While not all of the series has made its way to PC, what has come our way from the Bit.Trip series has been pretty snazzy. For now our choices are Bit. Trip Beat or Bit. Trip Runner. I find myself preferring the latter. It's the only platform-y game that I can think of off the top of my head that can actually be played with one hand (a feat that's usually only possible in turn-based strategies, and old school RPGs). Runner combines a lot of appealing things in one place with good music, colorful retro visuals, and solid jumpy, collect-y fun.
The game has players controlling the little black dude that has become the de facto mascot of the series, Commander Video. As one can surmise from the game's title, the little guy spends all of his time running. Players just need to help him along as he tries to make it from one side of the level to the other. He needs to jump, slide, and kick his way past various obstacles sprinkled across the level, as well as try and collect gold bars along the way. It's this jumping, sliding, and kicking that players are in charge of.
As easy as it sounds, the whole process can actually be pretty challenging. Like the other Bit. Trip games, music and rhythm play a big part in the game. Players will be doing their jumping, kicking, et cetera in sync with the beat of the game. This becomes even more interesting when you find Video having to jump up a flight of stairs, quickly slide under a UFO, kick some crystals, jump an obstacle, then grab some gold. Suddenly the game becomes a lot more twitchy by demanding good reflexes from players whom at the same time need to remain cognoscente of the music's beat. It has a subtle psychological affect, as it's tempted to think, "Uh oh! Lot's of stuff to dodge. Go! Go! Go!" when the reality is that if you stay faithful to the beat while traversing these things, the chances of success are greater. It's not absolute that you strictly follow the rhythm, and sometimes it can be better to run a tad fast and loose with it, but Runner is a music game meshed with a platformer in the end, so the beat is going to play a prominent role here.
Screwing up is punished pretty severely here too. It's not hard to misjudge a jump, bumping into an obstacle in the process. This sends Cmdr. Video all the way back to the beginning of the level. This can be a bit frustrating if you're right near the end of the area, and botch things up then. Moments like that have elicited more, "Nooooooooo!" s out of me than I care to admit. It doesn't take much either to get sent back to the beginning. Even if you're only off by a tiny, tiny bit with a slide, or kick, or whatever, back you go. Thankfully respawns are instantaneous and you can get right back to trying to complete the level post haste, which offsets the unforgiving nature of the game.
One of the most pleasant facets of Runner is how cheerful the game feels. Like the other games in the Bit. Trip series, aesthetics are a retro throwback with visuals looking like a supercharged version of something that you'd expect from an Atari 2600 game, with bright, happy colors everywhere, and a perky chiptune soundtrack accompanying it. I like hopping into this sort of environment just for the contrast it gives to the legions of dank, dark dungeons we're often sent to explore, or burly, gruff space marines that need our help.
It's a shame more of the Bit. Trip games haven't come to the PC as of yet. The series just had a compiled version released on the Wii a little while ago via Bit. Trip Saga. Getting something similar in our neck of the woods would be great. For now, I'll have to content myself with this installment.
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