THQ and Codeglue’s Rocket Riot is a very stylized, 3D rendered, 2D side view shooter that is fast, furious and doesn’t take itself too seriously. However, with a single player campaign that will frustrate casual gamers, challenge core gamers, and a multiplayer that is missing it’s core ingredient, players; we take a look at Rocket Riot to see if it’s worth spending 800 MS Points.

Gameplay

Nearly all aspects of Rocket Riot seem to pay homage to gaming’s 8-bit renaissance. The story is decidedly bizarre and mostly nonsense but it is clearly done in a purposeful way, poking a bit of fun at the stories of games from the 8-bit era.

In Rocket Riot the legless, dread pirate Blockbeard has escaped from prison through a rather large hole in the wall. Blockbeard overcomes his legless handicap by riding out on an arse mounted jetpack and takes his revenge by stealing everyone’s legs while they sleep. Fortunately you come across a brilliant Professor who figures out the secret of Blockbeard’s jet pack and fits you out with one of your own and also gives you a rocket launcher. It is now up to you to hunt down the pirate Blockbeard and bring him to justice.


The controls are probably the one aspect of Rocket Riot that are at once wholly modern while remaining simple and intuitive. The left thumb stick controls your character’s movement. Movement consists of directing your jet pack, so upward and side to side movements are responsive and rapid while dropping tends to be a little slower. The right thumb stick aims your rocket launcher and you release to fire, the longer you hold the thumb stick the more velocity your rocket carries. The A button activates the last power-up you grabbed.

There are 80 single player levels and each level is full of environmental objects which can all be blown to smithereens. The levels are broken into 8 stages and each stage has a theme with a theme appropriate boss. The bosses are amusing but are not very well balanced.


The gameplay can become repetitive but there are a number of different level types, which are also multiplayer modes, including Deathmatch, Destroy the Object (bomb the objects designated before you are bombed by the bad guys), Rugby Riot (grab the ball and get through the uprights), and The Golden Guy (one player grabs the gold armour and tries to survive as long as he can, only, with the armour, you can’t shoot). There’s another mode for Campaign only called Hide & Seek where players find the character hidden behind the environmental objects.

Keeping things fresh, while still giving props to classic 8-bit gameplay are the availability of numerous power-ups and power-downs. Power-up’s range from a shield, to the ability to pass through environmental objects, to giant rockets and power-downs will cause you to shoot blanks, bounce off walls or be a rocket magnet.

Rocket Riot’s gameplay is well executed and there aren’t any unnecessary extras nor missing elements.

Graphics and Audio

Rocket Riot really shines in the visual and audio category. The graphics are beautifully done with 3D levels and characters that constantly invoke thoughts of 2D, 8-bit side scrolling action games while still looking modern and in no way feel or look out of place on a big screen HDTV.

The action can get ridiculously heavy in Rocket Riot with dozens of characters buzzing around the screen, each one firing rockets and hundreds of flying pieces of environmental debris being blasted across the screen, all with zero slowdown.


The audio is high quality 5.1 surround sound  while still reminding you of 8-bit gaming. A warning though, Rocket Riot’s theme song has to be one of the cheesiest and worst themes ever; however, It’s clearly tongue in cheek and it is actually pretty hilarious.

Value

While the single player campaign will offer an entertaining bit of distraction, unfortunately it also degenerates into something of a frustration inducing battle for survival in the later levels. Only very dedicated gamers will have the patience to finish out all 80 levels of Rocket Riot.

The multiplayer component is where Rocket Riot truly expresses its value. The number of modes available plus the ease of picking up the game will ensures many hours of good fun. The only real problem is finding others on XBL to play against. A number of times I could find no games to join on XBL.

Conclusion

THQ and Codeglue have got a winner on their hands. Rocket Riot is a very stylized, 3D rendered, 2D side view shooter that is fast, furious, doesn’t take itself too seriously and is just simply a hell of a lot of fun to play. Rocket Riot is a casual game that pretty much anyone can pick up and enjoy. The action is fast paced and exciting and there is a lot of content available for 800 MS points. Hardcore gamers will love the challenge of the single player campaign and more casual players will love the multiplayer modes and earlier campaign levels. Rocket spamming has never been more fun!