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Eleglac's Audiosurf (PC)
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| [March 6, 2008 02:26:11 AM]
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GAMEPLAY:
For the second play period, the play was much the same as the first; I continued playing new songs, and started making a list of songs that I'd like to play but do not have at the moment - Dragonforce, Freebird, etc. You can get some extreme gameplay here, or extremely placid gameplay - it really is entirely up to which song one chooses.
DESIGN:
Where to begin? This game follows the overarching design philosophy of 'ride your music,' also the game's tagline. When playing, the mechanic is very, very simple: run your ship into blocks to get groups of three of the same color. Certain ships have special powers which can be activated by clicking the right or left mouse buttons, which means that the entire game can be played with nothing but the mouse and good coordination.
What strikes me most about the design of this game is the elements that end up taking away from the brilliant gameplay. The designers got one thing right, which is the focus on the music being both played, and played, if you'll excuse the pun. What's missing is a good menu system and file browser implementation; if you're going to have the user be looking for music tracks, you want it to be easy to find them from within the game. The other complaint I have is the lack of a 'playlist' mode, where the player would be able to queue up several tracks and play each one sequentially. As it stands, the player must be forced out to the game menu before choosing the next track to play, and the play experience suffers for it.
So that it might not sound like I'm set against the game, I will say that the part where the player is actually PLAYING is a study in design excellence. The game engine produces game tracks that seem like something out of a Technicolor dream, with bright colors and spinning geometry to liven up the landscape if the player has a moment to glance away from the oncoming blocks. The tracks are shown suspended in a black, grey, or white emptiness; downhill slopes represent relatively fast sections, and uphill slopes represent relatively slow sections of the song. The goal of the play, and it is a goal that is admirably achieved, is to make the game all about the music.
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| [March 6, 2008 01:30:56 AM]
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SUMMARY:
Audiosurf is a rhythm game where users can 'ride their music.' Players can select any track from their computer in a variety of formats, whereupon the game engine will analyze the features of the selection and create a sort of highway covered with colored blocks. Players earn points by running a car into these blocks and creating chains of three or more similarly colored pieces.
GAMEPLAY:
I can sum up Audiosurf in one word: Addicting. Since buying it yesterday, I have played it for no less than ten hours, rediscovering my music collection in the process. The game provides several different skill levels, each with several different modes of play. I prefer the Ninja Mono, where players have to dodge grey blocks and collect as many uniformly colored ones as possible.
The control scheme is as simple as can be - move the mouse left or right. The real trick - for me, anyway - is to know WHEN to move left and right. The game will become harder if one chooses to play a very intense song, which meant that my trying to play 'Helter Skelter' by the Beatles on the hardest difficulty setting did not exactly turn out well.
Skeltering aside, what I found as I continued to play was that I was listening to music that I hadn't bothered to listen to in years. I had fun anticipating how the game engine would handle certain tracks that I chose, and I had fun trying to attain the various achievements for each particular character. This game definitely encourages lots and lots of re-play, and even if you don't want to play the game, you can simply use it as a media player and watch the crazy multicolored tracks that are generated by the game engine.
I'll be back with more, shortly.
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Eleglac's Audiosurf (PC)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 5 March, 2008
GameLog closed on: Thursday 6 March, 2008 |
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