Gamers were probably salivating at the thought of a new game from the developer who brought Arcade the insanely difficult and addicting Geometry Wars Evolved. Sadly, a rhythm game with no rhythm is not much of a game at all. So begins the list of problems with Electronic Arts and Bizarre Creations' new Xbox Live Arcade offering, Boom Boom Rocket.
The game's premise is simple enough; hit the appropriate button as it crosses through the horizontal line at the top of the screen. The better timed the gamer triggers the explosion, the larger and more extravagant the fireworks. Each time a firework is hit well, the bonus meter earns a little more of the bar. Once full, gamers have the option to activate bonus mode to earn even greater multipliers for each successful firework until the meter drains back to zero. The game only offers ten songs, which are merely updated remixes of classical music. How the developers managed to botch the rhythm of the songs with so few to work with is both amazing and frustrating. Some portions of the songs fly by, matching fireworks and notes wonderfully, only to suddenly derail from the song's tempo with mistimed firework markers. As any Guitar Hero II fan who has received a message mid-song can attest, an off note or two can destroy the rest of a song.
The game offers two modes of play, and three difficulty levels. The standard game allows gamers to take on any of the ten songs once through, under either easy, medium, or hard difficulty. Miss enough fireworks, and the song grinds to a halt to end the game. The game does a decent job of making sure the hard difficulty is rather challenging by forcing gamers frequently to use multiple buttons at once. The other game mode available is Endurance Mode, which slowly speeds up the tempo of the song as gamers get further into it. The goal is to replay the song as many times as possible before the song skids to a stop from too many missed fireworks.
For a game about blowing up fireworks over a shiny city skyline, the game's graphics are rather bland. The fireworks are uninspired, and definitely not the quality that gamers have come to expect from a 360 title, Arcade or otherwise. Rather than jazzing up the ordinary gameplay with dazzling backdrops, the game offers only one. The repetitive soaring camera views drifting around a generic city skyline at night gets old within the first few tunes. Sonically, the remixed classical tunes are decent enough, but marred by the game's lack of rhythm.
