Here’s an upcoming WiiWare title that I had never heard of before until a few minutes ago.  It’s going to have 4 player online multiplayer, which pushes it far ahead of most other WiiWare titles in my book.

Here’s one of the best looking WiiWare titles gameplay wise I’ve ever seen.  Between this and Icarian, 2d platformer fans should have plenty to look forward to on their Wii in the next few months.

Here’s an upcoming WiiWare title.  I find the lack of enemies in the game a bit disturbing, but it should be an interesting change of pace from the overflood of puzzle games on WiiWare.  From what I can tell in the YouTube video, the controls look similar to Lost Winds.

Not sure if this one is coming to America anytime soon…but looks like a good game.

From the last few seconds of the video, it looks like there will be online battles as well.

Swords and Soldiers has been announced to come out on Monday in the US, so I thought I’d find a video on YouTube showing off the gameplay.  Here it is.

By the way, if anyone was wondering where to find the soundtrack to Bit Trip Beat, they let you download the first level’s music on the Bit Trip Beat website.  Here’s the link

Bit Trip Beat media

Also, if anyone was looking for the entire World of Goo soundtrack, it’s free on the creator’s website…

World of Goo Soundtrack

Here’s a preview of the sequel to Bit Trip Beat!  It no longer resembles Pong gameplay wise, but visually and musically everything looks good.

I wanted to find a walkthrough video on Youtube that would show off the gameplay more closely than a trailer would, and this one was good at showing one of the caves.  From the looks of it, the music seems exactly like the original.  Although the graphics seem more clear and sharp, they still resemble the original as well, which isn’t a bad thing since they were going for a retro style sequel anyway.

Publisher: Bplus

Genre: Action

Wii Points: 500

Rating: Fair

Don’t let the easy first few stages fool you.  This is another surprisingly difficult WiiWare title that requires tons of patience to get through.  Niki - Rock ‘n’ Ball is Bplus’s second attempt at a WiiWare title, and although their effort here doesn’t fall totally flat, there are some shortcomings.

The title of Niki - Rock ‘n’ Ball says it all, you play the role of a ball rolling around as you rock the Wii remote back and forth.  To defeat an enemy, one simply has to roll Niki over them.  Some enemies have spikes protecting their body, so Niki turns into a rock ball with the push of a button, enabling him to defeat those enemies with special protection.  Along the way, six pearls have to be collected in each stage, even if all the enemies are defeated, in order to move to the next level.  Niki can also jump and bounce off walls.

The motion controls take some getting used to.  One has to hold the Wii remote upright, with the sensor pointing towards the sky.  From there, the Wii remote has to be tilted left and right, resembling the motion of windshield wipers.  This was the first control option I played with, and although it was difficult and I didn’t get very far, I didn’t necessarily think this was a bad control scheme.  It had a learning curve for sure and it makes every stage twice as hard, but I still honestly had fun with this control scheme. The retro “NES” style controls made the game much easier.  That’s not to say it was too easy, as the later levels become difficult no matter what control scheme you’re using, but I definitely got much farther.  Jumping off the walls to get to a certain point can be tricky, and the timing gets easier with a d-pad.

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Publisher: AKSYS Games

Genre: Action

Wii Points: 600

Rating: Recommended

With it’s simple structure, it was hard for me to imagine anyone taking the concept of Pong and turning it into a decent modern video game that can hold its own, but AKSYS Games has done just that with Bit Trip Beat.  There is not much to find wrong with this game, other than maybe it’s slightly too difficult.  You’ll be frantically trying to move the paddle so quickly to stop the “beats” from getting past you, the fact this game is based on such an old concept will soon be forgotten by those who have never cared about Pong.  Yet at the same time, older gamers who did love that game, definitely have to try this.

First of all, the visuals are perfect for what they were going for.  There is a cool outer space feel to the whole game, which fits in well with the soundtrack.  Everything looks like Pong, but a hundred times more colorful!  Everything does look bright and crisp.  Normally the visuals don’t have much importance to me when playing a video game, but they really help here.  Bit Trip Beat has a “modern 8 bit” feel, if that makes sense.

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