Rhythm games, as far as big budget titles go, are kind of on the decline. Luckily our focus at Armless Octopus isn’t on big budget titles, so I get to keep this review positive. Shield the Beat takes the essence of a rhythm game, adds new twists and maps the controls to the analog sticks for ultra accessibility. But don’t be fooled by this quick description, some of those new twists add a lot of depth – and challenge – to this indie game.
Here’s the bottom line: your spaceship is under fire from four trailing ships. Each fires shots based on the beat of the song playing in the background. The trick is, you have to block each shot using your ship’s shield, controlled by your analog stick(s). On the more difficult skill levels (there’s easy, medium and hard), you have the option of turning on “Two colors,” allowing the enemy’s projectiles to be two different colors. Each analog stick only controls one color shield though, so dexterity is a requirement here. Also, The higher the difficulty, the more shots the enemy ships fire, increasing how fast you need to be moving your thumbs.
The most important part of this control scheme is the fact that it’s rewarding. You know every time you hit a beat and, more importantly, every time you miss one. It won’t be long before you’ll be wanting to hit the notes for more reasons than just clearing the levels, it’s gratifying just to do well. Unfortunately, this is a double-edged sword. The mechanic seems so easy that it’s easy to beat yourself up when you’re under-performing. This makes it all the more gratifying when racking up a large combo for stringing together good play.
On top of the pleasing gameplay, there are also multiple ships at your disposal, which adds a nice bit of depth. To start, only one is unlocked, equipped with unlimited armor, allowing you to take on the plentiful amounts of stray missiles that you will inevitably miss your first go around. Down the road, after completing all the songs to a certain level on set difficulties, you can unlock new ships that have reduced armor. As a reward, these ships have higher multiplier bonuses, giving you a nice incentive to practice the songs and be able to rack up higher scores.
When it comes right down to it, for a game based on music, it doesn’t really matter how innovative the mechanics are if the songs aren’t up to snuff. Luckily for Shield the Beat, the developers snagged some extremely talented cover artists (including Franz Ferdinand) as well as licensed some quality songs, even if I’ve never heard of most of them. No, you won’t be hearing any mainstream tunes here, but that’s not what the game is about. The beats are good and the songs behind them high quality. You just have to make sure that your thumbs can keep up.
Rating: 
Shield the Beat was provided for review by Detour, and is available for 400 MS points ($5). You can download a free demo on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
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