Boom Boom Rocket Reviews

Boom Boom Rocket Review
TastyPastry
Single Player

If you haven’t played Boom Boom Rocket, you most likely don’t own the compilation disc that came with most xbox 360 arcade versions. Or else you didn’t buy the compilation disc for about ten dollars at your local game store like I did (Which I think was a good deal. Boom Boom Rocket, Feeding Frenzy, Uno, Pac Man C.E., Luxor 2 if I remember correctly). The game is simple. If you’ve ever played DDR or Rock Band or Guitar Hero you won’t have much of a problem understanding.

You can use a controller (or set it up for a guitar, possibly other control systems too, though reports of patches have some people capable of playing with other control items while others cant) and you try to keep the “beat” of the song that is playing. Arrows will move from bottom up on your screen and you must press the color/direction of the arrow as it hits the line at the top. The color/direction corresponds with where the button is on your controller (The A button is at the bottom, therefore a downward arrow). You get a score for each arrow you hit with appropriate timing, and more for hitting it perfectly (therefore less if you press the button slightly too early or slightly too late). If you’ve played DDR with a controller it is the same thing.

When you press the button the arrow will explode, like a firework rocket (hence the name). During each stage you will also have the opportunity to unlock a new firework type if you hit the corresponding arrow at the right time with the corresponding button. If you keep up a correct sequence of button pressing, you will unlock the ability to go into an overdrive mode, which basically nets you a higher multiplier score while also making the fireworks explode more excitedly.

There are three different difficulties. At the end of each of your performances you will receive a letter grade that describes how well you did in terms of score. You also get an accuracy notification. Beyond that, if it is your first time playing through, you’ll unlock a new song. These songs vary but don’t expect any top hits, but rather more classic music. There is a total of around ten to twelve songs if I recall correctly, and you should be able to recognize all of them at the least. You’ll be basically hitting the buttons to either the beat or the melody of the song, so the rhythm isn’t too hard to understand. As the song plays you will be flying over the background of a large city or such, something you’ll be able to identify, and that creates pleasant scenery.

Sounds simple right? In actuality the game gets very difficult on anything other than easy, and even getting an “A” on easy is something I’m having problems accomplishing. You can play through this mode, which you can just pick any song of your fancy (assuming you have it unlocked) and try to play through it, one time through. Or, if you’re up for it, you can go into a mode which makes the song play over and over, as you try to see how long you can last, a marathon mode. You can do this on any of the three difficulties as well, and again you are awarded score and a letter grade.
Overall the game is very relaxing and fun, though it shouldn’t be the mainstay of your collection. But when it is three am, you’re bored, and you’re sick of getting beaten by a seven year old blasting LFO over your television speakers, it might be a good game to play. If you don’t feel like picking up the compilation disc, for some reason, you can purchase this on the xbox live arcade for probably 400 MS points. I recommend the disc, more cost-worthy.

Final Single Player Score: 8/10

Multiplayer
Two players can battle head to head, with the music getting faster every time the song progresses. Basically you’re looking at the same thing as the single player, but the screen will be split, to see who wins in lasting time. It’s pretty fun and exactly what this game needed to have just enough of a multiplayer. That’s all I have to say about that.

Final Multiplayer Score: 9/10

Graphics:
You’re playing an arcade game, so you shouldn’t go in expecting too much. When the fireworks explode they look relatively attractive, and if you set off the bonus multiplier it only makes them more interesting. You’ll be flying over a background of something resembling New York City, which is pleasant. The graphics do, though, despite whether they wanted this or not, distract you from the arrows coming upwards. The line that you must press the button to the arrow sometimes gets a little lost in the background if you start to lose focus. But I can’t honestly say if they intended everything to be exactly as it is – I would feel more definite about it if it wasn’t an arcade game and I knew that they had gobs of time to spend on the game.

Final graphics score: 8/10

Sound:
The sound is an important part of this game, since, you must hear the beat and rhythm of the song. Therefore they take special care to make sure the song is accentuated enough, and that the fireworks sound interesting. There is nothing better than hearing some classical music busting through your television to the sound of fireworks. It is far better than the sound of an elite dying in Halo 3.

Final sound score: 10/10

Achievements:
I have five of the twelve achievements, for a total of 45 of the points, and yes, those are all the easy ones. To be honest though, the achievements are pretty solid, and often revolve around you getting the highest letter grades on each song on each difficulty. It will keep the replay value up in that you’ll feel more determined to fully complete the game. This game isn’t for achievement junkies – you’ll have difficulty completing it, but rather for people that admire achievements as a way to acknowledge that you played the game in every possible way, and became exceedingly good at it. The lack of any offline multiplayer achievements knocks this down a number.

Final achievement score: 9/10

DLC:
The DLC has what you think it should have. They put out a “rocket guitar pack” that comes with five new songs: Cannon in D, Sugar High, Eine Kleine Rochtmusik, Sting of the Bumble Bee, and Explode to Joy. You can also purchase a firework theme if you would like. I assume they will be coming out with more songs in the future, as it is a way to keep the game fresh, and honestly, it’s probably an easy way to earn cash for the developers.

Final DLC Score: 10/10

Final Score: 8.75/10

Pros/Cons:
Pros:
1) The game is very easy to pick up and play. No person should have too much of a problem on the first couple of songs on easy. Get your friend over who hasn’t played a video game since Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo and prove to them how simple video games can still be.

2) The achievements are actually completion achievements that require you to become good at the game. Madden 07 gave me 900 achievement points, but I still have no idea how to play the game. Not Boom Boom Rocket – it’s out to make you good.

3) The sound is excellent, and you’ll often times have the songs playing over and over in your head for the rest of the day. The graphics are pretty satisfactory too considering that the game is an arcade game.

4) There are multiple difficulties to play on if you do become relatively good at the game.

5) Simple, effective multiplayer.

Cons:
1) If you are playing on a mediocre television or not on HD, you might have problems picking up the arrows as they move across your screen.
2) There isn’t really a tutorial, but, honestly, it isn’t hard to figure out.
3) You’ll probably play about three or four rounds and then decide to move onto a game with a little more excitement, or get distracted by your computer or something like that.

Final Comments:
I think you should buy this game specifically in the arcade compilation disc. By itself it might be just not worth it if you don’t like it, but on the disc you’re paying about two dollars for it, which is worth its price. Again, I reiterate, it is a very simple and relaxing game, excellent for in the early hours if you’re stretching a long night of gaming. This won’t be the game that sits in your system for days on end, but will be the game on the disc that sits right next to your xbox 360, as a subtle reminder that it exists when you start bashing your controller against the coffee table in anger at that generic online multiplayer game.

In the early days of the rhythm genre, there were a lot of games that simply used the controller. Nowadays, we're awash in plastic guitars, dance mats, microphones, congas, and all sorts of other crazy, expensive equipment. Boom Boom Rocket is, in a lot of ways, a throwback to simpler times. That cuts both ways: The simplistic nature of Boom Boom Rocket makes it easy to pick up and enjoy in brief chunks, but it's also roughly like playing Dance Dance Revolution with the controller instead of a dance mat, which, unsurprisingly, isn't too much fun.

There are 10 songs to play in Boom Boom Rocket and three difficulty settings. As in most rhythm games, icons (in this case, launching fireworks), move up toward a line. The icons can be shaped like arrows or buttons, depending on your preference, and you need to hit the appropriate button on the controller when the icon crosses the line. The closer to the beat you are, the more points you get, and stringing together proper presses builds a combo and a score multiplier. When you get a long-enough combo going, the timing bar starts to twinkle, indicating that you can tap a trigger and activate a bonus run, which doubles your scoring multiplier for a brief period of time. At the end of the song, your performance is totaled up, and you're given a grade, and the online leaderboard, which shows you your combined score across all 10 songs as well as individual scores for each song, is displayed. You can also play in endurance mode, which loops the song over and over again, constantly speeding it up as you play. The number of beats per minute is displayed at the bottom of the screen, and after about two or three times through, most of the songs are played so fast that you'll hardly be able to keep up. Both regular and endurance games can be played with a second player, provided the second player is sitting right next to you. Considering that you're still just competing for score, cutting the screen in half to allow for another player doesn't add anything to the game.

The quality of the music is a huge part of any rhythm game. The 10 songs in Boom Boom Rocket are all updated electronic covers of classical pieces with witty names such as "William Tell Overload," "1812 Overdrive," and "Tail Light Sonata." These updated takes on classical music are pretty cheesy, though they're exactly the sort of tracks you'd expect to hear at a fireworks show. About the only thing missing is some blatantly American anthem, but hey, fireworks are fun around the world, so why pin the music down to one nation? The soundtrack isn't bad, but it's all a little goofy.

Graphically, the game puts on a pretty good fireworks show. The camera spins around a waterfront portion of a city as you play, and when you trigger a bonus run, there are some slightly wilder visual effects. It all looks serviceable, but there's nothing in the game that will blow you away. If you're a huge fan of fireworks, you can set the game up in a visualizer mode, which puts on an automated fireworks show to whatever music you play through the 360's custom soundtrack feature.

Boom Boom Rocket's music makes sense, and the game, overall, isn't bad. But at the same time, mindlessly punching out the button presses on the controller isn't the sort of thing that's going to keep you coming back. Considering that it comes in at the slightly elevated but justifiable 800-point price level, you might find that the free demo has more than enough Boom Boom Rocket for your needs.

Boom Boom Rocket (BBR) is a strangely hypnotic game brought to you by Bizarre Creations; the same developer of such great games as Geometry Wars and Project Gotham Racing.

BBR is best described as Guitar Hero for your fingers. Fireworks are fired from the bottom of the screen and it is your job to explode them at just the right time. A line traverses the screen and that is your que to hit the controller button that corresponds to that firework. You can set it to show arrows, colors, or letters; whatever you feel most comfortable with. The developers have even created a patch that lets you use Guitar controllers or dance pads just to change things up a bit.

The fireworks are set to classical music that has been remixed for the game. Classics like "William Tell Overture" have been brought ably into the present in the form of "William Tell Overload". Other mixed up classics include " Ride of the Valkyries" and "Beethoven's Symphony No. 5".

Each song has three difficulty levels and the higher levels can be quite challenging. There is also an Endurance mode that requires to complete laps as the music speeds up. Your hand-and-eye coordination must be very good to last. There is no on-line multi-player but you can play against an opponent on the same system.

This is another game on Xbox Live Arcade that is very different from anything else yet has been unfortunately overlooked. This game can be a great departure as you challenge yourself to get better and better. If you like Rock Band or Guitar Hero there is no reason you wouldn't like this. There is no need to worry about graphics, they are very sharp and provide a beautiful backdrop to the music element. This is a perfect game to relax with; it's just a fun game to play.

http://www.bizarrecreations.com/games/boom_boom_rocket/

Bizarre Creations, the team behind the awesome Project Gotham Racing 4, and Geometry Wars, came out in 2008 with Boom Boom Rocket, one of the prettiest Arcade Titles to date, but how does it fair as a music game? Pretty well if you ask me.

The Aim of Boom Boom Rocket, is to detonate Fireworks in time with the music, in either, Up, Down, Left or Right movements, or a combination of 2, in a 'jump' style motion. Think Dance Dance Revolution, only with BBR, the fireworks tend to move in patterns, rather than in DDR, where the charts are more random.

Graphically speaking, this game is gorgeous. Loving the city lights at night and the fireworks themselves are spectacular, especially in a 'Bonus Run' where everything gets amplified.

Also, I have to take my hat off to Ian Livingstone, the composer of the music in this game, because they're all remakes of Classical Music, with a more contemporary feel to them, and with the Rock Pack DLC, more Rock based, and they sound awesome. Shame the firework noises detract from that as well.

The game itself has 2 game modes, Standard Mode (Play a song, get graded, move on), and Endurance Mode (Play a song continuously, getting faster and faster until you eventually fail). The game's main problem is that as much as the game itself is good, there just isn't any major lasting appeal to it. There's only 2 modes, and only 10 Songs in the game (15 if you include the DLC). There's Local Multiplayer too, but an Online Multiplayer mode would have been great, as this kind of game and format (Guitar Hero, Rock Band), screams out for a decent Multiplayer Mode, especially as this game is a lot more casual when it comes to design and feel than a full Retail game. Being able to play with a Dance Mat or a Guitar Hero/Rock Band Guitar is a nice touch though.

The steepness of difficulty is also evident. The timing windows are rather tight for each firework, and the Hard Difficulty can be very off putting at first, this game you shall be playing a lot if you want all 200 Gamerscore, and rising the online leaderboards, as memorizing the patterns in these songs can be challenging.

Overall, this is only a £7 game, so it's hard to grumble, as this game is really nice to play in short bursts. Just a shame the lasting appeal and steep difficulty will stop many coming back for more.

Ratings:

Presentation: 7/10 - Good

Not bad, but the menus themselves are rather bland and the colour scheme doesn't really fit. Looks nice when playing though.

Graphics: 9/10 - Outstanding

One of the best on Xbox Live Arcade, really nice city backdrops and fireworks, great use of colour by Bizarre.

Sound: 9/10 - Outstanding

Some fantastic music remixes made by the game, just a real shame you'll get bored by them fast. Get them on your iPod though.

Gameplay: 7/10 - Good

Solid, but there's little to actually comment on. Could have been more generous with the timing windows if you ask me.

Lasting Appeal: 4/10 - Meh

Games real hurting point, not enough to keep even the most hardcore fan busy for more than an hour or two. Needs MOAR Multiplayer.

Overall: 7.2 - Good (4 Stars)