The heyday of 2D platformers has long since passed, but every so often, you'll see a love letter to that bygone era pop up as a moderately priced digital download. One of the latest in line is Fret Nice, which is due out for release next month on Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network.
After today’s leak, Microsoft just confirmed via Xbox Live Director of Programming Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb that a bunch of new games are going to be compatible starting today with Xbox One’s backward compatibility feature.
Fret Nice might make your arm fall off. The game began its life as a college project, and like a lot of ideas borne from unrestrained youth, it's centered around a crazy concept: it's meant to be controlled with a plastic guitar peripheral. You move right or left by holding down different frets. You kill nebulous enemies by furiously strumming the flipper. And you jump, well... you jump by jerking the guitar upwards and activating its tilt-sensor. Since this is a platformer – one where all attacks must be performed airborne – you'll have to yank that instrument's neck more than you ever did playing Guitar Hero.
Do not use the guitar. While Fret Nice had always been hyped as a game that was designed with the guitar in mind, it just doesn't work very well, and we imagine this could be why it contains full support for the pad. It's not even like you're particularly making music with the peripheral, instead you're simply holding down any of the chords in accordance with how many 'parts' (eyes, antennas etc.) are on enemies, and strumming madly until they're dead.
