Monday, February 12, 2007

New Rainbow Islands: Hurdy Gurdy Daibouken!

A tome flips open and the pages magically flap forward until the visages of Bub and Bob appear. They're dancing and clowning to the sweet melody played by a guitar player. Amidst their musical reverie, highly discordant sounds stream from somewhere in the distance. Looking over, Bub and Bob spy a concert in progress that's packed with fans. They look back at the guitarist from earlier and watch as he transforms into a robot. Across the land masses of Rainbow Islands, similar transformations are taking place as the discordant music filters through the world.
The cacophony and din of bad sounds are being pushed by a nefarious record label that's trying to take over the world with extremely bad music. To combat such evil, Bub and Bob don flavorful costumes and throw rainbows. Makes perfect sense if you meditate on it for about an hour.

The original Rainbow Islands was a study in platform gaming simplicity where Bubby and Bobby shot rainbows to defeat creatures and move upwards. New Rainbow Islands is modeled on the same premise but new to the action is the music element of the game, a bubble shot, and a pseudo 3D stage design where foreground, midground, and background may be traveled between by hopping on a moving platform that shuttles between the depths. Due to the concept of three distinct "levels" in every stage, enemies that appear in the midground can't be attacked if you're standing in the foreground although they might appear very close. «more»

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