Breakin' Battle
TJ: This is our first game review. The game is Breakin' Battle, and it's a competitive 2 player breakdancing game! Yes, really... I can't help but imagine that as a narrow genre with a rather small audience, but maybe that's just me.
Prepare for excitement...
Tiffany: The most exciting part of the game occurs in the first 30 seconds when you get to choose whether you want to be the homeboy of color, Fred, or the Icy Hot Stuntaz' wannabe Tommy. The idle dance motion of both of the guys when not performing any other dance move is a kind of neanderthal ape-dance, where they look like they're trying to scratch their thighs.
The Phat thrill of victory
TJ: Speaking of the models, they're not polygons, but bitmaps. This being the case, they look reasonably good, if a little too bendy, causing them to sometimes resemble Plastic-Man during parts of their moves, but it works well enough. The sound, however, is pretty repetitive. Sure, it's breakdancing music, so I wasn't expecting a concerto, but still... Then again, I have some of the wav files playing in the background as we write this, and the music amusing, is kind of catchy, in a strange way. The dialogue is consisting of hard-core lines like "That was tight...", "Oh snap!", and my personal favorite, "Off the Heezy!". Now I don't know what a "heezy" is, but man, when my breakdancing avatar Tommy pulled off a particularly difficult and bendy Windmill, it was definitely "Off" it.
Tiffany: As far as gameplay goes, you use different key combinations consisting of the arrow keys and the spacebar. Not too complicated, but you might want to glance over the key combinations on the help screen.
Break dance move or rogue bannana peel, you decide.
TJ: The help screen lists the different moves, as well as the meaning of the other things on the screen. For example, the spinning record on the turntable above your character fills in with green as you gain "Crowd Support" from your imaginary crowd. This seems to have no bearing on the game, but perhaps it might inspire you to dance even better. A stamina meter lets you know how many moves you can still dance before your guy whines "I just can't dance anymore" Also, the instructions screen helpfully labels your dancing guy as a "Crazy Dope Homeboy Bustin' His Move" in case you were unsure. The actual rounds consist of you pulling off dance moves and combos for points until your time runs out, and then your opponent does the same. At the end of things, whoever has the most points is declared the winner by the goofy announcer.
Sometimes you just shouldn't ask...
Tiffany: From all of this you may get the impression that the game is not worth trying, but on the contrary, in my opinion at least, the game is good for a laugh and a bit of competitive tomfoolery. Plus, since you're hotseating it, you have an opportunity for a little bit of cheating in the way of, say, putting ice down your husband's shirt, not that I'd know about that.
TJ: That sounds strangely familiar for some reason. Anyway, it's not completely simplistic. You are supposed to do the moves in time to the beat or you fall down and someone declares "That was weak...", and we did find it kind of difficult to do. Then we cranked up the difficulty from Easy to Hard, and found that it was easier to avoid falling down than ever. Not only that, but if you just started button mashing, you could rack up incredible point totals from "Crazy Dope" combos of one "Tight" move after another. This, of course, took away some of the (admittedly little) replayability from the game, but as Tiffany mentioned, it was still pretty fun to play with someone else, easy to laugh at, and a good diversion for a half hour or so. Maybe we're just easily amused...
Look Ma, one hand!
Ups:
TJ: Fun to play with a friend for a little while. Original idea. Easy to learn..
Tiffany: The game is kind of like late-night television: With the right person at the right time, it's pretty funny.
Downs:
TJ: After a little while it gets old pretty fast. Little replayability, unless you really like breakdancing... And button mashing...
Tiffany: What he said...
Rating:
TJ: 3.5 out of 10
Tiffany: 3 out of 10
Requirements: 450 MHz CPU, 256 MB RAM, 200 MB Hard Drive Space, 16 MB videocard, DirectX 8.1
Links:
Homepage:
http://www.spartasoft.msu.edu/breakinbattle/
Download:
http://www.spartasoft.msu.edu/breakinbattle/mediagallery/index.html
http://www.fileplanet.com/files/110000/117778.shtml