Boom Boom Rocket

"Boom Boom Fun!"

I don't keep up with XBLA games very well. I don't have a million Marketplace points to spend. But this game's demo was downloaded without my knowledge like several other Arcade games, and when I found out about it on my way to play some Geometry Wars, I decided to give it a shot.

I played the first song - "Rave New World" on Easy in the demo. Not that great. It's slow and repetitive. I then played "Hall of the Mountain Dude" on Hard - and it WAS hard. But... after some practice, it became easier. And even better - the most fun I've had with an Arcade game.

I bought 2000 points just so I could download the full version, and here is my review.

Graphics

The game lacks variety in graphics, but what it does have is probably some of the best in an Arcade game so far. The fireworks of course are the main feature, and they are done quite well. These have somewhat of a lot of variety, and as you play through the game and unlock other firework types, that variety increases. The fireworks are excellent.

The single backdrop is that of a city scene at night. It is very well done, in my opinion. It isn't going to kill Gears graphics - or even SimCity4's - but it is nice to look at, and makes an excellent backdrop for the fireworks.

For what it is, I'm going to have to give it a 9/10.

GRAPHICS SCORE: 9/10

Sound

This game is a music game, so sound is of high importance, as common sense should tell you. The menu sounds are just the standard beeping noises that you usually find in a game - nothing special. The standard fireworks are VERY repetitive in their sound. From what I can tell (and I may not be correct) each firework - of which there are four - has their on pitch. So you get four different sounds... four million different times. The firework sounds you get during a "Bonus Run" are repetitive, as well, but oddly you don't notice this. They get your adrenaline pumping as much as a game of this nature is going to get your adrenaline pumping (lol). The sound effects do a good job, and as this is an Arcade game, you probably won't take too long in beating it so the repetitiveness isn't much of a factor.

The songs - what I have played - are great and fun to listen to. And this is coming from a person who listens to rap and nothing else. Most of the music in this game is remixed Classical, and Classical bores me... but not the music in this game. Why? I honestly don't know. If you're worried if the music is going to bore you or not, download the demo first - it comes with two songs (of which Hall of the Mountain Dude is the best, and VERY fun to play). Another thing that makes this game fun for a person like me that enjoys Rap, RnB, and music of that nature is that the songs actually have somewhat of a beat (for the most part) and the fireworks flow with that - more so on Hard difficulty than the others, and Hard will take some practice.

So the music, despite it's somewhat repetitiveness, earns an 8/10 for me.

SOUND RATING: 8/10

Gameplay

This is what's going to make or break most games, and it really does make this game.

The gameplay is simple - pick a song, a difficulty, and press the corresponding buttons to the beat. In it's simpleness is it's fun. The game has three different control types - arrows, letters, and nothing. Arrows is where the fireworks have an arrow on them and you must press the D-pad in that direction to the beat. Letters is where the fireworks have Y, X, B, and A on them and you must press the corresponding button to the beat. Nothing is where the firework is just a little colored ball, and you must press the corresponding button to the color - Y for yellow, B for red, A for green, and X for blue. Letters is by far the most fun to play, due to the D-pads unresponsiveness and Nothing's scheme confuses me sometimes on the faster songs. >_<

There are five different single player modes. I will describe them here.

Standard Game - Pick a song, pick a difficulty, and go to town. You unlock a new firework type for scoring a B or A rating on a certain song and difficulty. All songs and difficulties are unlocked from the very beginning. You have three fireworks to unlock per song - one per difficulty. There are ten songs for a total of 30 fireworks to unlock. If you want to unlock all of them - or even score an A+ rating on all songs - this game WILL keep you busy for some time to come.

Endurance Game - This is probably the most fun, but it's just my opinion. Pick a song, pick a difficulty, and once again, go to town on it. The only difference here is that the song gets increasingly faster and faster, to the point where it's almost impossible to keep up. If you ever played the little handheld/board game-like thing BOP-IT, this is similar to that. The thing is, after you master every song at it's normal pace, the game gets boring. However, this mode livens the game up and increases it's playtime MASSIVELY.

Practice Game - Pick a song, pick a difficulty, and play the game like normal. The only difference here is that you can't lose, so it's good for practicing trouble songs (which you should have been able to figure out from the title).

Freestyle - The game type supposedly "Great for kids." Yes, it says that in-game. Pick a song, a difficulty, and go to town. Two differences here is that you can't die and there is no bar that guides you to when the fireworks are supposed to explode. You can blow any rocket at any time as long as it's on screen. I got bored of this mode quickly, but kids might not.

Visualizer - Pick a song and watch a visualizer. The thing is, this is your song from your hard drive you pick. This mode kind of sucks though, as you just play a song and watch fireworks explode to the beat of the song. You don't get to explode your own fireworks, sadly, or this mode would increase playtime MASSIVELY, too.

All-in-all, this game is very fun (despite its simple and repetitive gameplay) and will keep you busy for quite some time.

GAMEPLAY SCORE - 9.5/10

Total overall score - 8.8/10

GameFAQs score (rounding, no decimals/fractions) - 9/10

XBOX 360 ACHIEVEMENTS RATING

This is something I do for 360 games only, and this section doesn't count towards the overall score.

The game has 12 Achievements worth 200 points. Some of them are simple and you will get several probably on your first song - such as "Bonus Schmonus" (use your first Bonus Run) and "The Easy 'A'" (achieve an A rating on any song on Easy difficulty). Some of them require some practice and dedication, such as "Suma Cum Laude" (get an A rating on any song on Hard difficulty) and "Sore Thumb Award" (complete 5 laps in an Endurance Game on Hard difficulty). And then you have the standard complete-the-game Achievement, "Johnny No Fingers" (unlock all fireworks types).

The range of easy to hard to dedication makes for good Achievements. This game definetly isn't a one-night 200.

ACHIEVEMENTS RATING - 9.5/10

And that is my review. I hope you enjoyed it and it was helpful. This game is excellent and I HIGHLY recommend it. Worth the 800 points, hands-down.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/17/07