never heard of "Rocket Jockey" and I was a PC gamer back then. So this one got by me. Still, the article was well written -- Ben obviously loves the game, and the way he described the game, I feel like I know it. It sounds like it had kind of a steep learning curve to get the handling down, but once you got comfortable, you were having a lot of fun. I imagine this is one of those games you played not just to beat it, but to have fun with it, to see what all you can and can't get away with.
Gaming is so subjective. Of course "masterpiece" means "games Ben Kuchera REALLY likes". But hey, it's his column, and he generally writes good reviews. I enjoy reading them, for the most part. No two people are ever gonna agree on everything all of the time. But if this game were remade, and I had not read this article, I would probably not pay the game any attention. Having read this, I would jump on the demo.
What the article is missing is, can this game be played on modern hardware/software? Carmageddon came out back then, and it's pretty broken, even in DOS Box. Death Rally also came out around the same time, and it works fine in DOS Box. Unreal Tournament and Deus Ex were a few years later, and they work fine natively in Windows 7 with all the settings cranked. So, where does Rocket Jockey fit?
