The Legless Pirate, Blackbeard, was once the most dreaded pirate on the seven seas. But he was apprehended and converted into a sideshow at the Blockstonboroughcesterburyston fair. He makes a daring escape and curses the people of the village, causing everyone to lose their legs in vengeance. On the other hand, a bright scientist discovers the key to Blockbeard’s mobility: a jetpack strapped to his bottom! So, you must set out with your butt rocket to find Blackbeard and bring him to justice.
Rocket Riot is a twin-stick shooter that plays like a mix of Geometry Wars and Worms, with players flying about a completely destructible area and launching rockets at one other. Power-ups like giant rockets and rapid-fire, defensive abilities like shields and reflectors, power-downs like one that makes your character move erratically as if drunk, and even some that just give specific effects like turning your rockets into random objects or making explosions big and colorful add spice to the action.
The game has a faux-retro art design in which everything is formed of blocky pixels (which burst all over the screen in a frenzy), almost everything is a 2D item, and the soundtrack includes retro-sounding chiptune elements, including a vocal theme song. There are over 80 stages to unlock and over a hundred playable characters.
The game can be played solo, with up to four local players, or with up to eight via system link or Xbox Live. The majority of the single-player missions are deathmatch. Still, there are also other game modes such as Rugby Riot, in which one team tries to take a football from one end of the stage to a goal while the other team tries to stop them; Golden Guy, in which the goal is to hold the golden armor for the longest time, but whoever has it can’t shoot; and Destroy the Object, in which each team has a giant glowing object and must protect it while trying to destroy the other team.’
