Battle Beat [Xbox 360 Indie]

Posted January 12, 2010 by Benjamin Blank.

Don’t get me wrong here, I enjoy Rock Band more than any man probably should. Samba De Amigo? I’ve shaken those maracas well into the morning on a few occasions. In fact I’ve got no problem with music videogames and their current trend of DLC, plastic instruments and everything that comes in tow with that.

What I do have a problem with is how the current videogame landscape can’t seem to see past any of that. Nowadays music games exist in one light, and one light only. Sure there’s good reason for this, Guitar Hero and Rock Band bring in the big bucks, but is that a good reason to avoid innovation? Rez, for example, is as much a music video game as there has ever been, and as far as I’m concerned, is maybe in the top three games I’ve ever played – if not, then definitely in the top five. Where on earth is Rez 2 though, or any sequel for that matter?

It seems that unless you’re playing a plastic instrument you might as well give up on being a music game. However, not everyone has given up. Battle Beat is Stegersaurus Games’ attempt at giving the genre some innovation by mixing together rhythm control and tower defence. It’s a very interesting idea that has a lot of potential to be a great game, oh yeah, and it’s an indie title to boot.

The premise is simple: you’re given four rows of defence, beat along to the music and they’ll attack. Depending on which button is pressed, that row will attack. The game can be used with a controller, however it can also be used with most, if not all plastic instruments – we tested Rock Band Drums, Ion and first edition, Guitar Hero 2 guitar and Rock Band first edition guitar – that can be plugged into the 360.

There are a multitude of defence lines that are unlocked as you progress through the main campaign. From the standard lazer grunts, grenade soldiers, psychics that push enemies back and napalm soldiers, to name but a few. There’s certainly an interesting mix of defence available. It ultimately adds some strategy and attack plan element to the proceedings, as some enemies can only be hurt by certain defences, for example.

Deciding how to organise your army plays strongly into how well you’ll do in the battles. However, aside from different attack strengths against certain enemies and in general, each line of defence also has a timer. Once you use them, they’ll have to reload, and only the lazer grunts have the ability to fire constantly and uninterrupted.

This builds up the meat of the title and on paper sounds like a decent arcade romp, however, things soon begin to fall apart once battles begin. Little orbs of light scroll across the bottom of the screen and only when they reach the centre can you tap along. The problem lays here, as there is some noticeable delay when using anything but a standard controller. When using our drum controller, the game became extremely unresponsive, as was playing it with a guitar controller. The standard Xbox controller fared much better, although that’s only half of the problem.

The orbs that scroll across the bottom of the screen follow a standard rock beat, and they will do that on every single level. There’s no opportunity for drum solos that throw the entire army into a attack frenzy. No guitar soloing allowed, simply tap, tap, tap, tap, and that’s all there is to it. While it’s still far more fun to use an instrument, since they respond horribly it’s not worth it, and when using a controller the game becomes unbelievably boring.

As a result, the main aspect of Battle Beat is inherently flawed. There are a few mini games thrown in for good measure but they fall into the problems the main game faces and become entirely forgettable for it.

The presentation of the game is also quite questionable. While it looks nice, as the characters are quite crisp, everything looks like a futuristic version of Salad Fingers. Which can be put down to personal choice but it just feels creepy and lifeless. Add to the fact there’s an odd German sergeant who hints at homosexuality and everything feels decisively uneasy.

It’s a dying shame that Battle Beat just doesn’t work, as the concept here is one that should be praised, but when the core mechanics don’t hold up, the idea you’re left with is an unplayable mess. Playing with instruments leaves you with a poor and frustrating experience, while the standard controller will just bore you, long before you’ve gotten through a small portion of the title. You’re better off just sticking with Rock Band for now.

Tagged as Battle Beat, Community, Indie, Stegersaurus Games