One of the newer and most popular gaming genres among hardcore and casual gamers alike in the world today is the musical game. That is, games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, SingStar and even Dance Dance Revolution (DDR).
Beat Hazard is one of the very few games that allows you to use music from your own library to create the levels. Each song is analyzed and a unique level is generated.
What makes games like this so enjoyable to people like me is that it gives me a new way to enjoy my own music! When you play your song or album in Beat Hazard, you begin to listen to your music in a new way, using your knowledge of the song as strategy. Particularly loud or excited moments in a song increase your power and ability, and low, quiet points leave you weak and struggling to find bonuses to increase your power.
How does Beat Hazard play? Rather like Asteroids, or even Geometry Wars. For those of you who do not remember Asteroids, you are a space ship in the middle of a screen with large asteroids and enemy ships around you. Your job is to survive until the end of the song, generally by blowing everything up. You do this by shooting streams of fluorescent-colored energy that changes with the song at the enemies who also change numbers and types with the song. As the song becomes louder, faster, or quieter, slower, the power and effectiveness of your weapons also wax and wane respectively. The visuals associated with this are quite attractive, and it becomes fun to shoot a stream of energy that covers half of the screen and changes colors. The graphics are quite decent. Maybe not the greatest, but as it is a 2D space shooter, it really doesn’t need to be.
If you are sensitive about violence, I wouldn’t worry too much with this game. Yes, ships are blown up, but in a cartoony way. There is absolutely no blood, no screams, and no gushy stuff. This is a great game for kids, and something their parents will also enjoy. In fact, it is the rare type of game where parents and kids can play together, egging one another on.
The controls take a little getting used to. The ship movement is controlled with the keyboard, while the weapon direction is controlled with the mouse. It doesn’t take too long to learn and you’ll get comfortable with a bit of effort. For those uncomfortable with mouse and keyboard controls, gamepads are also supported.
The game does feature brilliant flashing colored lights, so players with visual sensitivities should probably limit lay sessions.
Finally, the price is great. This game was independently created, and commands a fairly low price. Had it been sold for $50 or $60 dollars, I might have hesitated to buy it. On the other hand, many of the earlier music games like Guitar Hero or Sing Star only had a very limited selection of songs, but sold at that price point or higher. If you like games like Guitar Hero where the gameplay is integrated with the music played, you should enjoy this, especially if you like playing slightly retro arcade games.
Beat Hazard will play on most Windows computers (running XP, Vista and 7, both 32 and 64 bit). The game offers local 2-player multiplayer and co-op. It supports most music file formats as-is but some, like iTunes, require you to get downloadable content.
To sum it up – great family game, great fun!
- Broklynite
Tags: beat, beat hazard, hazard, review