BIT.TRIP BEAT

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: March 19th, 2009

BIT.TRIP BEAT is the first in a series of “BIT.TRIP” games from the (relatively) new independent label Gaijin Games, featuring stylized, rhythm-based gameplay with up to four human players. It’s like retro repurposed, Bizarro World Pong with a lofi aesthetic, mounting into an adaptive audio-visual experience. If that sounds pleasing to you (why wouldn’t it?), you can grab it off WiiWare for a mere $6 USD.

Or you could pick up a Happy Meal or some Starbucks or something and continue to live your life in darkness, it’s whatever.

(Thanks Offworld!)

Posted in Action, Unique / Bizarre, Videos, Wii | Tags: GaijinGames

Bennett

This looks great. Time to dust off the Wii.
http://0xdeadc0de.org/ Eclipse

maybe i missed something… like, the gameplay
namuol

with Cave Story wii coming out and now this, i’m starting to wish i hadn’t left the wii to my parents.

it’s nice to see nintendo letting in more and more indie developers.
Garbled

I accessed the Wii Shop Channel for the first time in a couple months last night, and noticed this one. I haven’t gotten into rhythm games yet, but the description caught my eye. It kind of melted from a typically bland and unhelpful Shop Channel description into something weirdly enticing and shadowy.

But they’re called “Gaijin”? Guhhhh.
CommanderVideo

Hey TIG! Thanks for the cool write up. I hope that fans of your site (and the indie scene in general) enjoy the game!
Nic

Isn’t 13 minutes a little long for a single stage?
Ezuku

Pong rip off…

But seriously, err… I can’t see the point. Marketing a game as an “experience” often just seems like an excuse to leave out gameplay for prettiness and some music.
Jad

‘where is the gameplay’

wtf, you bounce balls to the beat, if you fail, you lose, if you manage, you win

if what you do in this game is not ‘gameplay’ then arkanoid has no gameplay either. Or pong, for that matter.
Ezuku

Eh, it seems that the beat doesn’t really have much bearing on the game. You just bounce the balls, don’t need to pay attention to the beat.

But yes, the issue isn’t “where is the gameplay?”, it’s more of “that’s all there is to the gameplay?”.

Put it this way, do you ever see people playing pong now adays? The reason not is that it’s too basic, and becomes boring and repeititive. Similar sort of thing, this seems like pong to music.
XUE

lumines was just tetris with a cool aesthetic and set to music, but it was great. so.
Lailoken

First of all I want to say the video doesn’t do this game justice.

I bought this and I love it. It’s one of those games that feels really good to succeed at. You don’t need to follow the beat but it helps you to get into the groove. The better you do the better it all sounds, but the harder it is (more visually distracting). This gives me more incentive to do well than a number, which has never really been able to motivate me for very long.

I’d say this is the first ‘hit a ball with a paddle’ game that has entertained me since Arkanoid.

Good job Gaijin!
werdswerf

agreed, lalloken. this game has a great sense of flow, and while you certainly could bounce balls off a paddle without a cool chiptunes soundtrack, the music helps a lot with your timing.

the video above only shows the first level, and only the early parts of the first level to boot. once you get further and the pixel behaviors get more complex, it gets a lot more interesting.