What can be considered a puzzle game, Red Bull BC One is a break dancing sim that links music with drawing shapes.
If you are confused with the sentence above, you have every right to be. What started as an energy drink and the main ingredient to any “bomb” related alcoholic beverage, Red Bull has made its way into video gaming. Apparently, the best way to make a game about an energy drink is to make poor-man’s version of DDR using a stylus to draw lines. At least 7-Up’s Cool Spot was somewhat of a decent platformer.
The game is so simple, a child can do it. In fact, children will probably enjoy this game more than older gamers as it acts as an electronic connect the dot activity book. On the other hand, it is debatable whether or not to give a child Red Bull in the first place. Nonetheless, the player must connect similar shapes by drawing lines with the stylus on the bottom screen. The key is not to overlap or use the same shape twice. The challenge revolves around connecting all the shapes in a limited amount of time. Once a shape has been fully connected, a break dancer will perform a dance move on the top screen.
Herein lays the first problem with the game. Because all the action and gameplay takes place on the bottom screen, the player must keep all attention to the bottom half of the DS hardware, leaving the top screen neglected. If the top screen were watched, the player would take note of the game’s visual style. Mixing 1993’s Virtua Fighter with Feel the Magic, the game has this strange silhouette-3D style. It’s not necessarily good or bad, it is just a little…different.
Surprisingly, this title does not suffer from an overwhelming amount of advertisements. In fact, they are kept to a minimum. But as a whole, the game lacks any kind of direct correlation. Why am I connecting dots to the sound of break dancing beats? What does this have to do with Red Bull? The music is composed of a respectable soundtrack for the DS, but drawing lines to move break dancers really doesn’t make that much sense. Perhaps I am looking too much into this, but I can’t shake the feeling that every single aspect of the game play was just tacked on.
I can’t help but ask the question, was this game created as a marketing vehicle to sell more Red Bull? Or does Red Bull genuinely want to enter into gaming? This game does not do either very well. Perhaps if you’re a mega fan of this drink, or maybe if you are a pro break dancer will you enjoy this title. If not, keep Red Bull where it belongs: right next to a bottle of Jagermeister or vodka.