Fireworks and firecrackers. They are pretty much a bane to anyone who wants a good night sleep. Originally a Chinese invention and one that was most commonly used to celebrate Chinese New Year in Malaysia, you can find almost every race playing with these noise makers during their own festivals.
It’s quite easy to read about Malay kids loosing bodily appendages playing with homebrewed “Meriam Buluh” during Raya or encountering Indians playing with firecrackers celebrating Deepavali.
What’s a safer way around fireworks? My tongue in cheek reply would be through a Nintendo DS. That’s right, the console is a good way to experience the beauty of fireworks and also shoot down enemies in a shmup called Big Bang Mini!
Will it Work?
Shmup? Fireworks? One would normally associate top-down shmups with piloting a vehicle (usually a plane) through a level vertically and shooting out lines of lasers or missiles or a combination of both. However Big Bang Mini defines conventions, first by having you flick fireworks at targets and secondly you can’t move your “ship”, a triangle while shooting fireworks.
This creates an interestingly complex gameplay out from a simple gameplay (flicking fireworks). Hitting targets would cause them to drop stars. The more stars you collect, the closer you get to completing the level. However, since you can’t move your ship and shoot at the same time, you can only shoot several targets before frantically moving your ship to collect the dropped stars.
One Hit Kill
Missing a target will cause debris to fall and this will also cause you to be more careful when flicking fireworks since one hit from the debris and it’s game over…so PAY ATTENTION!
The Bottom Line
Bing Bang Mini is quite an experience as far as shmups go. No bullet porn here, but pretty pretty fireworks. Do check it out. Click here for purchase information.
