Bit Generations – Dotstream
So I wrote the whole overview to Bit Generations a couple of weeks ago and am only now managing to get round to writing up my thoughts on Dotstream (who knows when the next ones will come along…).
Premise
Dotstream is Bit Generations take on racing. Simple in both gameplay and graphics (perhaps paired down is a better phrase). You control a coloured square which, from the word go, is always moving right leaving a glowing line of colour in your wake. All you can do is; steer up or down, turbo or collide with stuff. You have to do a number of laps (usually 2) and come first to win.
Steering
Steering is pretty straight forward until you try to cross one of the AIs wakes. See you cannot exist on their wake (nor they on yours) and so are bumped up or down further so as to avoid it, this slows you down a little. Moving up or down in general slows you down so you have to try to keep your movements to a minimum.
Turbos/Lives
When you start each race you have 3 lives which also act as turbos. Use a turbo and lose a life. Hit a solid collision and lose a life so you have to be careful with your use of turbos. You can recharge your lives/turbos by entering the pits just before the start/finish line. This slows you down loads but does reward you with 9 new lives/turbos! This tactic can make some of the earlier races a lot easier as you can then turbo through a lot of the levels.
Hazards
There are a few hazards in the game, solid collisions will take off one life when hit, traction areas will slow you down, boost pads will give you a temporary boost.
Pickups
There are a few pickups too one of which allows you to switch the collisions off temporarily (this is great when you have loads of boost as you can blast through everything).
Conclusion
Dotstream is one of my favourite Bit Generation games, it looks great (in a minimalistic Tron kind of way). It is probably one of the easiest to ‘get’ when you start playing and the whole championship structure keeps you interested.
Hopefully my next write up will be sooner rather than later!
-Nic
Tags: bit generations, gba, nintendo