| abstract
| - Alright, let's put this as straight as possible: you are playing Atari 2600 games while high on acid. While listening to NES music. Nothing could be more awesome. BIT.TRIP is a series of rhythm games, originally for Wii Ware, developed by Gaijin Games. The specific games are:
* BIT.TRIP BEAT, is like a game of single-player Pong where you must defend the left side of the screen from an onslaught of bouncing squares (called "beats") using only a tiny paddle. Once you start to get the hang of things, the beats start moving faster, circling around in unpredictable patterns, and using every part of the game experience to issue a challenge of both real and fake difficulty, setting the tone for the series. Also available on Steam and IOS Games.
* BIT.TRIP CORE, was released four months after the first. It changes the control scheme around a little bit, ditching the Pong paddle and replacing it with a red D-pad in the center of the screen that shoots lasers at the passing beats.
* BIT.TRIP VOID, puts you in control of a black hole which can move around to suck up black beats and dodge white beats. It was released November 2009, making it the third BIT.TRIP game to be announced and released within the course of a year, and the mid point of the six game series as a whole.
* BIT.TRIP RUNNER, breaks many established attributes of the series, and begins Gaijin's promise to turn down the Mind Screw factor and begin to reveal the truth behind the plot. Released in June 2010, it is a platformer among the lines of Vib Ribbon and Canabalt thrown in. The second game available on Steam. Has a sequel in development.
* BIT.TRIP FATE was released on October 25, 2010. It is a literal Rail Shooter, with the Five-Man Band from the last game serving as powerups. It represented a merging of the literal and figurative aspects of the series, and is notably darker in theme than the others.
* The sixth and final game, BIT.TRIP FLUX, was released February 28, 2011. In essence it is a horizontal reversal of the first game, but with elements taken from each of the other games in the series. A pair of Compilation Rereleases, titled BIT.TRIP SAGA and BIT.TRIP COMPLETE, are available for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii respectively. The 3DS version features 3D, control changes to accomodate the lack of a Wiimote and of course, portability, while the Wii version features 3 difficulty levels, a soundtrack CD , online leaderboards, and other extras for fans who have followed the series the whole way through. The initial hype for these games came from an online Viral Marketing campaign, encouraging users to try and decode hidden messages from a mysterious "CommanderVideo" entity. CommanderVideo is portrayed in the game's story cutscenes as a box/astronaut/television-like creature, and the story follows his adventures through space as he matures, assembles a Five-Man Band, and beats up a gear robot to... uh... well, nobody's really too sure. The series does have a plot, but it's entirely based on All There in the Manual (which COMPLETE includes as in-game liner notes). It's mostly symbolic instead of literal in terms of storytelling, and it was only once the series was completed that people could reflect on the series as a whole for its meaning. The final game is dedicated to Carl Sagan as well, and in hindsight the series incorporates a lot of his philosophy. The games are critically acclaimed for their nostalgic retro quality, brutal but addictive difficulty, and kickass soundtracks that build themselves as the levels progress.
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