A few days ago the Indie game "Beat Hazard" was released on Steam so I thought i'd give it a go and share my experience with it so far.
If you aren't familiar with the concept of the game, the idea is similar to that of Audiosurf, the game translates your music into gameplay. The gameplay is very simple and should be familiar to anyone who has played a game of this genre before (Geometry Wars, Asteroids etc...). You control a spaceship and accumulate points by shooting down enemies. The power of your weapon is determined by the intensity of the music and the power ups that are dropped by defeated enemies.
There are two types of weapon power ups in the game:
The "Power" power up which upgrades your weapon and the "Volume" power up which determines the volume of the song and the intensity of your weapon. Each power up is represented by a bar that fills up as you collect them. When both bars are full you are equipped with the powerful "Beat Hazard" weapon until you crash into an enemy.
There are two more types of power ups: The "Super Bomb" power up which lets you detonate a bomb that clears the screen of enemies and the "Multiplier" power up. Multiplier is the most crucial part of accumulating points and is built of collecting Multiplier power ups and completing the multiplier challenges "Dare Devil" (no firing for 5 seconds) and "Survivor" (surviving for 30 seconds).
Overall Beat Hazard is a lot of fun and visually stunning but it's not without its flaws. Though they are quite gorgeous The flashy visuals may give some people headaches and can make it hard to keep track of your spaceship under all of the flash in hectic gameplay moments.
I was disappointed that the game had only two game modes: Regular play and Survival mode, which challenges players to survive as many songs as they can. Although the game is very re-playable, as each track produces a different experience, it would have been nice to see some different gameplay challenges.
The game's biggest flaw is the enemy's inability to react to the music. While your weapon changes with the music's intensity the enemies do not and I often found myself defenselessly avoiding hordes of enemies in a song's most relaxed moments and having nothing to shoot at at its most intense.
In conclusion, Beat Hazard has its flaws but is overall a great game that is well worth the $10 price tag. If you are even remotely a fan of the genre I recommend you pick it up on Steam or Xbox Live Arcade.
The Verdict: 8.0
If you aren't familiar with the concept of the game, the idea is similar to that of Audiosurf, the game translates your music into gameplay. The gameplay is very simple and should be familiar to anyone who has played a game of this genre before (Geometry Wars, Asteroids etc...). You control a spaceship and accumulate points by shooting down enemies. The power of your weapon is determined by the intensity of the music and the power ups that are dropped by defeated enemies.
There are two types of weapon power ups in the game:
The "Power" power up which upgrades your weapon and the "Volume" power up which determines the volume of the song and the intensity of your weapon. Each power up is represented by a bar that fills up as you collect them. When both bars are full you are equipped with the powerful "Beat Hazard" weapon until you crash into an enemy.
There are two more types of power ups: The "Super Bomb" power up which lets you detonate a bomb that clears the screen of enemies and the "Multiplier" power up. Multiplier is the most crucial part of accumulating points and is built of collecting Multiplier power ups and completing the multiplier challenges "Dare Devil" (no firing for 5 seconds) and "Survivor" (surviving for 30 seconds).
Overall Beat Hazard is a lot of fun and visually stunning but it's not without its flaws. Though they are quite gorgeous The flashy visuals may give some people headaches and can make it hard to keep track of your spaceship under all of the flash in hectic gameplay moments.
I was disappointed that the game had only two game modes: Regular play and Survival mode, which challenges players to survive as many songs as they can. Although the game is very re-playable, as each track produces a different experience, it would have been nice to see some different gameplay challenges.
The game's biggest flaw is the enemy's inability to react to the music. While your weapon changes with the music's intensity the enemies do not and I often found myself defenselessly avoiding hordes of enemies in a song's most relaxed moments and having nothing to shoot at at its most intense.
In conclusion, Beat Hazard has its flaws but is overall a great game that is well worth the $10 price tag. If you are even remotely a fan of the genre I recommend you pick it up on Steam or Xbox Live Arcade.
The Verdict: 8.0
