Boom Boom Rocket

"An often fun and challenging music-based game that should of lasted."

If you've ever played any other music games such as Guitar Hero, Gitaroo-Man, Fantavision and PaRappa the Rapper, then you'll pretty much get used to Boom Boom Rocket. It follows on the formula on having to press the right buttons at the right time in coordination with the song's beats. It's simple - you see notes scroll up from the bottom and when they cross this luminous pink line you press the button. It's sort of a Dance Dance Revolution clone but you just use the controller. The game lets you choose which symbols to have for your buttons and you have two control schemes too. Either the d-pad or face colour buttons can be used to play. Occasionally you may find yourself hitting the left/right triggers to activate the bonus time (this multiplies your score 16x). The effect by this bonus time often interrupts because the fireworks seem to explode larger.

Boom Boom Rocket is all about timing and quick reactions. Scoring "Perfect" or "Awesome" most of the time will be sure to get your A ranking. You can also get "Good" and "OK" ratings too. These are not so good and mean you've missed the right timing or went in too early. Of course miss a note all together and you'll notice a negative sound. Missing all the time will mean you won't earn any bonus time. The idea is to do the best you can - trying to beat your previous high score. Every song has its own leaderboard that lets you compare your scores to your friends on Xbox Live or to everybody.

In total, there are ten different songs to play through. These can be mastered on three different difficulty settings (easy, medium, hard). Trying them out on easy should be a breeze but when you get round to playing on medium or hard, things get too hectic and you will have to keep up with the ever increasing notes. Sometimes, you may even have to press two buttons near enough at the same time. However, the game doesn't let you "hold" your notes, so you will only ever need to tap the buttons on the controller to perform the action. Once a round is over your score it totalled and depending on how well you did, you'll see if you've earned an A. Earning an A in all three difficulties unlocks you an achievement (for each one) and if you get As on all medium songs then you will also get one more achievement.

If you think you suck at a song then practice makes perfect. It may take many tries before you finally can get that A grade. Practising is possible since there is a "Practice" mode which doesn't place any restrictions on you whatsoever. On the other hand, if you've mastered a song on all three difficulties then the "Endurance" mode will be a great challenge. The song loops over and over in this mode but also gets faster for every lap you complete. There is local multiplayer but some online co-operative play would of been great on Xbox Live. However, even though it does have local multiplayer this is a game more or less enjoyed on single player.

Even though you're only getting around ten songs, these are pretty decent. Some you may remember in their original form (the songs have been remixed) and now they have a great electronica feel to them. The quality goes well with the whole "fireworks" theme of the game. It's a shame there wasn't more backdrops included but it still looks visually good. It is set in a city full of buildings at night. The fireworks blend in well with the environments. Also, depending on your progress you'll see different firework patterns. It's great to just pick up and enjoy. One mode lets you just experiment and the game suggests that this is a great mode for young kids. If you have any custom soundtracks on the storage device then these can be used in the "Visualizer" mode. You can tilt the camera around the city and see how the fireworks blast with the beats of your song. Doesn't work well with every song but is a good addition.

Overall, Boom Boom Rocket is a great music experience on the Xbox Live Arcade. It's a shame the game doesn't last long and once you've mastered the songs it doesn't really feel like playing anymore. The game is 800 Microsoft Points but hopefully in the future there may be additional content (such as new songs or maybe even backdrops) to add to the value.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/17/07