Get yer game on!

Today I actually got an e-mail from Cam S. which is weird because he never sends e-mails. So if Cam sends you an e-mail you know it's pretty damn important. I'm too lazy to retype everything, so here is the original e-mail ala copy and paste.

Just a quick note to let you know about a game that y'all need to know about. It's called AudioSurf and it's awesome - it takes any song you own (mp3, wma, flac, ogg, even straight from CD) and builds a three-lane racetrack from it, using the tempo, beat, instruments and voice data to create elevation changes and place colored blocks on the track, you then race this track on your WipeOut-style hovership thingy, picking up or avoiding blocks as required. These YouTube vids don't do it justice, it looks great full-screen.

Fresh Prince style:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHaaLjH3m5k

There's a Tetris-style block matching game, as in this Daft Punk video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOfdccaZnBU

But until the novelty wears off, I'm going with the less cerebral 'only pickup the colored blocks', as demonstrated by this Song 2 video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EsVyEnhxWY

It's very hectic and fun, but these videos are from the Pro levels, there's Beginner mode to just chill and cruise through a song. You can compare your scores to the global leaderboards and add friends to compete against (I'm CrackHoor). It's prompted me to start ripping a bunch of my CD collection, and I've re-discovered a bunch of old music that I haven't listened to in 10+ years. I've run Aphex Twin, the Beatles, drum & bass, Sepultura, Milli Vanilli (#1 on Girl You Know It's True scoreboard, punks!), and plenty of Metallica, and even some classical stuff through it, it's all awesome.

It doesn't require bleeding-edge computer hardware, and there's a demo for it if you're not sure it's gonna work on your PC. You will need to sign up to Steam, which is an online game service and totally trustworthy in my experience.

Demo:
http://storefront.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=game&AppId=12910&cc=CA

Full game, $9.95:
http://storefront.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=game&AppId=12900&cc=CA

Let me know what you think if you decide to check it out, I give it a very enthusiastic two thumbs up.

If Cam is pimping then I guess it must have some cred. I wasn't working this afternoon and I was bored, so I downloaded it and gave it a try. I'll be honest with you I'm incredible awful and sucked beyond imagination. I tried it on Easy and played with only one block color and still I wasn't very good, although I didn't manage to crack the top ten for Electic Surfin' Go Go by Polysics.

I then tried the next step up which is collecting block of one colour to collecting blocks of different colours. I didn't even finish the entire song before I quit because I was stinking up the place so bad. Playing the Mono mode I was used to collecting all blocks and with this one you pick up certain coloured blocks in certain columns. I think, that's what was going on, I never bothered watching the tutorial. So I was just grabbing all colour blocks at randown in whatever column and it was screwing everything up, so I just quit.

I went back to Mono mode for dummies and played another song, and went to play again, but the demo mode was expired. What the hell?! You only get so many songs and then your demo expires. It was pretty weak, I mean they want you to buy it, so you should get a few more plays than 4 or 5 or whatever. After the few times I played it I was so frustrated with it I'm wiping it off my computer. Maybe if I had a few more tries I could've gotten more into it but...TOO LATE! They already had their chance.

Cam says it doesn't require bleeding edge hardware and if that's the case then I think my computer has bled to death. I played it full screen and normal detail and it looked like shite. I upped the detail enhancement, but it wasn't even in full screen mode and it was exactly running smoothly. That is why I don't play games on my computer...because it sucks.

Yeah, that's it. Don't let my crappy experience with the game deter anyone from trying it. I suck at games, I mean I couldn't even handle the Easy mode on this. Anyone of normal intelligence should be able to kick ass at it and have fun, so give it a try. Sorry Cam, but I gave it try!

Speaking of music games with the popularity of Guitar Hero there seems to more music games coming out like Rock Band and eventually there will be Band Mashups on the Wii. It's a rythm based game featuring songs from Soundgarden, Black Eyed Peas, Commodores, Cypress Hill, the Ramones, Gorillaz, Def Lepard and more for 30 songs in total for the entire game. To put a twist on the game the songs can be played in one of five different styles; rock, funk/hip-hop, country western, latin and marching band. Insane In The Brain done mariachi style? Sign me up, but unfortunately I'll suck at that game too.