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PlanetSmasherN9's Beats (PSP)
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| [February 8, 2008 07:44:09 PM]
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GAMEPLAY
Even with everything Beats does wrong, it still manages to be an amazing game. As I played for another hour, I really got addicted to trying out random songs in my collection. It was fun experimenting to see which types of music worked best for it and which types it didn't. This experimentation is truly where the fun of the game is found.
The note map generator is extremely impressive. It was able to make a pretty good map for about 70% of the songs I put on the game. Even when I played songs with odd time signatures and random starts and stops like The Dillinger Escape Plan and Protest the Hero, it kept with the beat of the songs and it actually fit the songs very well.
The mixture of playing a game with your very own music collection and the sense of experimentation lead this to be an extremely addictive game that I'm having a really hard putting down. It might not map the notes out perfectly all the time, but the fact that it works some of the time makes it extremely addicting and adds a sense of discovery that most games today lack.
DESIGN
From a design aspect, Beats truly is an amazing; from the design of the actual game to the way it is being marketed.
One of the problems of music games such as Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero is that they have a finite set of songs, and once you finish those songs it is really easy to get bored with the game. When you want more songs, you have to shell out another 50 dollars or so for the next iteration. Beats, however, completely avoids this problem by having a never-ending set of songs; as long as mp3 files exist, this game will never have an end. It is one of the few games that can claim to have virtually zero game exhaustion.
The user interface for the game is amazing. All of the menus are flashy and have a unique art style. On top of that, there are about 20 or so different styles you can choose between to change the whole look of the game. There are also around 30 or so different visualization types to play int he background along with the songs you play. This level of customization and art direction is almost unheard of for a bargain-bin game.
Furthermore, since it has no licensed songs, Sony was able to produce this game on a small budget. On top of this, they opted out of making it a UMD game, skipping the cost of the UMD itself, the case, shipping, etc. These points may seem pointless to your average consumer, but when you go to buy the game you see why it makes such a big difference. The full game of Beats will only cost you 5 dollars, around 35 dollars less than your average psp game.
I honestly feel that Beats represents the future of game design. It's revolutionary way of using user-generated content to create a game that is virtually endless is something we are going to see a lot more of really soon. I feel that most games in about 5 years will have at least some form of user-generated content in the game. I think games like this will sell well, especially considering the myspace/youtube generation most game companies go after.
Also, I think more and more companies will choose to make their games downloadable instead of on UMD. This was a great choice by Sony, because it really makes piracy of the game extremely hard. The PSP is notorious for how easy it is to pirate games on, and once companies see that releasing their games through the playstation store only makes this process more difficult, I think they will do the same. So, not only does it make the game cheaper to produce, but it makes it harder to steal.
I honestly really hope this game sells well, not only because it is one of my favorite psp games, but it represents most of what I believe in when it comes to game design. If you have a psp and five dollars to spare, you owe it to yourself to give this a shot.
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| [February 8, 2008 03:50:43 PM]
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SUMMARY
Beats is a music rhythm game for the PSP. It is one of the first titles to be released as a download only on the Playstation Store. It's just like every other music rhythm game; you push buttons in time with the music when an icon passes over a certain point on the screen. If you get a certain number in a row, you get a mulitplier. It grades you on how well you stay in time with the music.
GAMEPLAY
If you look at Beats on the surface, its really hard to see what sets it apart from other music games. It doesn't have any crazy peripherals like guitar hero and dance dance revolution, a rarity in music games today. The gameplay is overly simplistic also. You push the X, square, circle, and triangle buttons along with a button on the directional pad depending on where the beat is coming from.
The music that Beats provides for you are a few sub-par non-licensed songs, another rarity in music games today. The songs really aren't that good, and aren't even that fun to play. One really cool feature, however, is jamming. You can pick apart the songs provided in the game and choose which instruments you want to play, change them up on the fly, and even record your remixes of the songs to share with friends. This was a cool feature, but it didn't keep my attention for too long.
The main thing that sets this game apart from other music games and makes it one of the best handheld games I've played is the ability to add your own mp3s into the game. Yes, thats right, any mp3 file can work with the game. All you have to do is add as many mp3 files as you want onto your memory stick and the game will make a note map for them, enabling you to play them. The most fun I got out of this game was putting ten songs on my memory stick at a time and seeing how well they translated into the game.
During my first hour, most of the songs I threw at the game worked pretty well. There were a few songs that it didn't map the song as I would have wanted, but there were just as many times where it did it perfectly. When songs would work perfectly, it really made me love this game. It was like experiencing some of my favorite songs on a completely new level. I was taking an active role in the songs I was listening to, not a passive one like usual.
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Feb 8th, 2008 at 16:00:43.
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PlanetSmasherN9's Beats (PSP)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Friday 8 February, 2008
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