Videogame

Mention "videogame music" and most folks still think of Atari 2600's blips and bloops, or SuperMario's coin ka-chings, rather than the note-perfect replications of Rock Band and Guitar Hero. So it's about bleeping time someone made a retro rhythm game. Combining visual and sonic cues from the early '80s with now-gen gameplay, Bit.Trip Beat lets you create rave-friendly chiptune tracks by using the motion sensitive Wii-mote to control a Pong-esque paddle that blocks the fly-by pixels, each repping an electronic note or beat. But as brewed by small game house Gaijin for Nintendo's indie download service WiiWare, Bit.Trip Beat is not just about throwback aesthetics. The three included levels, and especially the boss battles, are also as infuriatingly challenging as those classic arcade games.