Boom Boom Rocket (Xbox Live Arcade) Review
Posted by Steve McHugh on 07.30.2007
Vitals
Genre
Music
System
Xbox 360
Release Date
Q0 0000
Fizzle...
Bizarre Creations managed to make one of the best games on the XBLA in the form of Geometry Wars. In fact it’s still one of the best games for the downloadable service and when I heard that the same team were going to be making a rhythm game involving fireworks I was very excited.
Actually scratch that, I was almost giddy with anticipation to see what new masterpiece this Liverpool-based company had managed to come up with now.
In a way BBR is a complete success just like Geo Wars was before it. It’s achingly simple to play but hard to master, looks good and is a lot of fun. But look at it closely and you start to see the cracks that have formed.
Ooooohh.
BBR is, like I said, a rhythm game where you have to press the corresponding face (or direction) button on the controller when a firework touches a purple line that goes across the top of the screen. If you get it right you’ll be rewarded with points and the better the timing the higher the points. Get enough points and your combo meter climbs and once full you can launch into a ‘bonus’ mode where all of the fireworks you get right net you even more points. Like I said it’s easy.
This wouldn’t be as much fun without the visual representation of the fireworks going off every time you get one correct. During the bonus mode the background greys out and all of the fireworks are even more impressive. Special mention has to be said of the background during the music, which is a city that as you play, the camera pans around. It’s all very impressive stuff and certainly lends the game a unique charm of its own, but only having the one background that you’re constantly moving around isn’t the most exciting thing in the world to look at.
Ahhhh.
But a rhythm game isn’t much good without the songs to back it up and for BBR you get 10 songs to play through in single-player mode. Unfortunately these aren’t the most interesting of songs and consist of revamps of classic such as 1812 Overture and Ride of the Valkyries. The problem is that the revamps songs all start to blend into one another causing the game to have no one song track that manages to stand out as a favourite. It’s very hard to pick between them, which is something that other rhythm games (most noticeably the GH games) manage to do so well. More songs and more importantly more variety in the songs would have gone a long way to combat this shortfall.
The difficulty is also a problem. Playing on easy is where most people should start and it’s a very good introduction to the game, medium builds on this as you have to start using the face and direction buttons together to get all of the fireworks. Hard, however, is utterly ridiculous and anyone who even manages to get there will find themselves having their patience tested many times.
The game should come with candyfloss. It'd be much more authentic.
There are plenty of modes to play though, single-player, endurance (where you have to play ‘laps’ of the music with each lap getting faster), two player and online leaderboards. There’s even a mode where you can just explode the fireworks as you feel like it with no pressure, which is very relaxing indeed. However, it does manage to miss that addictive quality that made Geo Wars such a success.
It’s not helped that you can get through all 10 songs in an hour and still manage to get reasonable grades for each of them. After that you’re just left playing the same songs again and again in the harder difficulties. There is a two-player mode which is very good and a lot of fun but suffers from the same problems the single player does.
The achievements have nothing that resembles some of Geo Wars enjoyable tests. In fact I managed to unlock 7 of the 12 achievements in about an hours play. And the other 5 range from more practice needed to just hugely time consuming.
The two-player mode is a lot of fun.
But there’s an even bigger problem. Yes it’s nice you can unlock new fireworks by doing well, but that only keeps people interested for so long and 10 songs just isn’t enough for the amount of money it costs at 800 points.
The 411
Whilst you’re playing this game you’ll be having fun because it is a good. The lack of variety makes it feel old and the cost of it makes it overly expensive. It’s definitely a try before you buy as although it is a good game it just isn’t good enough.
Graphics
8.5
The background is nice and the fireworks look great but after a while you’ll just be seeing the same thing over and over.
Gameplay
8.0
It’s fun to play but the songs aren’t interesting enough and the difficulty level spikes are just unfair.
Sound
7.0
What’s there sounds good but what’s there all sounds the same.
Lasting Appeal
7.3
Fun to begin with but that wears off when you realise that you’ve seen everything within a few hours.
Fun Factor
6.7
A few hours to get through all the songs but medium and hard will take you a long time to master. If you can be bothered to stick at it that long. Multiplayer is good though.
