Ride Your Music.

I love rhythm games, I always have. I played copious amounts of DDR in my teen-years and unlike a certain group of people whom I’ll rant about another day, I consider casual games to be fun. Rhythm games definitely fall under “casual”. So a couple of years back, as Steam was just beginning to really garner.. well, steam, they started heavily marketing a game from a company that nobody had ever heard of. It was one of the first “free-weekend” deals that got really well known, and the free demo popularized the game, immensely.

I’m talking about… AUDIOSURF!

Anyone who knows me, knows how often I play this, how often I HAVE played it in the last few years. I slowly worked my way up in difficulty, at first not knowing how anyone could achieve those higher feats until I, myself had reached them, but I’m getting ahead of myself though..

Audiosurf disguises itself as a tripfest. Really, every stoner who comes into my internet cafe and sees this on my screen repeats the words, “yooo, dat’s trippy, guy!” and I fake a laugh every single time. It really is quite beautiful and the environment is not lost in how immersed you can get into this game. It didn’t SOAR in popularity but it came out at just the right time, when Guitar Hero was getting popular. Rhythm games got a search in success thanks to that little number, and Audiosurf was no different, for an indie game that only cost $10.

This game is exactly what its slogan says, “Ride Your Music”. Choose any MP3 in your song library, and a chart with be automatically generated for it (get someone to send you a different copy of the MP3 and watch the chart change, as well!). What’s generated is “traffic”, blocks on the roadway that you’re travelling. Depending on the character you choose, they’re either multiple types of colours, or one ever-changing hallucination fest of colour.

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Explanation:
The most popular choice is the ever-changing colour, known as “mono”. There are only two types of blocks on the roadway (which vary in amount and difficulty to collect based the speed of the song, and difficulty you choose), the ones that you’re supposed to collect and get you points… and the ones you’re supposed to avoid, that get in your way. The blocks that you collect settle into a space below you (3×7 available squares) and you have to connect 3 or more adjacent to one another. The more that connect, obviously the more points that you get for them.

With the other characters, there are multiple coloured blocks on the field, and you have to collect ones of the same colour together instead. Obviously, the points-potential for that one is far greater, and each of the characters available has a special ability to make it easier to pair blocks up. The one that I usually choose, Pointman, lets you store up to 4 blocks and drop them wherever and whenever you like.

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Now really.. explaining it makes it sound rather boring, but everyone who’s ever seen me play it doesn’t really understand what’s going on, without some explanation. Even then, they’re lost, so as long as your computer can generate some level of 3D, I invite you to try out this little indie title. The worst experience you can have is some gameplay that you don’t like, while still listening to your favourite music. Personally, I think it’s ridiculously badass and everyone knows that you’re entitled to my opinion.

Steam Demo: http://store.steampowered.com/app/12910/ (You must have a Steam account to play this demo)

–Jeff “DanyLektro”

Each of the screenshots below is my riding “…And Justice For All” by Metallica. These screenshots don’t look quite as vibrant because it’s “Elite” difficulty, in which you focus more on the road than what’s around you, therefore the environment is more tame. In the meantime, here’s how much I pwned my former score and got to the top of the worldwide scoreboard that I neglected to mention, as well as some shots of pwnage: