This weekend I gave myself the most awesome music video game ever for my pc as a gift. Although Audiosurf is not the first game in the genre and not the highest selling, it is one of the most popular, and greatest. It is "music racer," where you move a ship on a futuristic highway based on your music to collect colored blocks (known as traffic). The game has been compared to music games like Guitar Hero and Amplitude, but it’s different in that you don’t necessarily have to hit every block that comes in the way. In fact, it’s better to miss a few trying to achieve combos. If you try the game, you’ll see you’ll end up addicted to it (in a good non-WoW way).



Gameplay: 9/10
- The gameplay is very simple: trying to collect blocks and make clusters of three or more (the bigger they are, the higher the bonus) to score points.  There are 5 colors: purple, blue, green, yellow and red, the hottest being worth more points than cooler colors and appearing more on intense parts of the songs. You can either use the mouse or the arrow keys to move the ship (I prefer the mouse, though the keys are more accurate). The ship’s speed and shape of the highway depend on the song you play from your pc. Low and slow songs are uphill (ship goes slow), while fast and loud sections of songs are downhill (ship goes very fast). Other elements of the songs like beat and riffs determine the curves, twists, bumps and tunnels (the most intense parts).

There’s a variety of characters to choose from (14 characters, three tiers: Easy, Pro and Elite). The Mono characters are the easiest to use, and the most popular; there’s only two colors (grey and colored) and you try to avoid grey traffic. Pointman characters let you catch blocks for later, Erasers lets you erase all blocks of the same color (to try and match other colors in big clusters), Pushers move blocks from lane, Vegas lets you shuffle the board, and in Double Vision and V Pro you control 2 ships (1 on the keys and 1 with the mouse), which allow for co-op with a friend. But if you just want to relax, listen to your music and enjoy the scenery, use Freeride mode.

Graphics: 8/10 - Simplistic, futuristic, and not extraordinary, but still cool to look at.

Sound: 10/10 - The audio is as excellent as your computer’s music library. The sound effects and menu music available go with the look too.

Re-playability: 10/10 - With 14 modes of gameplay, various high scores to beat and a limitless supply of music out there for you to play, Audiosurf has endless possibilities and will make you want to come back to it over and over again (especially every time you buy a new album or download a new song).

Overall: 9.25/10 Audiosurf is a great and fun game that you’ll probably never get tired off (maybe your fingers if you use the arrow keys). The game can be bought at the Steam website (I reccomend you try the demo first) for only $10, a great deal. It also comes with the Orange Box Soundtrack, making it more than worth its low price.

Here are some videos of me playing Audiosurf on Mono (easy tier) mode.

Tomorrow Comes Today by Gorillaz


Bat Country - Vitamin String Quartet (Tribute to Avenged Sevenfold)