Rocket Racing is an awesome little 2-D rocket ship racing game from Halfbrick Studios for PlayStation Network. You’ll defiantly need to have some good racing skills to keep up in this game, and some of the elements and obstacles make it hard to play, but with 24 levels of play and oodles of missions, Rocket Racing is definitely worth a try.
Rocket Racing is a no-brake and an all-lead-foot racing game. Gaining your driving skills is vital to the many parts of this game. Some missions had different elements that helped you along. There is the wall that pushes you back when you drive into it. You also have a light blue section of the road that gives you an extreme boost to your thrusters. Although, there are some elements in this game that slow you down — like crashing into walls or while you are driving on the purple section of the road, which makes your ship uncontrollable. These elements presented in Rocket Racing increases the overall intensity.
What I liked about Rocket Racing is that you have to keep very close to the rails to get a boost of thrusting power. It is hard to keep your ship from crashing into the wall, and the game gets very intense while racing against the clock. Getting tokens in the game and getting boost to get to the finish line before the time runs out gets your little heart racing for more fun. It’s also fun going against an opponent in some levels of Rocket Racing and in co-op modes.
The controls for Rocket Racing are very simple. You have your left analog joystick and arrow buttons to move from side to side, and the rest of the buttons are for your thrusters. At first, it was real hard to control the rocket, but over time, I got used to the controls. Rocket Racing was not difficult to figure out, but it might be too hard for a beginning racer. Although, if you don’t have any racing skills at this time and want to learn, this would be a good game to start getting some skills quick.
The thruster sound effects for Rocket Racing were a suitable choice and added to the experience. I also liked the pulsing sound that indicated how many points you are gaining for grinding on the curb. I didn’t quite like the crash sound effect. It sounds like you’re hitting a baseball and is not as realistic as I’d hope for. I enjoyed the little bit of background music that played.
I liked the quality of the graphics in Rocket Racing. What I liked about the ships’ graphics is that they looked like futuristic rocket bumper cars, but they handled like a true rocket ship. Rocket Racing has some very nice scenic backgrounds, such as the “ramping up” background in campaign mode. The clouds race by with large crystal mountains peaking through, and there are some groundbreaking buildings in the far distance.
Rocket Racing gives you the entertainment you want for the majority of the game. You have to be very accurate to get through the many missions, though. Keep in mind that this has 24 levels you can go through, which makes it a great value. You also get campaign, grand prix, quick race and party modes. Rocket Racing is available for the PS3, PSP and Xbox Live Arcade, and I think it’s a game you should definitely download.
Tommy started playing with the Atari 2600 when he was about 8 years old. Two years after that, his father bought him a brand new Nintendo, and since, Tommy has been addicted to games. Tommy is a full-time student at Full Sail University working toward a bachelor's degree in video game design. He's more into gameplay than story, but he does think that story creates flow in a game and makes the game more interesting. Tommy doesn't like games that have too much story, though. He likes games that have three-fourths gameplay to one-fourth story. To him, gameplay makes the game fun and interesting. Tommy also believes if you are a designer, you have to have that gift to let yourself see all sides of the spectrum of the industry. Games have choices that make the game interesting to the player and those choices need to be logical not irrational. With making games, everything is essential to the creation of the game as a whole. A movie without sound is like a game without gameplay. Everything is accentual to the game as a whole — that is how games create the fun within them.
