PAX 2008: Big Bang Mini Hands-On

It's hard to find someone who doesn't like watching colorful bursts of light against a night sky. Unlike recent arcade games that have received gratuitous visual upgrades, Big Bang Mini is meant to have the explosions and bright colors because it's all about the fireworks. This stylized Nintendo DS game was developed by Arkedo Studio, and we had a chance to play it at the Penny Arcade Expo 2008 booth of its publisher, SouthPeak Interactive. We found it to be much more than just pretty colors.

Big Bang Mini is a shoot-'em-up in which you use the bottom screen to control a small icon that acts like your launching point for fireworks. In the top screen you have different objects to shoot at, depending on which area you're in. Using the stylus, you draw lines on the touch screen in the direction that you want your fireworks to go. There can be obstacles in the way on the top screen, so it takes a bit of management to fire accurately and keep track of what's going on. If you send off too many fireworks, the sparks will come back down and you'll have to dodge them, so it's not always wise to shoot as quickly as you can. Targets will explode and drop stars for you collect by moving your icon underneath to catch them. There is a meter on the left side of the screen to indicate when you'll move on to the next level.

There are 10 different areas, each with its own theme and unique features, as well 10 levels to play through. They get progressively harder, but even the early levels can be tricky. You start off in Hong Kong, in which you're lighting fireworks against the city's skyline, shooting at balloons and, at one point, pigs attached to the balloons. We jumped to one of the later levels in which you're collecting air bubbles to stay alive as well as managing everything else that is happening onscreen.

There will be a single-card multiplayer option and a Challenge mode in which you can have your scores displayed prominently on the online leaderboards. Relax mode lets you put on your own fireworks show at your leisure without worrying about stars, bubbles, and dodging sparks. Big Bang Mini is shaping up to be a frantic but addictive game on the DS that will ship in January 2009.