Retro visuals and gameplay make a return to WiiWare with the awaited BIT.TRIP BEAT from Aksys Games. Players will use the Wii Remote to bounce 8-bit beats with up-to-four players in this retro throwback title. The game serves as the first in the BIT.TRIP saga. BIT.TRIP BEAT is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB and is available now through the Wii Shop Channel for 600 Wii Points ($6).
Summer Games II, a Commodore 64 title has players competing in eight different events: cycling, equestrian, fencing, high jump, javelin, kayaking, rowing and triple jump, from eighteen different countries for the gold medal. Players can both practice and compete in order in all featured events. Summer Games II is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB and is available now through the Wii Shop Channel for 500 Wii Points ($5).
WII-KLY UPDATE: ONE WIIWARE GAME AND ONE VIRTUAL CONSOLE GAME ADDED TO WII SHOP CHANNEL
March 16, 2009
Old-school action is the main attraction at the Wii Shop Channel this week. With a wealth of underground buzz already surrounding it, a brand new WiiWare title uses vintage-looking graphics and 8-bit sounds to create a rhythm-based game that's loaded with retro cool. Find out if you have enough skill to create order from chaos in a game that is as mesmerizing as it is challenging. Meanwhile, the latest addition to the Virtual Console lineup brings a Commodore 64 classic to the Wii console, proving that fans of international sports events needn't wait until 2012 to get their track-and-field fix. Even if you're too young to remember the original days of 8-bit gaming, these awesome titles provide timeless kicks.
Nintendo adds new and classic games to the Wii Shop Channel at 9 a.m. Pacific time every Monday. Wii owners with a high-speed Internet connection can redeem Wii Points to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel or at retail outlets. This week's new games are:
WiiWare
BIT.TRIP BEAT (Aksys Games, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone, 600 Wii Points): BIT.TRIP BEAT is a rhythm game that brings retro action into the present, letting you use the motion-sensing Wii Remote controller to bounce beats. Retro visuals, classic game play, four-player multiplayer and an 8-bit soundtrack will get you in the zone and rock your world. The challenges are mighty, but if you can stay cool as the difficulty increases, you'll discover the beginnings of the BIT.TRIP saga.
Virtual Console
Summer Games II (Commodore 64, 1-8 players, Rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points): A thousand athletes. A hundred countries. Billions watching around the world as you enter the stadium, marching confidently among your nation's strongest, fastest and boldest young men and women. Your gaze sweeps the crowd as you realize the scope of your achievement. You are about to compete against the world's best athletes in a 3,000-year-old competition. This is the pinnacle of athletic achievement: the Summer Games. Summer Games II challenges your competitive skills with a series of athletic contests for one to eight players. Experience the excitement and realism of eight different events: cycling, equestrian, fencing, high jump, javelin, kayaking, rowing and triple jump. Practice each event to sharpen your skills, then choose from the 18 countries you can represent in the competition.
Remember that Wii features parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other Wii features, visit Wii.com.
BitTripBeat is supposedly pretty good.
And at that price I may just go D/L it.
I'm interested in BTB, but I don't understand why the download is so large. It has 8-bit graphics and only three songs. Groovin' Blocks has nice, modern visuals and about ten songs (some of them pretty long), and the file size is roughly the same.
Yeah, 312 blocks is a pretty large number, close to the WiiWare size limit.
My best guess would be that they use a higher quality bitrate for the music. It could also just be poor code because talented programmers can make a very good program with very little actual code. They have competitions to make the best game with the fewest lines of code. I have no idea what the developers skill level or experience may be, but if they are newer to the trade then it may just be less economical coding. I dealt with this issue when I was doing a large amount of BASIC programming back in the day.
I downloaded BTB this morning and played it for a few minutes. The songs are extremely long, so that may contribute to the file size. While the graphics do improve as you play better, they were always 8-bit quality in the level I played. The video on Nintendo Channel seems to show a later level that may have FMV-style backgrounds.
