Review by: Ryan Asher

Set your lasers to fun. Rocketmen: Axis of Evil has hit XBLA and it’s going to take one itchy trigger finger and a heavily gyrating thumb to obliterate the latest Martian menace.

Rocketmen is a top-down shooter set in the same vein as Smash TV or, more recently, Hunter the Reckoning and Monster Madness. For about 99 percent of the game, you’re going to be surrounded by several things trying to kill you, and your objective is going to be making sure that doesn’t happen. The person you control in order to achieve that objective is completely customizable. And since I choose to create likenesses of myself in videogames, I naturally went with the default option (a busty, African American woman with blonde hair). While you can’t really tell so much while playing because of the view, the characters are all cell-shaded, which fits the quirky mood of the game.

Unique to most arcade games, Rocketmen sports a good amount of production value. There’s a lot of dialogue and quite a few cutscenes (way too many in the first level). The cutscenes play out like a comic book, with text bubbles, static figures and exaggerated words describing various noises. A lot of the dialogue is hit-or-miss, but it’s all welcome, since arcade titles generally have narratives that make adult films read like “The Godfather” in comparison.

Rocketmen also touts itself as an RPG-shooter hybrid, as everything from your character, to the guns, to your armor are upgradeable. You upgrade these things by collecting loot from dead baddies and earning experience. Instead of starting a level over if you die, you lose 10 percent of your XP, so if you suck and die a lot, don’t expect to level up too fast. While it might seem like these upgrades are fruitless in the beginning, don’t worry; your hard work will begin to show as time progresses. (Just wait until you fully upgrade the Vulcan cannon!)

But is Rocketmen worth the time? Yes. While it starts off a bit slow, Rocketmen is a rather exciting romp through 10 levels of Martian butt-kicking. It’s fun and addicting, and it harkens back to the good ole days of Smash TV. You can also plug in three other controllers and go at it with some friends in co-op, or if you’re like me and don’t have friends, you can always play on Live. Although, don’t expect to level up online, as the more powerful players will gobble up most of the XP before you can usually get a shot off. My only gripes are a boring, pitiful default weapon (which does upgrade as the game progresses), an obnoxious camera and just some overall repetitiveness.

With 10 levels that typically last around 25-30 minutes, the four-player multiplayer and upgradeable character, this is more of a value than most full-priced 360 titles!