Big Bang Mini Review

These days it is pretty hard to innovate. Sometimes when I play video games it feels like everything has been tried, done and experimented with. Big Bang Mini is not a “Big Bang” of video game imagination, but it is a fun little shooter that comes at a slow period of the season. It adds to the growing list of strong third party offerings on the Nintendo DS.

What Big Bang Mini is at its heart is a 2D shooter. I find it difficult to draw comparisons to other shooters since your little ship (it’s actually more of a triangle or ball, depending on the level) doesn’t ever move anywhere except around the bottom screen as the enemies float around on the top screen firing down on you. It somewhat reminds me of playing a mix between Asteroids and Space Invaders with spiffy graphics and touch screen controls

To fire at the enemy you will have to stroke up on the touch-screen. Your ship is controlled moving it around on the bottom screen with the stylus. You obviously will want to avoid enemy fire while aiming your stroke as precisely as possible at the enemies on the top screen. If your fireworks miss the target, it explodes and sends back little pieces of debris at your ship. When you defeat an enemy a star will fall from the sky. Collecting stars will fill up a bar on the side of the screen. Once this bar is full the level will end.

Your little ship though is not the same in each of the nine different levels in Big Bang Mini and it comes packed with different abilities. For instance, you obtain a vortex that sucks in enemy fire by drawing a twirl, a shield by drawing a line and so on. Neither are the locations, the enemies or the different types of projectiles that get thrown around the screen.

Overall I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by this Nintendo DS offering from SouthPeak. I came into it the first few levels skeptical, wondering how different the later levels would be and was glad to see a good amount of variety in enemies, bosses and background design. It doesn’t hurt that the game is visually stimulating as well. At only $20 Big Bang Mini is a big bang for your buck.