BIT.TRIP BEAT
Everything comes from something.
We were before we became. From life comes rhythm, and from rhythm comes life.
We are beings of information.
Everything is a conduit for learning.
We communicate in bits and bytes.
And we will return to something once we become nothing.
After our BIT.TRIP is complete.
Wiiware. $6. Wiimote only. 1-4 players. 3 long-ass stages. Not a ton of required fridge.
Rez * Pong
That’s it.
Worth the price?: Yes
Worth the fridge space?: Yes
Recommended: Anybody with a 2600 retro itch.
Recommended: Enjoy Pong, Breakout, anything that plays with a paddle.
Recommended: If you love chiptunes or Mizuguchi music concepts (Rez, Lumines, Every Extend).
Not Recommended: No good at pattern recognition.
Not Recommended: Driven by graphics.
Not Recommended: Colorblind
You play as a paddle. Pong-style-sideways. Your job is to hit every ball before it passes by. Every ball you hit, the SFX adds to the song and a meter builds along the top. When the top meter fills, the soundtrack gets more complex. Fill the top meter again, you earn a multiplier. The scoring system is based on never missing, almost like Vid Ribbon. When you miss a ball, a meter fills along the bottom. When that meter fills up, you lose the multiplier and the soundtrack degrades. Continue missing balls and the game reverts to original Pong presentation. Continue to miss and you game over.
The stages are segmented similar to Rez, with the background beats changing with each segment and your gameplay skills conduct the melody with SFX. Unlike Rez, the melody is entirely scripted, so every ball in the stage will approach and hit at the same place every time. This makes it possible to memorize the stage blindfolded with exception of the boss fights. This may concern some people with content and length, but remember each of these 3 stages is like, 15 minutes long, so you’re getting all kinds of your money’s worth. 45 minutes of replayable good music with a working scoring system? Shit yes!
Cast your concerns of variety aside. There are many, many different ball types you need to deflect. You’ll keep discovering new ones throughout the entire game. The patterns are well scripted too. They never make it impossible to be at two places at one time. Some balls even fuck with your paddle, reducing it, enlarging it, or splitting it. The challenge is all about bending your mind to recognize the shape and setups the balls are trying to show you. The playfield will look like a manic shooting game playing on an Atari 2600 by the time you get close to the end.
Control is important. The only button you need is when selecting a mode. You control the paddle by twisting the Wiimote away or toward you in NES style. It works great. Players going for score may want to turn the rumble off, as this noticeably fucks with the paddle movement. Some jackasses are gonna blame the Wiimote for their fuckups. I felt every miss was my fault.
The game is pretty hard. Multiplayer makes this much easier, but multiplayer paddles overlap each other, so people may complain about that. Multiplayer winning isn’t guaranteed either as each additional player paddle is smaller than rollin’ solo.
Your fridge space problems are solved, so there’s no reason to avoid this title. Bit.Trip Beat is a slick piece of work and a wonderful way to use the Wii controls.
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www.aksysgames.com/bittripbeat
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Tags: 2600, atari, beat, bit, Music, pong, rez, trip, wiiware
April 9th, 2009 at 9:23 am
I almost bought this game after watching the video on the Nintendo Channel but while the concept looked cool, there didn’t seem to be enough variety to keep me busy for long. However, after reading this: “Cast your concerns of variety aside. There are many, many different ball types you need to deflect. You’ll keep discovering new ones throughout the entire game.” I’ll give it a go.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Yeah I picked it up. For $7 this is a must buy. The music is fantastic
April 10th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Dude, for real. It’s worth the six bucks for the music alone.