Rocket Riot for Windows 10 is still loads of fun after so many years

Abhishek Baxi – 22 hours ago
Review

Rocket Riot is an action-packed, side-scrolling shooting game with quirky 8-bit visuals that was previously available for Windows Phone 7 and 8.X as well as for Windows 8. Last month, the popular title made its way to Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile as a universal app.

First released in 2009 for the Xbox 360, Rocket Riot was one of the first Xbox LIVE Arcade games. A year later, Microsoft Studios published Rocket Riot as a launch title for the new Windows Phone 7 and then in 2012, Microsoft Studios published Rocket Riot 3D as a launch title for Windows 8. In 2014, Rocket Riot was removed from the Windows Store as well as the Windows Phone Store as Microsoft Studios took a step back allowing the developers Codeglue to take charge. Now, after seven years since the original launch, Rocket Riot is back on Steam and Windows 10, and is Xbox Live enabled.

Rocket Riot features over 200 single player missions across nine separate campaigns with unique set of characters. There is an assortment of over 300 characters unlockable by finding and killing them throughout the campaign. The campaign stories are ridiculously funny like an evil pirate escaping from prison and enacting his revenge on the world by stealing everyone’s legs, and then scientists developing a rocket that attaches to one’s backside. Yeah, really.

Once you’ve picked a game, you enter a level where you can move your character 360 degrees on a 2D plane and shoot enemies that appear out of thin air. The most common level objective is deathmatch where you need to kill a set of enemies, however, sometimes you’ll have a little creative objective like a football type match where you must pick up the football and carry it back to the goal. While you’re playing, you can score 20 color-coordinated power-ups – some of them detrimental – that last for a brief amount of time. Once you’ve completed the level’s objective, you’ll move on to the next level. If you die, you’ll need to start the level again.

The controls of Rocket Riot are quite simple and seamless. The simplicity comes in handy when the action gets intense, and essentially, you end up shooting randomly. You can use touch or keyboard/mouse, as well as the Xbox controller.

Apart from the colorful graphics, the upbeat soundtrack adds to the fun, and the ‘Go Bananas’ song is insanely addictive.

Rocket Riot offers a splash of modern art with colorful 8-bit style visuals that are engaging and fun to play. There’s a mix of retro art, great soundtrack, and clever humor in a gameplay that features a fully destructible environment. Of course, since the gameplay is repetitive to an extent – both in single player and multiplayer mode – Rocket Riot is best enjoyed in short spurts, but the frantic pace of the game does get addictive quickly. It’s surprising that I ended up enjoying a seven-year-old game, but the chaotic arcade fun doesn’t get old, and one would hope success of this game will bring a sequel in future.

Give it a whirl on your Windows 10 PCs, tablets, and mobiles by downloading the game from the link below, and let us know how you like it. It’s $3.99, and there are in-app purchases for unlocking campaigns and characters.

But maybe you can score it for free! Our friends at Codeglue have offered some promo codes – both for Steam and Windows Store – for our readers. Follow @OnMSFT and me (@baxiabhishek) on Twitter, and tell us the first video game you ever played, because Rocket Riot pays a fun homage to those 8-bit/16-bit video games we’ve all played back in the day. Not on Twitter? Share your anecdote in the comments below! We’ll pick few fun ones, and announce the results on December 1, so spread the word around.