Have you ever forgotten to do your homework and watched your grade plummet? Well, you shouldn’t have — because you shouldn’t have had homework to begin with. Overwhelming homework can also impact kids’ mental health. Homework brings stress and anxiety to myself and many others. Students, including myself, participate in after-school activities, and sometimes this leads to forgetting about homework and grades dropping. Schools should not give homework because it would provide a more stress-free, healthy, and rested lifestyle for students.

First, stress and anxiety are proven to increase because of homework. According to Stanford Report, “Homework loads can be overwhelming, causing students to feel stressed and anxious, which can negatively impact their mental health.” Feeling overwhelmed by excessive homework can drain students' motivation, leading to disengagement and decreased interest in learning. Too much homework can also contribute to feelings of alienation from peers, family, and society, making students feel isolated. When I talked to 7th grader Emily Burke, she stated, “When I have ELA, my teacher assigns homework, and it’s due Friday morning. I have so much other work I forget about the ELA homework. I also get a bad grade. This stresses me out so much that sometimes I get bad headaches or stomach aches.”

Made by Psyonix on July 7, 2015.

The genre is soccer with cars and mechanics, ranks, and a lot more.

You can play it on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, Linux, Microsoft Windows, and Nintendo Switch. (There is Rocket League mobile, but that’s a different game — and it’s bad.)

Did you know that around 6–8 million daily active players play Rocket League every day?

The objective is to score more goals than the opponent in five minutes by hitting a large ball into their net with rocket-powered cars. It’s similar to soccer but with added aerial mechanics and faster, more technical gameplay.

In Rocket League, there are no fixed “main characters,” but there are roles like the attacker (first man), second man (support), and third man (defender). This strategy helps pressure the ball closer and closer to the opponent’s net.

On PC, players usually use a keyboard (WASD/joystick) or a regular controller.

Difficulty: 10/10. Rocket League’s potential for improvement is limitless. This means there’s always a higher level to reach, and very few players truly master it. There are different mechanics that take hours and hours of practice to learn. If you want to be relatively good at the game, it takes thousands of hours.

Rocket League’s game mechanics involve basic controls for hitting and maneuvering a car in a soccer-like game to score goals. These include movement, boosting, jumping, and aerialing. More advanced mechanics like faster flips (called speed flips) and air dribbling are crucial for high-level play, focusing on speed, recovery, power, and precision in different offensive and defensive situations. Mastering these mechanics, along with teamwork and boost management, is key to improving.

Rocket League has both single-player modes, such as playing against AI bots offline, and multiplayer options like 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, and multiple fun game modes you can play with friends.

Some of Rocket League’s visuals include customized battle cars performing acrobatic feats in futuristic, enclosed stadiums. Another big visual is your battle car. You can choose from around 100 different cars and unlock more. You can also select paint decals and multiple different boost trails.

The sound effects and music vary between maps or anthems, which you can unlock with in-game currency. Anthems play when you score a goal — think of it as your victory song.

A good thing about Rocket League is how the ranking system works. When your rank goes up, your opponents also get better because the server matches you with players around your skill level.

I like the hard mechanics and features because you can keep getting better and better at the game with higher ranks and better mechanics. All you need is practice.

I think the updates could be improved because sometimes it feels like the same updates over and over again. Every update is like a new quest for a car or items, but some updates are good — like a new season every three months.

People who have dedication to get better at games would like it. Content creators would too because they can post content about the game. Also, people who like getting good at one specific game or just want a fun game to play with friends would enjoy it.

Rating: 9/10.

I think this game is great for people who want to try something new. With its precise mechanics and ranking system, it gives players the determination to keep playing and keep trying to get better.