Game Review #1: Audiosurf

Audiosurf, probably one of the best games-you've-never-heard-of titles for the musical gamer out there. But what exactly set this game apart from any other game? Let's take a closer look at other games in the industry for a minute. 

Image above is a display of Rock Band's large list of playable songs.

 With games such as Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and all the other strange clones it has produced (I'm looking at you, Guitar Rising and other Disney music titles...) you get a chosen set of songs, so you might pick up a title and get around 30-40 songs. Sometimes it's great! Sometimes it will frustrate you to see the next game have screamo and pop music. That's where Audiosurf succeeds. Audiosurf has every single song ever made. SAY WHAAA? If you have a song on your computer you want to play, you just select it in the song browser, and the game will generate an entire level.

But before I go any further, what the heck is Audiosurf? 

Me playing Audiosurf and nearly having a seizure on Iron-mode.

This is Audiosurf. Basically, you are a futuristic vehicle that travels down a musical highway, avoiding "traffic" (Grey blocks) while collecting the colorful blocks. Think of it as Tetris, Tetris with colorful explosions that will make you think you're overdosing on heroine. The "highway" your vehicle travels is shaped by specific things. Bumps on the road are caused by Bass. The faster paced the song is, the faster you'll travel and the steeper downslopes will be. Heavy bass songs such as Rap and Drum&Bass provide the bumpiest rides for you. You can unlock Medals and Achievements by doing many unique things in the game, such as beating a level without touching a single grey block, or getting a high score. Your songs are also ranked by a leaderboard around the world. So if you're looking for a kick-ass game to play and you wanna play your own songs, pick this bad boy up today.


Time for the final verdict!

 
Graphics (for their time): 8.5/10

This game is a real treat for the eyes, with colors that you can select and many unique patterns going on at once, you'll be seeing rainbow stars and highways when you close your eyes! 


Controls: 8.0/10 (Mouse) 7/10 (Keyboard)

Changing lanes when playing on a mouse is extremely smooth feeling and the easiest way to get precise and hard to reach blocks. Playing on the keyboard however can feel a bit clunky, as your car feels like... it moves in blocks rather than being free motion. So I do strongly suggest playing with a mouse. 

Replay Value: 9/10

Realistically I shouldn't even rate this, since you have an infinite amount of songs to work with, but even playing the same ones can generate new and awesome feeling levels every time. So many hours well wasted here, folks. 

Price /Where to get it: 

You'd be surprised to find out that this game is only 10 dollars on Steam as of now. Yeah, Steam! It was developed by Valve (the creators of Half-Life and Counter-Strike and many more classic titles)

Final Mark: 8.5/10

 This is one of those titles that no matter how old it gets you're going to find yourself going back to it again, and again, and again. The fact of the matter is, you can play any song you'd like to, so there's no need to go get every single sequel game (like Rock Band and others) just to get new songs. And for 10 bucks, this is quite a good game. So if you've got some change and a steam account, go give this one a try, you'll be pleased :)

--More screenshots to be added soon.