Bit Trip Ruinner

[G.Silver]

Bit Trip Runner makes me feel old, and not in that "oh they don't make 'em like this anymore" way.

It catches me totally off-guard, luring me into a pleasant, rhythmic trance. Oh, the first stages were easy! They were so easy, I wondered if they'd ever get hard. And then they got hard, or at least intense on a reflex level. And that's where it starts to get me. I could blame bad visual design, which seems wrong in a game as nice-looking as this, because there are things moving in the background about the same size and color as the burning fireballs that sporadically come in from the right side of the screen, but I'm never fooled into jumping over obstacles that aren't there, instead I just lazily careen into fireballs that I thought weren't actually there.

Getting paranoid, I start jumping over the harmless black rocks that I've been ignoring up until now. How long were they there? A new obstacle is introduced, and I have been dodging it without even noticing it. When I'm finally killed by one, I see suddenly that they're everywhere. I am slain mercilessly by swinging lanterns that, despite repeated lessons indicating otherwise, I am sure cannot hurt me. A red square punches me in the balls, over and over again. When I get to a boss battle on a conveyor belt, the erratic movements of a cloud in the background that I am only subconsciously aware of causes me to think that my character is slipping backwards while I focused on an barrage of incoming fireballs. The lizard-brain kicks on, and I mash my thumb painfully into the D-pad, even though I know that the player has no control over horizontal movement. I'm back at the start of the level, and my thumb hurts.

The next world introduces a new mechanic: pressing forward causes a barrier to appear, and I can deflect incoming objects. The incoming objects are bright yellow squares that I keep forgetting to deflect, avoid, or simply not intentionally jump into because goddamn, they look like power ups.

So, who wants to try it on drugs?

[j-man]

If it's out in Europe, I'll shout that one for you.