Old Bits, New Beats

Imagine a fusion of Pong, the iconic paddle ball game, and Rez, the synesthesia-inducing rail shooter, and now you’re looking at Bit.Trip Beat. The game is the first in a series of six published by Aksys Games that uses basic Atari-esque graphics set to pulse-pounding tunes that progressively improve as the player performs better.

More important than Bit.Trip’s fusion of old and new is the revolutionary way in which the game approaches the player. Rather than try to one-up (gaming pun fail) the competition in graphics, music or style, the Bit.Trip series focuses on combining all these elements in a way that works for each game’s unique direction. Prior to Electronic Arts’ big turn around in recent years, gamers complained that the video game developer giant was churning out the same games year after year simply because there was profitability there. Bit.Trip wants to be the kid in class that convinces all the other students that essays should not be written to receive an A; they should be written to express how one feels. With game franchises like Call of Duty, it can be important to make certain caveats to an expected audience, but with the advent of games like Bioshock, even EA has shown us that artistic expression and financial success are not mutually exclusive.

While Bit.Trip Beat has style in spades, it does lack a sensible and albeit tangible storyline. As well, the controls on the Wii can be a bit finicky even though precise movement and continuing the beat is highly valued. Despite a few drawbacks, this game and others in the series stands to herald another turn for the industry to more artistic times. Bit.Trip Beat is available now on WiiWare along with sister titles Bit.Trip Core and Bit.Trip Void.