Most music games come with their own
soundtrack—which is a problem if you don't like the tunes. (See: Synaesthete.) Audiosurf takes the other approach: It breaks down your mp3s and lets you play a
game on top of them, in the form of a spaceship that has to race on a winding
track while stars explode at the sound of a hi-hat. Half the fun comes from
feeding the game new songs to see how it'll react: Big beats make the track
lope and bump beneath you, while sudden crescendos and fast, lurching stops
drive it wild. And browsing your collections for the next song that'll make it
completely freak out is as entertaining as trying to win.
The actual gameplay mixes
racing with pattern-matching. You steer your spaceship back and forth to pick
up colored blocks; the more same-colored blocks you combine, the more points
you score. Without the audio, it would be a cute casual game, and not
necessarily an easy one. You have to watch what's flying at you while managing
the blocks you've picked up, which is a little like playing Tetris on your cell phone while you're soaring down the
freeway—but not as addictive. Yet high scores are only half the point. Audiosurf will enthrall a wide range of players, from
the strategists who master all the tricks to the casual players who just want a
great ride.
Beyond the game: Audiosurf has turned a few heads in
the music business; Asthmatic Kitty spearheaded a multi-label mix specifically
for the game, and the game already pushes indie mp3 downloads.
Worth
playing for: Every
single song you play—no matter how obscure—gets its own online
leaderboard. This gives you the chance to battle for the top slot on a
Radiohead song while holding court over all the forgotten mp3s at the back of
your hard drive.
Frustration sets in when: Even by indie game
standards, the admin interface and manuals are raw. And the lack of support for
DRM-burdened iTunes tracks will annoy people who built their digital-music
libraries the legal way.
Final
judgment: Ranks
somewhere between the portable light show and the lava lamp as a
non-pharmaceutical music enhancer.