EA Sports Active vs. Wii Fit

Today I got hold of a copy of EA Sports Active. For the past few months I've been doing Wii Fit so I'm familiar with workout/exercise games. After a week or so of trying EA Sports Active, I'll most likely write up a comparison article on here between the two of them.

Review: Bit. Trip Core - 8

Bit. Trip Core is the second game in the Bit. Trip series and changes the control style completely from the original Bit. Trip Beat. Like the first game, Bit. Trip Core features fast-paced and catchy chip tune music along with an old 8-bit feel to the graphics. It presents itself nicely but like its predecessor Bit. Trip Core comes off as very difficult and doesn’t have enough explanations.

In the first Bit. Trip game you controlled a Pong-like paddle and reflected incoming blocks by tilting the Wii remote. Bit. Trip Core changes this dramatically by now having you work completely with the D-pad and the 2 button (and occasionally the 1 button). The game remains in the music and rhythm genre by having you hitting blocks in time with the beat and in doing so will add more notes to the song playing. You control a red plus-sign-looking object in the center of the screen and when colored blocks fly past you, you must press the button in their direction (if the block is above you – press up) and hit the 2 button when they reach the line you have created. Each time you hit a block it plays a note and thus adds to the background music. Hitting enough of these will cause the music to become more complex and that much nicer.

This brings forward the biggest downfall to the game: the difficulty. The controls are easy to get used to, but the game has no form of tutorials so you’re left figuring things out for yourself. This causes the learning curve to become quite high. And with the level of difficulty the game can ramp up to, more explanations would have been a good idea. Though, once you do master the controls and begin to understand what all the meters mean, you will have a great time. It’s just a matter of struggling through your first few plays of the game as you face the difficult challenges while learning how to play.

Though the game does offer two player co-op for each of the three levels (and once again, it doesn’t ever explain this or even hint at it). In this you will both control the center plus-sign-object so that you can send out more lines and hit more blocks as they are shot around you. This does a great job of causing the game’s high difficulty to be a bit less of a challenge and can be quite a fun mode with your friend. The inclusion of a second player makes those crazy screen filling patterns much easier as you can now break down the sequence for two players. However, it would have been nice to see some sort of competitive mode added in this. Seeing how many more blocks and points I earn compared to my partner would have been nice.

The music in Bit. Trip Core is probably its biggest feature. Each of the three levels has their own unique song and the better you play – the greater the music. Playing poorly will cause the music to revert back to its original, basic tune; while playing well will add new tracks to the song and make it much more complex. Bit. Trip Core also keeps the black and white failing sections in it. These are parts where if you begin to miss too many blocks the screen loses its color and you’re left with a black background and white blocks to hit. At this point the music no longer plays and the only audio will come from your controller each time you hit a block. This adds another layer to the audio in the game as the Wii remote’s built in speaker is used in a great way.

The next best feature to the game is the style of graphics used to showcase it. As opposed to highly detailed areas and realistic filters that are seen in a lot of today’s video games Bit. Trip Core has a classic 8-bit look to it. Everything is made out of blocks (or “bits”) of solid and bright colors. The only complex display of images to be found in the game are the images playing in the background. Even then, upon a closer inspection, you will notice that they’ve just combined many blocks together to make a more detailed picture and to keep a retro feel to the game. The better you play, the more colors will be added to your screen. What was once a black background with a few images here and there will now be a screen flashing a rainbow of colors as new and more complex patterns of blocks are shot around.

The length of the game is also something of a double-edge sword. It only has three levels to it and thus – only three songs to play. It also has no support for online leader boards, which is quite odd considering the game is all about achieving new high scores. On the other hand, each song will last around fifteen minutes and the amount of diversity to each level’s block patterns is nice. This along with the ability to play with a friend can add a good level of replay value.

Overall Bit. Trip Core is a great successor to the Bit. Trip franchise and differs enough from the previous installment to warrant a purchase. Along with the lower price point and the choice for two player co-op, the game becomes that much more enjoyable. And though you may have to tackle a steep learning curve, once you’re accustomed to it, it becomes fun and easy. Bit. Trip Core is a great looking and sounding game and can be a fun way to kill fifteen minutes.

Overall 8/10

First Impressions: Bit. Trip Core

This is the sequel to the WiiWare game Bit. Trip Beat. It involves 8-bit graphics along with catchy rhythmic chip tune music. It is a Rhythm game on the WiiWare downloadable service and goes for 600 points.

• As with the first game, the music is great.
• It is hard as hell! Exponentially harder than Beat - and if you played Beat, you know that's a big deal.
• Once again it does a bad job of telling you how to play.
• I love how it's 2 player co-op, but the game never mentions that; I had to find out online.
• The inclusion of a "BOMB" option is nice if you find yourself at a incredibly hard part.
• Once again I like how the screen turns black and white and only your Wii remote makes noise when you're about to lose.
• Boss endings are back and they're as great as always.
• Enjoyable little animations are back.
  

So that's my general look so far at Bit. Trip Core. Expect a review soon.

Later tonight...or this week

I plan to play some more Gears of War 2 this week in preparation for the All Fronts pack coming out in about three weeks. The Conduit showed up in my mail box today. And last but not least, Bit. Trip Core is now out!

This may be a good time to throw up a video. As crappy as the idea of filming my TV monitor sounds, maybe I'll try that, who knows. If I do film something, it'll probably be The Conduit or Bit. Trip Core.

Tip for 3 Army of Two achievements

For anyone who has Army of Two or plans to play it in the future on the 360, here's a tip for getting the 3 money based achievements.

Whenever you buy something that relates to an achievement, buy them all at once and when the achievement unlocks turn your system off. This way you will have the achievement and your money back.

This works for the two achievements: Say Hello to my Little Friends and Man of Many Masks. By doing this, you can buy everything you need and then turn the machine off so that your money is intact as you work towards If I Were a Rich Man.

Gamerscore Update: 05/07/09

My weekly gamerscore update is now returning from a long hiatus. In these I will talk about the latest games I've been getting some Xbox 360 Achievement Points in. Though I haven't done one of these in a while, I still only plan to talk about the previous week (in other words: I won't be recapping everything since my last update).

The picture I'll have at the top of each of these posts will be from the game I either enjoyed the most of collected the most points from.

This week will be reletively short since I was away for most of it and have only gotten about two days worth of play time in. Expect a much longer post next time.

One thing I would like to note is that I finally broke the 40k mark!

Army of Two
I have achieved 20 of the 47 achievements in this game so far which has gotten me 500 out of the total 1250 points in the game. In no means will I even attempt getting the 100% on this game. This is partially due to the requirement of buying some DLC but mainly because this game isn't really that fun. With that said, playing through it was a pain and I put far too much time into this game for what I got back. I beat it last night (I guess technically it was this morning) and now I plan to repeat the first two minutes of mission five another twelve times so I can easily obtain $1 000 000. Once I'm done, I will have the last achievement that I am playing for and I will be done.

Fable 2
I have gotten 41 of the 66 possible achievements which translates to 850 out of 1350 points. All of these are from the main quest and side missions found in the main game. However, I recently bought Knothole Island when it went on sale this week and that is why I have returned to this game.

My first impressions of the island is that I will be done it pretty quickly. I spent about an hour to two o with it and I already have two out of three of the main missions done. I'm assuming there is more to do afterwards since this DLC pack usually retains for 800 MS points. We shall see.

I'm not sure if I will be going for all three of the possible Knothole Island achievements; I am going for the main one for sure. So there will be a definite increase of 50 points for me. I might try for the book collecting as well, haven't quite decided.

Scene It? Box Office Smash!
I only put this in yesterday to play when I had some company over and luckily I got 40 points from it. I now have 31 out of 58 of the achievements - 560 out of 1250 of the points.

That was all for this weekend. Coming soon I plan to, as always, continue on the everlasting quest that is Tales of Vesperia. I also will finally claw my way through Bioshock. And if I enjoy Knothole Island, I may pick up the See the Future pack.

Overall Gamerscore: 40 065

Some old stuff returns

Starting next week I plan to once again start up my xbox 360 achievement point updates -- titled Gamerscore Update.

I used to do this a year or so ago. They ran in weekly installsments and consisted of me talking about what 360 games I was playing and how many points I got out of them. For some games I would go in depth on how to obtain certain achievements and some easy ways to get others.

I started these off as a text only write-up. From there I moved into a video version and only ever made a few of these. I may do them again as video if I feel like it. Text is easier but video is more fun. Mabye I will do both.

I may also add in my thoughts and general opinions about non-360 games. This would cause it to be more blog like and give me a way to better put out what I'm thinking about what I am currently playing. We shall see how this turns out.