Aramation Games

Very similar to Beats, Audiosurf is a downloadable game that turns your music collection into a rhythm game. Audiosurf behaves very much like Frequency and its sequel Amplitude: you pilot a craft riding on a path and your goal is to create clusters out of different colored blocks by collecting them in a zone in front of your craft. What’s unique is that each track will be automatically generated by analyzing the song. Faster songs will lead to more downhill areas, and more blocks on the track whereas slower songs with fewer beats will be a gentler ride.

In theory this is a perfect combination of listening to your favorite music while engaging in a stimulating gameplay, but the automatic beat detection engine sometimes fails and the blocks don’t perfectly align to the beats (just like in the PSP game Beats). The game does give you a fair amount of replay value as there are 21 characters for you to choose from, each having a specific effect. Some can help you by moving the blocks to a different lane, while others are tougher yet reward you with more points in the end.

At just $10 on Steam service, the game is a great purchase, perhaps even better than Beats. As long as you don’t mind a few inconsistent beats here and there, you’ll enjoy this trippy ride.

Rating: 70%

Beats is a $5 download for your PSP that will turn your existing music collection into a rhythm game with varying success depending on what kind of music you have. The basic premise is simple: face buttons will fly in towards the center, and you must hit them when they’re in the middle. Since the game uses music that’s already on your PSP, it will automatically generate the sequences: however I had some tracks with great beat detection that seemed very, well, on the beat whereas others just seemed a bit too fast or too slow compared to the beat. It does create a very disconcerting effect when you come from the ultra-precise Guitar Hero or Rock Band series.

It is much better to play with the built-in songs that come from Sony’s other games such as Eyetoy Kinetic. They are all of electronic genre, and they don’t rely on automatic beat detection to generate the stages. You will get bored of them pretty quickly though. Another component of Beats is remixing capability of those built-in songs where you can turn on and turn off different components of each song and create your own. You can even share your creations online, and download what others have done for your enjoyment.

On the technical front, the game suffers from occasional and unfortunate slowdown: it gets especially annoying where you’re in the middle of a song and realizes there’s a brief pause that shouldn’t be. In the end, it is only $5 so if you would like a fix of music-based games on your PSP, this shouldn’t be too bad. For everyone else, just stick to listening to your music.

Rating: 25%

I really tried hard to like Patapon but ultimately the constant grinding previously seen only in hardcore MMORPGs has proven to be a complete waste of my time. In Patapon, you are a deity in control of the cute eye-ball like people, and you control them using the drums. With your drums mapped to the face buttons, you can tell them to attack, defend, move and perform miracles by pressing the buttons in time with the beat. This music component is interesting, but unlike other rhythm games where difficulty extends over time, Patapon doesn’t. You will be pressing the same combination of buttons thousands of times by the end of the game. How many times can you press triangle, triangle, square, circle before you get tired of it? This game will make you find the answer. At some point, you’ll be wondering why you can’t just direct those damn-adorable creatures to where you want them to go in a point-and-click affair.

And those adorable eye-ball like creatures need weapons and armors as they face against Zigatons and bosses through their journey to find their lost land called “Earthend”. There is a minor tactical element involved in how you configure your army: some missions are great for melee-attack Tatepons, Yaripons use spears, and Yumipons are your archers staying at the back of the army for better vantage. Eventually you gain access Kibapon, Dekapon and Megapon which offer more powerful units for your army. It is up to you to equip them with powerful weapons to counteract ever-increasing enemy difficulty.

Equipment is where the game grinds down to a halt. You see, there is no way to purchase powerful weapons as they are only dropped during regular stages, and boss battles. In boss battles, you must defeat a big creature such as a dragon in order to get these equipments… but this requires you having to defeat the same boss multiple times. Even worse, each time you defeat a boss, the difficulty goes up.

To synthesize your army, you need the game’s currency which is called “ka-ching”, and the best way to do it is to hunt for animals. It is a very simple stage as there are no enemies, just animals grazing on the field. You must kill them to earn “ka-ching”. Needless to say, you must do this many many times too. It is unfortunate that the charm is utterly destroyed by monotonous gameplay and grinding for money and equipment.

Rating: 40%

Gitaroo Man is one of the earliest music rhythm game that didn’t rely on a peripheral such as a dance mat or maracas. Instead, it used PS2’s analog stick and face buttons: with your analog stick, you follow line that appears on the screen, and the O button is used to hit the notes on time. Other times, all 4 face buttons are used as they fly in and you must hit them when they reach the center.

The storyline is pretty ludicrous: you play as U-1, a little insecure boy who ends up possessing the gitaroo, which is basically a guitar, and you must battle forces of evil (what else) to save the universe. Yes, the storyline is corny and doesn’t reach new literary heights, but the audio and visuals of this game are simply outstanding. There are only 10 tracks, but they are very diverse, from slow jam to latin-inspired fast track. Manga-style visuals are simply gorgeous, and fit the crazy nature of the storyline pretty well. When you’re following the line, and the buttons, it can get pretty hard to marvel in the visuals though.

Gitaroo Man Lives does suffer from a relatively short length as it only features 10 songs. Multiplayer alleviates it somewhat, but they use the same song selection. Once you’ve played through the songs a few times, there is no reason to go back. Ultimately, if you have played the PS2 version, there is not much new to recommend buying the game again. However if you missed this little gem when it was first released, you should definitely experience the PSP version.

Rating: 75%

PS3 releases being delayed is becoming pretty common: latest victim to this awful trend is Sony’s pride and joy SingStar. Originally slated for release in November, it is now delayed indefinitely so they can fix whatever is broken with it. My guess is it is due to licensing issues (I doubt labels are thrilled about you being able to record your performance and sharing with your friends) and general PSN issues.

 

Guitar Hero-killer Rock Band is finally approaching release on November 23, 2007 a.k.a. Black Friday. Pricing is in line with what was anticipated and slightly cheaper than some retailers pegged it at. Instead of $199, it will be $169 for Xbox 360 & PS3, and $159 for PS2. With just $10 premium over the last gen offering, it pays to get it for the next gen consoles.

If you thought playing guitar on Nintendo DS’ tiny speakers was a bad idea, then Ubisoft has a solution for you! GameStop is listing the game + a mini amp for a fairly low price of $69.99. That’s the price of a collector’s edition game for the next gen consoles… and you get this mini amp to enhance your time with Jam Sessions.

GameSpot released first gameplay footage of Rock Band featuring 4 players on 1 console: 1 bass, 1 guitar, 1 drum set and 1 singer. Overall the interface doesn’t look too cluttered but I guess a big screen would be preferable. Another bonus: in this footage they’re using corded Xbox 360 Guitar Hero II controller which means you won’t have to replace it… of course if you want wireless connectivity, that’s a given.

Update: the video has been taken down, but I’m sure more will be revealed at this week’s E3.