BIT TRIP RUNNER

Bit Trip Runner is a 2D platformer game that is the fourth of six entries in the Bit. Trip series. It was part of the Steam Summer sale a couple weeks ago for like $1.50, so I decided to pick it up and try it out. In the game, you play as Commander Video (awesome name btw!), and play through three different worlds: "Impetus", "Tenacity", and "Triumph". Each world has 11 levels and a boss battle, with each level getting progressively harder to play.

In the game, Commander Video runs automatically from left to right, and to finish the level the player must press certain buttons to make C.V. jump, slide, kick, and shield against obstacles and enemies. If Commander gets hit by any object at all, he is immediately warped back all the way to the beginning of the level to start running again.

As you play through the levels, you learn different moves, and the sequences get progressively tougher. There are three difficulty levels to the game: Easy, Normal, and Perfect. In easy, you simply have to make it all the way to the end of the level by any way you choose. Normal places little gold icons to collect, which gives you more points, and Perfect is the same as normal, although it requires you to collect every gold piece. If you miss a gold piece, it's back to the beginning for ya!

In the levels, there are little icons that kinda look like plus signs in a bubble, which act as a score multiplier that makes your run go from "Hyper" to "Mega", "Super", "Ultra", and finally "Extra". As you get the little plus signs, the background music gets more intense, with increased variations of the different sound effects. Also, Commander Video gains an increasingly intense speed trail as you gain plus signs.

The game is best played with a controller, because there are a lot of actions to do as the levels progress, and you often have to do multiple actions in a very short period of time. I used my wired 360 controller to play, and it worked beautifully. As the game progresses, you learn new moves, and the game uses a picture of a controller to tell you how to do them, which makes a controller even more useful.

The game looks awesome. It's retro-style presentation is fun to look at, it's sound effects and music are some of the coolest I've heard in a game, and the simplistic gameplay is enhanced by the simplistic visuals. I thought the 3D pixelated look of the game was fantastic. It feels and plays like a retro game, but at the same time it still retains a modern feel with it's impressive 3D graphics and unique style.

Overall, the game is fantastic. But, at the same time, it is one of the most patience-destroying games I have ever played! Have you ever played a guitar hero game, or one like it, and tried to get a perfect score? Imagine that, but if you make a mistake, you have to start all the way at the beginning! I mean, the levels aren't nearly as long as a guitar hero song, but the point stands. In some of the later stages, expect to get quite frustrated. But, this is one of the reasons why I like the game as well, it's actually CHALLENGING. The controls are very tight, and the hit detection is almost perfect, which means that if you hit anything, it's because YOU made Commander Video hit it, not the game.

Here is a quick video of me trying to play through a couple levels in the game. The first one is the third to last level of the game, and it is super-hard, so I have to excuse some of the language I ended up using because of it right now haha.

The game is on Steam for $9.99 as of the time of this blog writing, so go pick it up, and have some frustrating fun!

CHUCK APPROVES!