Let's open up the floodgate of reviews of
games that we recieved during the summer sale, starting with the game Audiosurf. This game was released on Steam in 2008, shortly after winning the Independent Games Festival's 2008 excellence in audio award. It is developed by Invisible Handlebar, a personal company owned and operated by Dylan Fitterer. For over four years it has been providing gamers with a way to play their own music in a fun and engaging way. Now that the history is down, the actual review.
For Audiosurf, it's controls and gameplay are supposed to be easy to pick up and play, it truly has achieved this. Something it lacks is originality, as the predecessors of the genre, chiefly
Guitar Hero and
Rock Band, have nearly the exact gameplay of hitting coloured bars. A difference however is that there is the mechanic of having to create combos with the blocks rather than just hitting them while pressing the correct button. The controls are quite simple as all you need to do is move your mouse left and right to change lanes, and to click either of the moues buttons to use your character's ability.
Speaking of characters, that is what makes Audiosurf fairly unique. There are 3 difficulty settings that each have their own characters. Each comes with its own abilities that make gameplay fun. For example, he 'mono' characters have the highway set up with single colours and grey blocks, avoid the grey and collect the colours to score. The abilities of characters range from saving a single block for later to being able to jump over the highway.
For the highway it is unique to each song, so each time you play a new song you get a different experience. The highway is created by looking at what makes to song unique and creates a visual representation of that for you to play on. Factors such as the beat, tempo, harmony and different notes all play a factor into how the highway is formed. Something nice is that unlike other games in the genre it let's you choose files from your own library, making each and every player's experience unique.
Now for the conclusion. The gameplay is fun though it would be better if more unique. The wealth of characters that you are able to use does help with gameplay as it let's you focus on different playstyles and challenges. Lastly the fact that you are able to choose your own existing music rather than having to buy a bucket load of DLC is great. Something I didn't mention is the leaderboards, they add a cool dynamic but unless you need to prove something they are a minor feature. The only way I could see somebody getting tired of this game is if they play the same few songs over and over. I'd rate this game a 74/100 for having good features but lacking in ingenuity. If you want to try this game out then there is a
free demo available on Steam, try it before you buy it!
On a side note the creators announced that another game in the series is on it's way, Audiosurf: Air. You can sign up for the beta
here, and follow
Fitterer's twitter for updates.
