Back in March, Aksys and Gaijin released the first Bit.Trip game for WiiWare. Bit.Trip: Beat was a rhythmic take on Pong, where you needed to hit all of the balls that came your way to succeed. The balls happen to come at you in a rhythmic pattern, at varying speeds and locations. When you play well, it creates a little tune. Start missing, and it sounds like a mess... and you eventually lose.

The second game in the line, Bit.Trip Core, isn't too far off from this concept. But rather than building a chiptune Pong game, this one is sort of like a rhythm-based version of the old arcade game, Space Zap, which put you in a firebase at the middle of the screen and let you fire shots out in four directions. The difference with Core is that you aren't shooting ships... you're again trying to hit blocky balls, which turns into a tune.

Check out this video that Aksys posted yesterday, it should give you a better idea about how it goes.

In case it isn't apparent, the line appears when you begin pushing in a direction with the Wii's D-pad. You then need to push the action button (I want to say it's the 1 button... but hey, it could be 2, too) as the balls cross the line. As you can tell from the trailer, the game doesn't just throw the blocks at you in straight lines. When I played it a few weeks ago, even the straight, slow blocks started giving me trouble after awhile. I can't even imagine holding up when things get as hectic as they do in this trailer. As you start to slip, the game's graphics devolve, eventually leaving you with a black-and-white, Pong-like existence before finally ending the game in abject failure.

It's pretty rough, but I still dig the art style in it. I wonder if the whole faux-retro thing will ever totally wear thin, or if I'll always be a total sucker for new games that (deliberately) look or sound really old...

Core is due out on WiiWare sometime this summer. Hey, isn't it summer right now? Weird. Oh, here's a video of Space Zap in action, so you can see that I'm not entirely crazy.

Back in March, Aksys and Gaijin released the first Bit.Trip game for WiiWare. Bit.Trip: Beat was a rhythmic take on Pong, where you needed to hit all of the balls that came your way to succeed. The balls happen to come at you in a rhythmic pattern, at varying speeds and locations. When you play well, it creates a little tune. Start missing, and it sounds like a mess... and you eventually lose.

The second game in the line, Bit.Trip Core, isn't too far off from this concept. But rather than building a chiptune Pong game, this one is sort of like a rhythm-based version of the old arcade game, Space Zap, which put you in a firebase at the middle of the screen and let you fire shots out in four directions. The difference with Core is that you aren't shooting ships... you're again trying to hit blocky balls, which turns into a tune.

Check out this video that Aksys posted yesterday, it should give you a better idea about how it goes.

In case it isn't apparent, the line appears when you begin pushing in a direction with the Wii's D-pad. You then need to push the action button (I want to say it's the 1 button... but hey, it could be 2, too) as the balls cross the line. As you can tell from the trailer, the game doesn't just throw the blocks at you in straight lines. When I played it a few weeks ago, even the straight, slow blocks started giving me trouble after awhile. I can't even imagine holding up when things get as hectic as they do in this trailer. As you start to slip, the game's graphics devolve, eventually leaving you with a black-and-white, Pong-like existence before finally ending the game in abject failure.

It's pretty rough, but I still dig the art style in it. I wonder if the whole faux-retro thing will ever totally wear thin, or if I'll always be a total sucker for new games that (deliberately) look or sound really old...

Core is due out on WiiWare sometime this summer. Hey, isn't it summer right now? Weird. Oh, here's a video of Space Zap in action, so you can see that I'm not entirely crazy.

Jeff must be in an explainy mood.

Loving the 8bit beats.

Congrats Jeff your not crazy!     Today.....

This looks real hardcore.

My mind melted trying to follow the order.

The Bit.Trip games are a great addition to WiiWare

My mind melted trying to follow the order.

The Bit.Trip games are a great addition to WiiWare

It's a BIT TRIP BIT TRIP RADICAL TRIP BIT TRIP

Dude that is breaking my brain just watching that trailer.

Wish it would break my brain in HIIIIIIIGH-DEFINITIIIIION!! on my PS3.

ok glad im not crazy

Loved the first one however you linked to the wrong Gaijin, there is a couple of companies with that name. The right one is here.

Bring these to Xbox 360 or PS3 in GLORIOUS HD. :D

(That means you Jeff.)

I wasn't aware it was based off another old title. I thought they just came up the gameplay style themselves. I wonder what they'll base they're next game (if they make another one) will based off of.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to playing this. I loved Bit.Trip Beat, but I thought was a tad short. That and a lack of leaderboards was a little disappointing. Hopefully these problems have been addressed in Core.

Hey! A cool download game for a system I actually own! Spiffy.

Man, this looks intense...I would probably suck at the game.

I was thinking more along the lines of Cosmic Ark.

Why aren't these on XBLA or PSN? It's not like we need motion control for this to work. Come on man, awesome games for everyone!

Hey, another game that I will buy, play for a few weeks, totally love, yet suck hard at it.

Bit.Trip Beat gets pretty rough and this looks even more crazy.

Looks like a neat game.

God I love the old grungy 8bit sounds coming out of Space Zap.  Takes me back to when I was a lad.

Looks awesome and tough as hell at the same time.

I have not played the first, but I may get this if the price is right.

Looks great, but looks even more harder than the first game, which I'm finding is really tough. I may get it, as it's really addictive to play, but the difficulty may steer me away from buying it.

Looks sick, but I don't know why you'd have to also hit the action button...isn't hitting one of the four directions on the dpad enough? That just over-complicates things.

Looks cool. But I'm a little afraid it will end up just LOOKING cool.

whao. might be fun. but I'm worried it would give me a headache... or a seizure...

because the first game isn't difficult enough, right?

Still looks mad hard, then.

They should just release some chiptune albums, I'd buy 'em.

"There's nothing on that list that looks interesting."

Cool idea, but I'm a bit of a wuss these days and don't have patience for games I know will kick my ass.

looks alright, but sounds hard

Though it seems it'd be hard to tell which direction you're suppose to shoot them sometimes.  How do you know if you're supposed to shoot them up two at once, or right one, two, in quick succession when they bounce around you?

bit trip beat it amazing. So I guess you can say I am looking really forward to this, even though  the controls seem to look a lot harder..

IS that from the same guys who did Guilty Gear? If so, then awesome. If not, then damn this looks really cool.

For all you folks clamoring for a port of the series, well, sorry. You seem to forget that motion control was integral to the experience of Bit.Trip Beat. The way you tilt the wiimote like a paddle was such a satisfying way to experience the game, and I'm sure Gaijin will be incorporating more motion control into future titles. Perhaps the PS3 controller could do it, but you'd lose some of the elegant simplicity. Bit.Trip Beat is my favorite Wiiware game so far, and I can't wait to play the Core.