The Bit.Trip series - "Breaking Wiimotes in half since 2009"

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Cool picture, huh?

Along with games like World of Goo, You Me and the Cubes, and the recently released And Yet It Moves, The Bit.Trip series is the reason Wiiware exists. These "art house" games are not only visually intuitive, but also enjoyable as hell, and that's what's up.

The Bit.Trip series in particular is really upping the ante on downloadable game design. Its colors especially are reminiscent of Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, or an LSD trip, or maybe both at the same time! This is coupled with gameplay harder than a week-old biscuit, at least for some people. There are those who breeze through these games in a matter of an hour or two, but for most others, it's a repetitive but addicting nightmare, a la Megaman. Of the currently 4 game series, this is especially true for the first one:

Bit.Trip BEAT
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This first installment is Pong on drugs, and whatever drugs they are, they are definitely assaulting the auditory and oracular passageways. There are three stages, and to be honest, I still haven't beat the last one! And from the looks of youtube videos of the level, I haven't even made it halfway through. In my opinion, Beat has the best tunes in the series. This doesn't detract from the second installment's music, which are almost equally as good!

Bit.Trip CORE
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Bit.Trip Core's gameplay is centered (quite literally) around a small red cross that shoots lasers in one direction to collect bits. There are still only three stages, but there are a few more layers of music and visuals to unlock this time around. If you have a pretty sweet home entertainment system and you're sinking into your couch while a pulsing alien heartbeat accompanies exploding rainbow patterns...it would be a memorable experience, to say the least.

Bit.Trip VOID
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This game takes after Pacman, and is the first in the series to utilize the Nun-chuck. It features music from guest artist Nullsleep, and the stages are named after Freud's 3 layers of psyche: Id, ego, and super ego. The object is to collect black bits while avoiding white bits. As you collect the black bits, your own larger black bit grows bigger, so to deposit the ones you've collected, you press A. This produces a big bass drum sound effect, and it can be really fun depositing bits to the beat of the music; it's almost like composing along with the game. Bit.Trip Void is probably the weakest game in terms of difficulty. This is quickly remedied in the latest Bit Trip installment,

Bit.Trip RUNNER
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One can quickly see that the Bit Trip series is a chronicling of the evolution of video games, and the different spectrums and genres we've played them from. Game number four arrives at the side-scrolling phase, while still keeping true to its rhythm-based design. I have yet to beat the first level boss, but admittedly, I've probably only put about 4 hours into this game so far. This game is a lot bigger than any of the previous installments, allowing its Wii point cost to 800 points.

Bit.Trip FATE
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I don't know much about this game, besides that it's supposed to be a