Audiosurf

   Audiosurf is a game for anyone who enjoys listening to music and playing video games, especially those who do both simultaneously.  At first glance, the game appears to be just a puzzle game where the player controls a vehicle and rides along a track filled with colored blocks that must be captured and formed into groups of three or more to score points.  The thing that separates this game from anything else on the market is the great concept behind it.

   Audiosurf is a music game where you don't try to play the music, you interact with it. Music is scanned from your computer, by the game, into the game.  There is a good variety of characters, which determine difficulty and have their own unique abilities, this leaves everything feeling balanced.  Because of the character-specific abilities, even if  you choose the same song you just played, if you choose a different character, the level can play in a completely different fashion.  An example is the Mono car, which has perhaps the simplest concept, but can be tough to play as if you want it's specific bonus.  As well, the highways grow narrower with higher difficulty, making the game that much harder.  These factors bring a depth to the gametype that you probably will not see anywhere else.

   I'm not sure what to call the game's art style, suffice it to say that it has a futuristic feel, but it is anything but the drab palette of other games.  The visual design is fun to just look at and enjoy, and there is a Free Ride mode where you can just ride the highway, listening to the music and watching the colors.  Despite flashy graphics and bright colors, the game is not too demanding of a video card, which is always a plus.

   I'm not completely sure of what to say about the game's audio, except that it is widely varied.  If you want to play a specific song, you only need to have it on your computer.  There is also Audiosurf Radio, which is a great way to sample music from different bands.  The songs on the Radio are updated periodically, but also featured is the Audiosurf Overture, which is always listed. A nice bonus of the game being developed for Steam is that included with it is the entire Orange Box soundtrack, with both versions of Still Alive, which is as much fun to play as it is to listen to.

   While the game has no real multiplayer mode besides the 2-player Double Vision character, the game is all about leaderboards.  The score you get at the end of a level is calculated, appropriate bonuses are rewarded, and your score is posted on the leaderboard for that song's difficulty.  There you can see who got which bonuses, how long their song was, and even if their track was different.  The leaderboards feel more like they are there to see who listens to the same songs and how good they are at perhaps a certain character, rather than something that drives players to be the best overall.  Despite this, individual songs have great replay value. If it's a song you enjoy listening to, then you will probably enjoy playing it repeatedly with different characters, difficulties, and bonuses.

   Audiosurf is a great game for any music lover, and because you can play pretty much any kind of song you want with it, it has appeal to a wide range of players.  If you don't care about leaderboards, you don't have to. Just play for fun. That's what this game is all about.