Rock Howard - Reception

Reception

Rock was voted as the number one favorite character with 190 votes at the time of his debut in Garou: Mark of the Wolves in a popularity poll from such game developed by SNK. Video games publications have commented on Rock's character, with most of them praising his debut and development in various game. Anthony Chau from IGN noted Rock to be one of the most notable characters from Mark of the Wolves. However, he commented that his moveset was very unbalanced in comparison to the ones from other characters, becoming one of the strongest characters from the game. Gamesarefun.com writer Andrew McClure labelled Rock's moves to be a cross between Terry Bogard and Geese Howard with the exception of Geese's "pretzel" strongest moves. He additionally liked Rock's development in various games, praising his appearance in Capcom vs. SNK 2. Greg Kasavin from GameSpot agreed on this, praising him to be one of the most notable additions from Capcom vs. SNK 2.

Kurt Kalata from Armchairempire liked the creation of NeoGeo Battle Coliseum as it allowed players to use both Geese and Rock for the first time due to how story is behind these two characters and how popular they are. Like Chau from IGN, Kasavin from GameSpot also complained on how much powerful and fast was Rock but in KOF: Maximum Impact, commenting that he has "no real weakness" even though if the player uses his moves several times. Jon Thomas, Rock's English voice actor for KOF: Maximum Impact has been criticized by Ryan Genno from Gamingtarget.com to be one of the worst from the game as gives Rock "as much emotion as a block of cheese." The alternative costume for his character in KOF: Maximum Impact 2 has also been criticized by Luke Albiges from Eurogamer who noted it to just look "plain wrong", ruining Rock's "seminal badass" appearance.