XBLA Review: Rocket Riot
Have you ever come across those games that you dismiss at one glance? You know, those games that all it takes is a screenshot or a box cover & you immediately know that the game isn’t for you? Sure you have. We all have. It’s that exact process I experienced when I first looked at Rocket Riot. I saw the cover art on my Xbox 360 dashboard as I was cruising that week’s selections of Arcade offerings. I’ll admit, I took one look & completely dismissed it. I had never heard of the game & the over didn’t impress me. Then, I saw a few random tweets on Twitter singing it’s praises. So I went back to it & this time checked out the synopsis & the screenshots. Nope. Not for me. But, as the first few hours after launch stretched into the first few days, I began to see a ton more tweets gushing about this game. After the 200th gush, I caved & downloaded the trial. I was hooked before I finished the first map. I immediately had to review this game. So, after acquiring my full version code, I set to work on the game. It turns out, Rocket Riot is a vial of crack dressed up like an NES game circa 1988!
So, I typically start things off covering the story of a game, laying out the setting for you so you have a bit of understanding of where we are as I go into the rest of the features of the game. I’m not going to do that here though, as the story is some nonsensical mess about legs being stolen & Blockbeard the pirate. In most games, an opinion like that would kill it on the spot. Not here though. When you play, there is no need for a story. All you need to know is you have a jet engine where your legs should be & you shoot bazookas. That’s it. What more do you need? Here’s what you do: BLOW EVERYTHING UP! Who needs a story with gameplay like that?
I know, I know. There needs to be more than that & surprisingly, there is (if there wasn’t, I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now). See, this is one of those “less is more” cases. The story is pretty much nonexistent. The visuals certainly aren’t of the Bioshock or Mass Effect caliber (even though they are very well done, think 8-bit in HD with a good coat of polish). The audio is good, 8-bit sounding with a catchy theme song, but it won’t blow you away (even though my kids walk around the house going “Rocket Riot, Rocket Riot” in their best robotic sounding voice). The thing is, once you start playing, you won’t want to put it down. Now let me be clear right now, I have not finished it. I’m on level 67 (of 80). As far as I’m concerned though, finishing the game isn’t really necessary, as the only thing you’ll get is bragging rights (extremely well deserved bragging rights!).
You’ll start out with several options. You can play the campaign, which will last 80 levels. But, it’s not just straight float & gun action. The objectives range from the basic ‘kill X amount of enemies’ to ‘destroy all of the [OBJECTS] in the level’ to football. Yes, you read that right, you play football in this game. The ball is on one side of the map, there’s a goal post on the other side, & you need to get the ball from point A to point B. With lots enemies shooting at you, trying to knock the ball out of your hands, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. As you fly through each level, you use the right stick to shoot your missiles. This was one issue I did have with the game as it became very tedious to keep flicking the stick to shoot. Plus, I found that I didn’t always shoot when I wanted too. I suspect I still had some active missiles on screen or something, but I ended up with many-o-deaths because I didn’t shoot when I felt I should have shot. You would think I would have dropped the game in frustration right there, but between the desire to complete what looks like a simple level combined with the absolutely brilliant level design, I just couldn’t put it down. I kept formulating different ways to complete my objectives even though, in some cases, I wasn’t even dead yet. One of the features that helped facilitate that was the regenerating levels. As you blow up the various environmental obstructions, they will eventually regenerate, which can be good or bad depending on how you are planning to proceed & how many enemies are on your tail. Another things is as you destroy the environment, power-ups appear. Some help you, some hinder you. As you move forward through the game, these power-ups will be the key to completing the level. Mu personal favs are the auto-fire, the homing missile, & the one that makes the enemies’ missiles shot away from me. It can be tough though, as you are constantly on the move, trying to avoid getting killed & somewhere in the chaos you have to find the time to get to one of the power-ups.
Speaking of enemies, I forgot to mention, there are quite a few of them. Ok, there are a ton of them. But, as you kill a new enemy, he becomes unlocked. Any enemy you unlock becomes a choice for you when customizing your avatar (you also can adjust the colors too). You’ll battle everything from pirates to zombies to aliens. Every 10 levels or so you’ll face a giant boss character with a rather large health bar while battling the rest of the ‘normal’ baddies. As you progress through the levels, the difficulty will ramp up. You start out needing to kill 5 enemies & now on level 67, I have 80 to kill. Not an easy task when 10 – 20 of them are charging at from all directions & are constantly respawning.
For all you masochistic players, there is an endurance mode, along with a local co-op mode. But the real fun comes in multiplayer. Gather a bunch of your friends (8p total on Live, 4p locally) & face off in modes ranging from the standard Deathmatch to Rugby Riot (football!!) to Golden Guy (a take on Halo’s Oddball). The pace is frantic & the battles are fierce! With the same fantastic level design along with the regenerating environments from the single player game, the multiplayer is just plain FUN!
It’s funny, because this really wasn’t a game I was interested in. I passed on it several times before I finally broke down & gave it a shot. But, all it took was one play session to convince me that it was great. For me, that speaks volumes about the concept & the design. It shows that you don’t need realistic visuals or an award winning script or top notch voice acting to make a great game. Sure, there are holes in it. No, it’s not perfect. But, Rocket Riot takes what was fun back in the NES era of gaming (what I grew up on), ads a bit of current gen polish & turns us loose on it. It doesn’t try to be anything more than it is. And I think that’s why it works. It works well & is an absolute blast! Keep your eye on 360Junkies as myself, Seeson (the founder of the site) & a couple of the other staff members will be playing the developers on July 10. We will have a piece up on it & maybe a livestream. At 800MP, Rocket Riot would be $10 well spent. But if you still have your doubts, queue up the demo here. Just remember, there is no methadone for game addictions…
Rating: 
2 Responses to “XBLA Review: Rocket Riot”
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“acquired” a code? my interest is peaked. But great review nonetheless, I did the same thing. Looked like nothing i wanted to mess with but then DL the trial because everyone kept talking about it. Now I just need to come up with the cash to get it.
It’s a great game. Completely worth the $10…