Elite Beat Agents track-list
Bowie, Madonna, more.
Elite Beat Agents - the Western take on brilliant Japanese DS rhythm-action import Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan - is due out on 6th November in the US and finally we have the track-listing.
It is, according to designer Keiichi Yano, who spoke to Wired, based on the concept of "roaring songs you would want to hear if you went to a college frat party", offering a mixture of "oldies but goodies, great new songs, and a wide array of genres". There are 19 songs at this point, although they're not revealing the final song.
- Walkie Talkie Man - Steriogram
- ABC - Jackson Five
- Sk8er Boi - Avril Lavigne
- I Was Born to Love You - Queen
- Rock This Town - Stray Cats
- Highway Star - Deep Purple
- Y.M.C.A. - Village People
- September - Earth, Wind and Fire
- Canned Heat - Jamiroquai
- Material Girl - Madonna
- La La - Ashlee Simpson
- You're the Inspiration - Chicago
- Survivor - Destiny's Child
- Without a Fight - Hoobastank
- Believe - Cher
- Let's Dance - David Bowie
- Jumpin Jack Flash - Rolling Stones
- Makes No Difference - Sum 41
- The Anthem - Good Charlotte
Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents, in case you haven't been keeping up, see little icons appear on screen with shrinking rings around them, where the idea is to tap the icons with the stylus as the rings shrink to fit the outline, all in time to the music. It's very fast-paced, with icons dotted around the screen and variations that have you dragging the stylus back and forward along short arching pathways to match the beat, along with some hilariously quirky background imagery. It's an incredibly addictive and well balanced challenge, and probably the best new rhythm-action game since Gitaroo Man, iNiS' last effort. Even the multiplayer mode is rather excellent.
Anyway, for all Yano-san's explanations, there's likely to be a bit of grumbling about the absence of Japanese music; Ouendan was comprised entirely of really good facsimiles of J-Rock tracks, with the occasional stirring J-Pop melody to even things out, and it really did the trick. Still, that's all the more reason to dig the original out again - or buy it anew, if you haven't already, since it's fairly cheap and perfectly playable in Japanese.