This week on Xbox Live Arcade, we have a reimagining of an 80’s arcade shoot-’em-up and a button-pressing rhythm game with a puzzle element attached - 1942: Joint Strike and Go! Go! Break Steady.
1942: Joint Strike (800 MS points - $10 USD) is Backbone Entertainment’s HD remake of the Capcom arcade classic. It bears the same type of shoot-and-dodge gameplay in which you are a World War II fighter pilot and acquire new weapons, such as lasers, through powerups dropped by vanquished enemies. The demo gives you the first level at four different difficulties ranging from Penguin (Easy) to Wing King (Expert). The boss you face is Bodan, a big winged plane that assails you with patterns of bullets, smoke bombs, and tracking missiles. Two-player cooperative play allows players to choose between different joint strikes like Shot Link, Chain Lightning, and Clash Blast. Xbox Live was not selectable in the demo, but co-op play is likely available via local system play and Xbox Live.
While I am a budding fan of shmups, I don’t believe I have reached the level where I could fully enjoy Joint Strike. Even though it doesn’t differentiate much from the original in terms of gameplay and the bland background visuals (e.g. the gray-tinted water) can affect one’s ability to see details in the foreground, I am sure that more experienced players will enjoy this high-def upgrade.
Go! Go! Break Steady (800 MS points - $10 USD) from newcomer Little Boy Games doesn’t have missiles but it does require rapid fire button presses. There are three modes - “All City Tournament,” Endurance, and Challenge - and in all of them, you have to push the onscreen buttons in sync with the strings of patterns spiraling into the center circle. This is a mechanic similar to what one might find in Gitaroo Man or even PaRappa the Rapper. Once you’ve passed each sequence, an arc of different colored creatures shifts to the foreground, and you are tasked with firing colors to create matches of three or more same colors to make them disappear, pretty much like Zuma. If you screw up during the sequences, you are given chances to try again but more creatures are added to the arc as you make errors and also as time progresses. When the arc turns into a complete circle, the game is over. There are twenty non-commercial tracks you can “dance” to, three of which are in the demo. There are multiplayer and co-op modes available for both local play and Live.
If that sounds interesting to you, you should definitely give the demo a try to see if it fits your tastes. The button pressing can become frustrating if you haven’t memorized the location and colors of the face buttons while the music tracks are constructed from repetitive loops and can quickly become annoying. Its visual style calls to me but I will have to play some more and determine whether I really want to spend ten bucks on it (not likely).
This post is tagged xbox 360, xbox live arcade
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