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Audiosurf
BestGameEver.com
Game details:
Release Date: Feb 15, 2008
Genre: Rythm/Music
ESRB: Everyone
Platforms: PC only
As an opening game review to my site you should note that I chose a game which anyone might like, yet not many would master. Many games are that way, but few ever immerse you so well in the music as Audiosurf from BestGameEver. A creation born out of the mind of indie developers, first in mind as a racing game, it stands out with it's ability to use the music you have in your computer and generate a convoluted fast (or tidy slow) highway on which to surf your music.
About the game
Although it hasn't quite gotten to be a racing game, it's still fast and furious in it's own circumstances, and the sight is one to behold. What you actually do in the game is select a song, like in one of the Guitar Hero titles, with a twist. You choose the song from your own computer. Any mp3 or ogg file will work and will create you, in a fast loading time mind you, a track based on the song. After a track has been generated, it's stored, and the next time you want to ride your song, it will load much faster. If you choose a band like "In Flames" with a really fast and furious song, you will almost be overwhelmed with the traffic of blocks on the steep downhill highway. Either that, or you can choose a slow easy paced song which will sooner get you to sleep then on a rollercoaster. The track features 3 lanes fitted with a grid of 7 slots each, doing as such that every block you take fits in the next free corresponding slot of the lane you took the block in, and 2 shoulder lanes, if you get tired for the moment being or the things grow too hard to take on. You can almost make a hobby of finding songs which generate interesting and exhilarating things, like barrel rolls or loops.
Gameplay and how to play your music
The game sports several modes of playing the game, and there are basically 2 kinds of gameplay involved. Namely the tetris mode and the dodging mode. They are named hence because they work that way too. Tetris mode has you taking blocks of the same colour and matching them in 3 or more in order to generate more points. The blocks are classified by colour, from the cool blues and purples, which give you less points when matched (and appear much more frequently), to the hot yellows and reds which usually appear more in the faster periods of the song. Matching them gives more points gradually as the heat increases in the colour and the number of blocks matched. The dodging game has you take the coloured blocks and dodge the grey ones. It's as easy as that. Yet at the pace of some songs and the tricky to take coloured blocks, it can be substantially harder and more reliable on your reflexes rather than strategies. What is visually outstanding about this mode is the fact that the track and blocks change colour depending on how intense the song is in that moment in time, and that way makes it more immersive.
Controls
The controls are on the mouse by default, and it's the best way to play the game in my opinion, as the special action keys are also on the mouse buttons, and it hurts when you want to play using the keyboard. There is also a double mode, where you get one more lane and another ship controllable by keyboard. That way you need to work together to get most points out of any given song, or just play alone if you feel ambidextrous.
Graphics - a BEEPload of colour
The graphics in the game are immersive, and even if you have your eyes almost constantly concentrated on the center (always watch the road when you are driving and please fasten your seatbelt), you can still catch glimpses at the minimalistic wonders scurrying on the background. There are 3 colour schemes, ranging from white, which looks like an Xbox 360 interface, to a black cool one (which reminds me of Underground 2), with a nice grey to even it out in between. The starships are nicely modeled, and they shoot more powerful beams out of their engines when the song is more intense. Although you probably won't be actively looking at your ship, you might just notice the fact that bass makes you spout out some more juice, while high beats will make the track rise to a pointed hill circled with a loop. All of these add to the immersiveness in the music, and having in mind that the speed is generated by the music and the beats and notes too, you will just feel focused on listening on the song rather than play the game. Yet then again, you might feel differences, as you could very well focus more on the tetris mode games than on the mono (as the dodging mode is called) game.
Takin' it easy or Ironmode!
The game also has 3 difficulty settings, and another special one called ironmode, where it makes everything substantially harder by ridding you of the shoulder lanes and making you lose the current track you are playing when you fill one of the grid lanes up (like more than 7 blocks on any lane. While the casual characters will make you relax in your seat and the pros will make you stay on the edge, the elite characters will make you almost gasp sometimes seeing as the speed is sometimes ridiculous and yet still playable as you scramble to take your blocks. Mono mode has a correspondent on each of the 3 difficulties, yet tetris has even more of them. The reason is that each character has a different set of "skills" which you can use to your advantage when taking blocks to make 3 or more of a kind. As an example, Vegas, one of the many different, can shuffle the blocks on your grid to make winning combinations, and the Pusher can push blocks taken to the left or right.
Gripping you to the game
One of the more interesting things of the game is the fact that you play for highscores. You make an account based on your e-mail adress and you submit all your scores to the global, regional, or local (between friends) highscore tables. All of them are there to be seen, and you can see the high scores to any song simply by searching it in the browser. Every song can make you a highscore junky, and being dethroned (and notified of this evil deed by e-mail) will only make you more determined to get that perfect high score.
Riding the music to conclusions
All in all, I must say that Audiosurf is a game everyone should like, as mostly everyone likes/loves music, and having it generate a track based on any song in your computer only makes it better. That, and the fact that it's a complete bargain at only $9,95 on Steam. Yet the fact that it combines match 3 games, tetris, Rez, and other stuff like that together makes it a bit crowded. Even so, it's so much nicer and so much more than a typical Winamp plugin or toy, and it does make your music even more alive visually. Having in mind that it is the first game I reviewed, I must also tell you that it is my first game review EVER, so please bear with me.
Score?
That said, I give it an 8.5!