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>> Double-0 disco

by ERIK LEIJON

A dancing game starring three well-groomed men in suits performing disco tunes might sound like GLAAD’s take on Guitar Hero, but Elite Beat Agents (DS/Nintendo, iNiS) is a well-designed touch-screen game for the Nintendo DS. It features a unique anime style that appears throughout each level, and distracts you from the fact that you’re playing along to a bad cover version of “Y.M.C.A.”

The Elite Beat Agents are a trio of suave Jersey Boy rejects who use their mic skills to help people solve their everyday problems. One distressed gent is an oil baron digging for a new well, another level is a casino invaded by bandits, and the best features a couple of airhead heiresses using their slutiness to escape a deserted island.
 

On the top screen, the storylines progress, and on the bottom screen, there are a series of circles to follow. Each circle corresponds to the beat in the song and needs to be tapped with the stylus pen at the right time. Some circles have to be pushed twice, and some leave a trail you need to follow with the pen. The combinations get insanely complex on the higher difficulties, and, oddly enough, your own hand might get in the way of viewing the screen.
 

The music is horrible (and all done by lousy cover bands), but it’s all part of the game’s campy premise. The Elite Beat Agents have the potential to be Nintendo’s PaRappa—an ultra-stylish yet disarmingly cute music franchise. Advice: next time, get Masaya Matsuura to create an original soundtrack.
 

ISLAND FEVER
 

On the flip side, Yoshi’s Island DS (DS/Nintendo, Artoon) seemed like a shoo-in for hallowed status in the DS genus. It’s the sequel to one of the most inventive games ever. The unique graphical style is back (including the hand-drawn look that likely served as inspiration for cel-shading), and frankly, Yoshi kicks ass. Developer Artoon is not EAD or HAL, though, and it shows in this imperfect, yet still respectable platformer. The differences are subtle (excluding the half-assed implementation of new characters), but there are some level design issues Tezuka et al. would not have settled for…
 

Level 3-7: Bats everywhere, including as soon as Yoshi drops in the cave, but the dual screen cuts at a certain place where you can’t see them coming. Move off the screen for a split-second and they reappear. Enjoy spending the whole level avoiding bats you can’t see.

Level 4-1:

After the third ring, the screen moves up while a bunch of blocks fall. Yoshi needs to climb them to get out, but if you miss the right block, you’ll either get crushed or get caught by the screen of death. I might be wrong, but this section cannot be beaten without memorizing the block pattern. Reflexes alone will not help since you’ll need to know where the blocks will land before they even show up on the screen; otherwise you’ll get stuck.
 

Level 5-1 (or any moving-screen level): If the baby character comes loose, good luck getting it back. The baby doesn’t really follow you back, so you’re forced to hug the left part of the screen that’s slowly disappearing in order to save him. It’s often lose-lose.

Also in this level, after the first ring (the screen stops moving), a series of big chomps fall from the sky like in the original, but at an insane speed. The challenge is nice, but the screen doesn’t follow Yoshi’s movements, and frequently I can’t see what’s coming, no matter how quickly I move.
 

Thankfully, even a novice will have over 100 lives by the end of world 2.