Bit.Trip Runner will please old school gamers while at the same time creating a unique rhythm game.
You play as CommanderVideo. There is no story at all to this game, so I'll crack down to the gameplay.
The controls are simple. CommanderVideo moves on his own. In fact, he won't stop moving. You hold your Wii Remote like an NES controller. To jump you press the 2 button, to use a jump panel, you press up on the control pad, to duck you press down on the control pad. That's pretty basic.
The graphics look fine for the theme the game is trying to pull off. Bit. Trip Runner looks realistic yet old-school at the same time. However, I did find some problems. There were some points where the graphics were a bit distracting and it caused me to die.
Okay, enough about controls and graphics. Now let's really crack down to gameplay. You run through a stage trying to get to the end without getting hit. If you crash into something, you have to start from the beginning of the game. You have unlimited lives, so you don't have to worry about that. However, when you do get hit, it puts your points back to zero and you pretty much start the whole level again.
There are plenty of obstacles to avoid on the levels. The designs for the levels were very well done. The level designs were very challenging. There are also powerups, like pluses which will give you points and create the buildup to the song. There is also gold on the stages and if you collect all of the gold, you get to play a bonus game. I swear, that bonus game is very similar to an Atari game(cough cough Pitfall!)
The difficulty is hard, and sometimes frustrating, especially if you're going for full completion of the levels. There is also a sense of rhythm, since you will have to jump to a rhythm sometimes.
The songs were pretty good. However, I thought it would be cool if they got some old-school tracks and put them in. That's not really a downside.
THE VERDICT!
Bit.Trip Runner is 800 Wii Points, which is the most exspensive Bit.Trip game on the Wii Shop. However, the game is still very fun to play, and it's one of the best WiiWare games. Buy it now.
Final Score:
8.5- Great.