It's been a long time since I've played a game as simultaneously fun and frustrating as Elite Beat Agents. Gamers prone to throwing temper tantrums upon losing -- by, say, violently throwing their controllers to the floor -- would be well-advised to stay away from this game; it could lead to the destruction of a perfectly good DS. Gamers capable of keeping their tempers in check, however, will almost certainly get a kick out of this title: Elite Beat Agents is a quirky, appealing, and weirdly addicting rhythm game, one that makes innovative use of the DS's touch screen (the gameplay consists mainly of tapping a series of numbers in tune with the music). The game's only drawback is that after playing it for a while, it's very difficult to get it out of your head -- hours after you've put it down, you'll still be seeing its little flashing circles every time you close your eyes.





Here's the premise: the Elite Beat Agents are a squad of hip, dark-suited dancers/singers who go around getting people out of jams by inexplicably dancing like maniacs to various songs. Example: Leo (a young, excitable Leonardo da Vinci) has just met Mona Lisa, but she refuses to date him or pose for a painting. Alerted to poor Leo's predicament by his desperate call for help, the Elite Beat Agents show up, dance, and save the day: the better they do, the better things turn out for Leo. These scenarios are manic and extraordinarily goofy: in one, a leadfoot taxi driver attempts to drive a pregnant woman to a hospital without getting pulled over; in another, a down-on-his-luck baseball star is forced to use his baseball-skills to save a bunch of kids from a fire-breathing lava-monster at an amusement park; and in yet another, a pair of beautiful socialites are stranded on a desert island and have to use their feminine charms to get the local wildlife to help them out (probably my favorite scenario, though, is the aforementioned one with Leonardo da Vinci -- the whole thing is just ridiculous).

The gameplay is pretty simplistic, and the first few stages are pretty easy, but the game grows progressively more difficult and demanding, eventually requiring lightning-quick reflexes and a very good memory (the later stages are particularly tough -- more than two or three errors, and you've lost). I got through most of the stages in only a couple days of occasional play, but some of them took a maddening fifteen tries or more -- and that was on the medium difficulty level. I was pulling my hair out.

The song selection is pretty good. Ant was put off by the included Ashlee Simpson song, "La La", to the point where he declined to buy it (instead, he bought the Japanese game that this one was based on, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan) but I didn't find it too offensive; it fits the stage well, and anyway these songs are all covers, so really, you never actually have to hear her sing (small comfort, perhaps, but hey). I liked most of the rest of the songs. Madonna's "Material Girl" is a little annoying, but the damn tune is undeniably catchy. Older songs, by Chicago and Queen and the Village People, are included alongside newer stuff by Sum 41, Good Charlotte, and Hoobastank, to name but a few. Like I said, it's a good selection. (The audio quality is, unfortunately, not all that great, due to the DS's dinky little speakers. To get the most out of the game, I'd advise wearing headphones; they seem to give the music a little more of a bassy oomph).





Perhaps realizing that the gameplay is, as I said, pretty simplistic (all you're ever really doing is tapping circles in a sequence), the developers included a number of special features to give the game a little more replay value: four levels of difficulty, the ability to play against or cooperate with a friend (even if they don't have a copy, you can still play a limited multiplayer version of the game via the DS's download-play thing) and several unlockable stages. You can even save your past performances and compete directly against them.

Elite Beat Agents is one of those rare innovative gems that really offers something new: it's fun, challenging, and has a decidedly broad appeal. Nintendo and developer iNiS are to be commended for taking a chance on (and putting a decent marketing effort into) such an unusual, offbeat game. I think it'll really pay off for 'em.

---

back to trenchman.com