Boom Boom Rocket
| Boom Boom Rocket | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Bizarre Creations |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Platform(s) | Xbox Live Arcade |
| Release | April 11, 2007 |
| Genre(s) | Music video game |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer |
Boom Boom Rocket is a downloadable video game for Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade service. Boom Boom Rocket marks the first rhythm game for the Live Arcade service and was developed by Geometry Wars creators Bizarre Creations and published by the Pogo division of Electronic Arts. It's not currently available in Japan, Korea, Singapore or Taiwan.[1]
Gameplay
The object of Boom Boom Rocket is to trigger fireworks explosions in time with music, in a gameplay style very similar to that of Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero. Each rocket is color-mapped to one of the colored buttons on the Xbox 360 controller. A life gauge, which also serves as a score multiplier meter, fills with each successful shot and drains with each missed shot, and players are graded on overall hit accuracy. If the life meter drains completely, the player fails the song and the game is over. Each song has three unlockable firework types, one for each difficulty level. If the player successfully triggers a prescribed number of fireworks a rocket with a wavy tail appears. If this special rocket is triggered, the firework is unlocked and it will randomly replace other firework types on subsequent songs. If the rocket with the wavy tail is missed, the firework type remains locked.
An update that was released in November 2007 allows the game to recognize other controllers like guitars and dance pads. When using a guitar the rockets need to be "strummed" just as in Guitar Hero to be exploded in time.
Boom Boom Rocket includes several single-player modes and a local two-player mode. Single-player modes include the basic game, Endurance Mode (in which the song loops continuously and gradually speeds up, with the player attempting to complete as many "laps" as possible), and Practice Mode. Additionally, the game provides a Visualizer mode, which creates a fireworks display timed to the rhythm of audio files stored on the player's console.
The game provides twelve achievements (worth 200 Gamerscore points), which focus mainly on unlocking fireworks and attaining high grade levels and hit ratios. It also supports two-player mode on the same system, but does not support online multiplayer. As with most Xbox Live Arcade games, the title includes online leaderboards.
Boom Boom Rocket features ten music tracks, with three difficulty levels per track. Each track is a classical song that has been remixed into a modern style, such as ska, funk or techno. The game's music was composed by Ian Livingstone (Batman Returns and Project Gotham Racing 2 game soundtracks). While users cannot create their own custom soundtracks or utilize music from other sources (apart from the music visualizer mode), the game does support downloadable content (including new tracks) which should have been released on November 29, 2007; but were a day late. The songs will be free until December 16, 2007. After that the songs will go for 250 Microsoft Points. As of December 18, 2007 the song pack is still free for download.[2][3]
Track List
There are a total of ten music tracks in the game, with three difficulty levels per track. Each track is a classical song that has been remixed into one of a number of modern styles, including ska, funk and techno, and was composed by Ian Livingstone (Batman Returns and Project Gotham Racing 2 game soundtracks). The songs are as follows:
- Smooth Operetta
- Rave New World
- William Tell Overload
- Hall of the Mountain Dude
- 1812 Overdrive
- Valkyries Rising
- Tail Light Sonata
- Carmen Electric
- Game Over Beethoven
- Toccata and Funk
DLC for November 30th is:
Exploits/Errors
The higher difficulty rated levels feature "combos", where the player must press more than one button at the same time. Many players have noticed that the game does not actually distinguish which button(s) you are pressing when you do combos, so you can just push all four buttons on the Xbox controller at the same time and still achieve success. This is only so on the Medium difficulty level as doing it on the Hard difficulty level will punish the player accordingly. [citation needed]
The timing in a number of the songs seems to be noticeably late (the player must hit the button after the beat to get a "perfect" rating on that note). [citation needed]