Review: Bit.Trip Beat - Reinventing Pong Yet Again
by Felix Xiao
October 1, 2010
Overview
In today's iDevice world, it's becoming increasingly difficult to get your hands on a unique app that provides an impressive experience. Namco's Bit.Trip Beat does just that by fusing the legendary Pong game with electronic music in a whirlwind of colorful rhythm.Features
The game incorporates elements from Tap Tap Revenge and includes 3 songs for you to play. There are many types of beats that fly across the screen, each providing a different type of challenge. By hitting many consecutive beats with your paddle, you earn combo points and fill up a meter that takes you into a new, more difficult game mode. You can also collect powerups and powerdowns, as well as play with people all over the world in online multiplayer.
The Good
Bit.Trip Beat is simple to grasp and extremely fun to play. Effective touch and tilt controls are included, as well as 25 Game Center achievements. As of right now, there isn't another game like this available in the app store, and you'll become addicted to the unique gameplay. The combos are really what make the game so much fun. You start every game in hyper (normal) mode, and fill up two bars at the top and bottom of the screen by either hitting or missing beats. If you manage to fill up the top bar completely, you enter mega mode or multi mode and are given much more challenging rhythm types. Missing several notes will send you to a lower level, and filling up the bottom bar in nether mode will end the game. Namco does a great job in giving the flying beats different properties that make some much more difficult to hit than others. While the most basic ones just move straight across the screen towards your paddle, there are some that change directions and stop. At times, you'll have to use extreme precision to hit beats that match the size of your paddle by clustering together. The game has online multiplayer via Game Center that allows up to 4 players to play at the same time. Online gameplay gets chaotic quickly, as there are 4 paddles trying to work together and deflect the same beats. While multiplayer is a great feature, it could be greatly improved with voice chat and more online players so that it doesn't take 5 minutes for Game Center to create a match against a random opponent.
The Bad
The core game only includes 3 songs to play, and there are a few more available via in-app purchases. The most unappealing part about Bit.Trip Beat is that each level is tedious and can take up to 15 minutes to complete. With the assortment of tricky beats, it's incredibly difficult to survive for the full length of the level. At the start of the game, there is only 1 level available, and the other 2 are unlocked after completion of the first one. Namco once again touches on the memories of an entire generation by bringing a popular retro arcade game to the iPhone, and with it a collection of bright, pixelated graphics. During a level, the background changes often and interferes with gameplay. The beats are sometimes the same color as the background and are then really hard to notice. Staring at a collage of moving neon images for 15 minutes will also make your eyes hurt. The game only runs on the iPhone 3GS/iPod Touch 3rd Gen and higher, and there is a separate version for the iPad. Even on newer devices, the controls often become unstable and blocky when there is a lot happening on the screen. In a game of this level of precision, it's really frustrating when you lose because your paddle refuses to move to a certain spot on the screen.
