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Boom Boom Rocket review

Game: Boom Boom Rocket
Platform: Xbox 360
Genre: Music
Developer: Bizarre Creations

Reader review by Azumangaman

October 08, 2007

Are they birds? Are they planes? No, they’re an array of fireworks from Bizarre Creations (Project Gotham Racing series) Boom Boom Rocket (BBR), a game exclusive to the Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360. Boom Boom Rocket is a music game similar to Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero. Instead of a dance mat or guitar, you use your Xbox 360 controller. For 800 Microsoft points ($10), Boom Boom Rocket is an interesting idea.

Boom Boom Rocket has very straightforward gameplay. Fireworks coordinated with the colours of the Y, X, B and A buttons fly up the screen. When they meet the white line, you hit the button that matches the colour of the firework. You also have a “life” bar that doubles as a point multiplier on the top left corner. You get a certain amount of points based on your accuracy. When you get a certain amount of points, you can get a bonus run. A bonus run is a period of time when the score for a successful firework is multiplied by much more than usual. At the end of the song, you receive a letter grade based on your skill. There are three difficulty levels for each song; easy, medium and hard.

There are multiple gameplay modes in Boom Boom Rocket. Besides the regular mode, the most addictive mode is arguably Endurance Mode. In Endurance Mode, you pick any of the available songs. Then, as the songs goes on, it slowly gets faster. When the song is done, it will repeat again and again and keep going faster. Endurance is where the core challenge of the game is. In Hard mode, it is exceptionally difficult to make it to the fourth round with the easiest song in the game. Next is the visualizer mode. This mode involves adding your music to the Xbox 360 and Boom Boom Rocket will play the song with fireworks in beat to the song. This is an interesting feature, but is rather pointless, and if you try this mode, don’t expect to be entertained enough to use it more than once. The next two modes are equally useless. They are practice and freestyle. Freestyle is when you can pick any of the available tracks and push any button you want and a firework will go off. Good luck enjoying this mode for more than one minute. Practice is self-explanatory, but is completely useless for this kind of game.

One of the faults in Boom Boom Rocket is the graphics. While in a game like this, there really is never a big graphical component, the developers could’ve have done much more than what is here. To start, the fireworks are absolutely stunning. There are many different explosions, and each immerses you and gives you the feeling that you’re watching real fireworks. Then the problem comes in. When you play a track you see a city by the water. That’s it. That is the only background you’ll see in the entire game no matter what you do. Don’t like it? Too bad, there are no other stages. Bizarre really erred here, and were just plain lazy. I’d even take two backgrounds. One is just unacceptable. Despite the gorgeous fireworks in Boom Boom Rocket, they just aren’t exciting as you play more and more of the game. Even though the fire works look incredible, you’ll still be wishing there was something more.

The songs of Boom Boom Rocket are remixes of old classical masterpieces like Moonlight Sonata, William Tell Overture and Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Each of the tracks have also been re-titled. Unfortunately none of these are really interesting. Each one fails to pull you in or get you excited like the up-beat songs in Dance Dance Revolution or the hard-rocking songs in Guitar Hero. They’re ok songs, but they really don’t fit into this type of game, no matter how modern you make them sound.

At $10, Boom Boom Rocket is simply overpriced. There is a lot more that could’ve been added to BBR to make it an enjoyable experience such as online modes, more graphical creativity, and different genres of music. The biggest loss in Boom Boom Rocket is that the game only has 10 songs. While $10 may seem like a low price, all you get is 10 average tracks and a couple of useful gameplay modes. This game is in desperate need of new downloadable content like more tracks. BBR is exciting for the first hour or so that you play it, but after a while, you wish there was more bang for your buck. Boom Boom Rocket certainly had the potential to be a really enjoyable experience, but unfortunately, it falls short of being a good game.

Rating: 5/10

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