Bit.Trip: Beat (Demo)

Nintendo recently released the first demos on their WiiWare platform, which gave me several games to try out on my non-existent games budget. All demos take several minutes to download, limit the features of the game, prevent saves and boot you to the Wii Shop Channel on completion. Unlike other reviews, these are from the perspective of how effective the demo is at capturing sales in my opinion.

First up is Bit.Trip: Beat, which is Pong meets side-scrolling shmup meets rhythm game. Tilting the Wiimote positions your paddle/ship/beat-collector in order to catch balls/enemies/beats that approach from the left side of the screen. Successfully bouncing the beats back from whence they came increases your score and failing to do so brings you closer to demise. Doing well is also rewarded with musical beats that add to the background music while misses make a little whiff sound. Stringing together longer sequences opens more complex background images and music while misses cause you to drop into a mode that closely resembles the graphics and sounds of Pong itself. Meanwhile the controller rumble slightly shakes in time to the beat.

Prior interest: high

I've been looking for a simple, old-school, action game to play when I have a few moments to fill at odd times. The Bit.Trip series seems like it fits the bill perfectly. I've seen videos of people playing in the groove that look simply amazing. Tilt control may be my favorite feature of the Wii. I hate having to dig through my collection to find disks to play a quick game. Plus I don't like spending a lot of money.

Odds of purchase: low

Overall, the demo is amazing and generous. Too generous. I died before getting to the end of the first song/level and was going on five minutes. Videos of the entire first level, which I believe is available in it's entirety, last nearly 15 minutes. That's pretty much plenty for me. I don't see myself playing this game often and seriously enough to need to play the other two songs anytime soon and certainly not at the cost of $3 each.

The Bit.Trip games seem ideal for demos since they turn on the quality of the experience. There are bound to be people who balk at spending money on a game that is widely seen as short and quirky, but who might be pushed over the edge by a good, immersive demo such as this one. In fact, despite my initial reluctance to pull the trigger this time around having a significant portion of the game available every time I turn on my system just might make the difference when I finally finish the first level.

Update:

Well I played a few more times, got better and discovered the demo ends after 7 minutes or so. Which slightly increases my odds of buying Bit.Trip: Beat. Slightly.