Good, system-exclusive original content can hard to find on WiiWare. As a quick refresher course, take a look at our Top 15 WiiWare Games created just last week based on the first 98 titles to hit Nintendo's download service. Yeah, we've got 15 games you should absolutely own on the system, but remove any titles that launched on other systems, are remakes of previous franchises, or simply aren't WiiWare exclusive and that list shrinks to amazingly small numbers. Numbers like three out of 15, including only Swords & Soldiers, Lostwinds, and Bit.Trip: Beat. There are of course others, including Square's My Life as a King, LIT, and Art Style: Cubello (all original games only for WiiWare) but the list isn't a huge one.

Leave it to Aksys and Gaijin Games to bring on more of the good stuff.

Confused? It's ok. Just download it and enjoy.

Just four months ago Bit.Trip: Beat released for WiiWare, and the result was pretty staggering. Retro fans flocked to the pixel-based design, and at a 600 point price people weren't afraid to take a chance and dive on into something truly obscure. Continuing on with the next game in the series, Gaijin Games has brought Bit.Trip: Core to WiiWare, and while you've got just as compelling of a scoring system, just as interesting of a style, and another unique way to play the admittedly trippy (Oh! Hence the name!) this one isn't quite as good as the first. Fans that dug Beat will want to immediately drop the points for Core – who am I kidding; you already have – but the actual gameplay is a bit simpler and less Wii-specific in design.

That isn't to say it's boring in any way. Bit.Trip: Core brings back the same music-based design and fuses it with the Wii-mote's d-pad. Using the four directions on the pad, players control a cross in the center of the screen. Holding a direction sends out a beam of light, and the tap of the 2 button will light the beam up as if firing with a laser. Any pixels (called "bits")that cross the beam during the beat will explode, so the game quickly becomes a four-direction shooter that spawns enemies to the beat of the song.

Since it's a Bit.Trip game you've got the same core scoring system and psychedelic visuals which drive the waves of enemy pixels. Taking out slew after slew of enemies brings on the next wave and brings you one step closer to the level's boss. Each stage (three in total) last about 15 minutes long with no breaks – still a complaint of mine, as the same amount of content with breaks in between would encourage quicker spurts of gaming – and includes a boss at the end. Miss too many of the bits as the game goes on and the music drops out, leaving you with a black and white playfield which you'll need to crawl back out of with some skillful, music-less prowess to continue. Core also includes a combo system for subsequent hits, as well as a bomb ability (hit with the 1 button) which takes out any on-screen bits. Save your bomb up, however, and you'll cash it in for a higher tier scoring mode such as Super or Mega, where your combo combines with an ever-increasing base number. Good stuff.

As always the music/gameplay fusion is what'll sell players on the Bit.Trip design, and it's again done very well. Much like with Beat, however, the entire game seems more about sending complex enemy patterns than actually witching up the music from a normal 4:4, quarter note beat. You'll get some seriously challenging stuff in the final level of the game, but for the most part it's the same "tap tap tap" on even notes that you found in Beat. In the end it's more about using the foreknowledge of how the song is built to anticipate waves of bits, rather than learning set patterns in the bits and then relying on them to perform huge solos and streaming choruses. If you can tap your foot to a beat, you can ace most of what Core has to offer. The music is still well composed, but it's far from deep or groundbreaking. Mark Bozon