Audio-surf - I've been dethroned

Here's an interesting little fact of which I was completely unaware until last night: If you get the highest score on a given song on Audio-surf, and then later somebody beats you, it e-mails you to let you know (and apparently there IS a way to view high scores online). In my case, for a brief couple weeks I held top position on the pro level difficulty of "Dragostea din Tei" by Ozone (which some of you might know as the "Numa Numa" song. And I came by it honestly, using Mono Pro and getting both the "didn't hit any greys" bonus and the "clear board at end of level" bonus... but as is too often the case in this game, some schmendrick playing as Double Vision Pro usurped my title. It is uniformly the case that the highest scores are usually claimed by someone playing double vision. That's because, if you ask me, the game is frankly easier and the score potential much higher when playing double vision, especially if you get a friend to help you to be "player 2" so to speak. It's cheap, and it should not be scored on the scale as the other, harder characters... perhaps score should be cut in half, since there are two "players" on the level. Grumble, grumble.

ozone: dragostea din tei

Pro
Name	Score	Character
kuessedauern	78315	DVP
GasBandit	55163	Mono Pro
RE91	53831	Mono Pro
Death64`	48517	Mono Pro
Cynic	46948	Mono Pro
Aekhiv	45776	Pusher
LungZ0r	37674	Mono Pro
Yeggstry	37612	Mono Pro
Starshot	34518	DVP
tl154	34448	Mono Pro
YraelAngainor	32936	Mono Pro

At any rate, I refuse to cheapen my high score by playing double vision pro just to reclaim the top spot, since doing so would erase my mono pro score... I'll maintain my dignity, and the list will show that I have the highest "real" high score... at least until nine other goombahs playing as DVP easymode their way above me.

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Review - Audio-Surf

A tiny little game with a small 10 dollar price tag, which has had some big buzz in the back alleys of the net, and now I'll break it down for you.

Gameplay -
Audio-Surf is a rhythm game, sort of a distant cousin to Guitar Hero or Amplitude. The basic idea of the game is that it takes your music collection and turns it into levels for playing. The song takes the form of a sort of multilane highway which dips and bobs and weaves according to the music, and your little character flies down this highway picking up colored blocks which then stack in columns on a "board" according to what lane in which they were picked up. When 3 or more blocks of the same color in your board touch, they will clear away and give you points. So not only do you have to keep your eyes on the road, you also have to watch your board of previously collected blocks, trying to catch blocks to match in the appropriate lane.

The game has over a dozen modes of play, which are triggered by choosing a "character" from the game menu. For instance, the "Pointman" character lets you scoop up blocks and drop them in different lanes, a-la Klax, the "Mono" character invokes a mode of play where there are only two kinds of blocks (colored and gray), and grey block clog up your board by refusing to match and clear even with themselves. There's also two-player cooperative characters (though both players must be on the same PC, one uses mouse and the other keyboard).

The game really has an addictive hook to it, especially since it is using music you already love (unless for some reason you keep MP3s of songs you hate, and even then specifically choose to play them). It even comes with a collection of songs from the Orange Box soundtrack, including the omnipresent "Still Alive" by Jonathan Coulton (two versions, actually.. the one in the game sung by GLaDOS and a version sung by Coulton himself).

The game also tracks high scores of the songs played (it uses the ID3 tag data inside the songs to keep track of them), and lets you compare how you're doing vs everybody, or just people in your general geographic vicinity, or specific friends you add to your friends list.

Graphics -
While certainly not groundbreaking for realism or detail, the graphics in Audio-Surf are just what they need to be - sleek, shiny, and high framerate. Even most laptops these days would not be overexerting themselves playing Audio-Surf, and yes, I did test it with my own laptop using its on-board Intel video. They did a good job and did it efficiently, and even threw in a little eye candy to distract you while you play as well.

Audio -
The audio of the game largely depends upon your own music stash, since the hook of the game is that it uses your own music files to make levels. Songs with good, firm beats tend to make good levels, if slightly bumpy. Slow, quiet songs make for easy, gentle levels while thrash metal, as seen above, makes for a wild and crazy ride. It's pretty well implemented.

The Final Word -
Audio-Surf is definitely going to be one of those games that takes its place in the "names among names" for computer games. It's a little bit of a cult hit right now, but word will spread. I can't say it'll ever get as big as guitar hero, but it's certainly less expensive. Ten bucks sure beats having to spend money on squeaky fisher price instruments, eh?

Verdict - A

And that's the word from Bandit Camp.

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