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    Audiosurf

    Game » consists of 2 releases. Released Feb 15, 2008

    Audiosurf is a block-matching game that generates levels based on the rhythm and tempo of songs that the player loads from their hard drive.

    The Case for Audiosurf as 2008 GOTY

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    LAMP

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    Edited By LAMP

    I promised this quite a while ago, but it’s finally done.

    I’m going to do this Lawrence Lessig style, and explain three issues and then how Audiosurf counters these three issues.

    1. I was going to start with some anecdote about the way things were, but, I know a frankly horrifying amount of people that started playing console games last generation, or maybe with the playstation. They genuinely don’t remember how things used to be on consoles and arcades. So I’m going to attempt to explain this as best as possible.

    Before “immersion” and “storytelling”, games were about “fun.” It’s a weird concept, I know. The idea that having fun and achieving goals isn’t related to story progress or statistics seems completely foreign. Rather, your reward used to be things like entering three characters as your initials and watching your name on the high score board. That used to be enough! That used to be the Holy Grail, the top ten, fifteen, or twenty names on a leaderboard. It was a tangible, provable statistic of how good someone was at a game.

    The issue is that consoles, for a long while, did not have online systems of any fashion. Sega made the first steps towards an internet gaming service on a console, first with the Saturn adaptor and then with the Dreamcast. I’m sure someone will call me out for this, but, there were very rarely games that took advantage of the idea of having people all over the world compete for scores. And despite that, the 32 Bit Era disposed of scores, except for Time Trials and ports of Arcade shooters, instead of the idea of most games having points.

    The modern answer to this is twofold, both best shown on the 360: Friends leaderboards, which I find self explanatory, and Achievements, which were deliberately, and cynically, designed to fill this need. They fail at this task because they don’t say you are the best at anything, just that you can do certain things of varying difficulty. They aren’t a measurement of skill, but rather, of time, and of varied libraries. How do we get rewards in games anymore?

    2. As games have grown, inputs have grown. Pong was played with a dial. Pac-Man was played with a joystick. Galaga was played with a joystick and a button. The NES had the D-pad, two action buttons, and a start and select buttons. Controllers now have at the least 14 buttons (D-Pad is one button, that’s why a D-pad works). This is a key factor as to people losing their interest in gaming. If you have four or five buttons, it’s pretty easy to explain what’s supposed to happen, and what’s supposed to do what. A lot of modern games that we, the game consuming public, think to be the best games ever made alienate these casual players. There’s just too much to remember.

    The need for so much complexity seems artificial most of the time, since it is entirely possible to make games with limited command inputs. The less a game does, mechanically, the more critically acclaimed it seems to be, with the exception of PC gaming. However, the complexity is balanced by the availability of Popcap and other available casual games that almost seem like miniature games.

    The connection between minimalist game design and consumer response is well established; most games that attempt to design a game with as little as possible end up getting large critical acclaim and mild cultural impact, with very little in the way of sales. That is to say, the games that do more with less developed a large, dedicated fan base. Think of how many people you know that quoted jokes from Portal after it came out. Think of how many people- myself included- get excited at any news from Team Ico. Think of how many videos exist of detailed Ikaruga runs. Think of the market response to Mega Man 9.

    The best example of the power of small, minimalist gaming is the Wii game series. All four of those games- Wii Play perhaps undeservedly so- have enjoyed large scale successes, critically and from word of mouth. Of course, Wii Sports was a pack in, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was an extremely well received experience. The lack of complexity resulted in easy explinations, and easy understandings of the system. The limited negative response to Wii Sports seemed to mostly be a case of disliking popular things, or probably more accurately, a backlash against Nintendo for not packing in what we would view as a “Real” game.

    3. Music in games is a very powerful force. Great game music is relived and played on a variety of formats and instruments. Many different songs live on in video game history, being revisited and often remembered favorably. There are now games dedicated exclusively to music, although the interpretation of what a game about music should be seems strange. They extol virtues of you recreating the music, instead of you creating or experiencing the music. It is very much a celebration of songwriters, but not songs.

    Audiosurf meets all three of these concerns, and then extols virtues of its own.

    Firstly, the entire purpose of the game is fun. It aspires to nothing else but fun, and excels in this. The point of the game is to use a vehicle of your choice- each vehicle has different tricks and scoring mechanics- and traversing a course. It takes the familiar puzzle mechanic of tiles moving towards you, and instead, moves you towards the tiles. You collect them and score points with them. There are different achievements and multipliers that can positively or negatively affect your score. Most importantly, for replay value, the levels are automatically uploaded to a global scoreboard. You can immediately compare your own progress with anyone else that has played the level.

    Secondly, the inputs are as simple as it gets. You can either use the keyboard, mouse, or gamepad, but no matter the inputs, the controls are the same. You move left to right, and you collect colored blocks. Some cars have specific actions that are activated with an action button. Never does the game get more complicated than “move, get some, dodge others, action button does stuff.” This makes anyone able to play the game. However, unlike most games, there are clearly terms of failure, like when you collect so many blocks that the grid overflows.

    Thirdly is how the game uses music. See, when I was discussing the levels, I didn’t mention- purposefully so- that the levels are generated from the music you select in the program. Any audio file you have- provided it’s not laced with DRM- is a new, exciting level in the game, and a different challenge to overcome. The game intelligently analyzes the song, and forms a landscape with it. The blocks are placed in correlation with the song’s instruments, and a landscape is formed with the pace. Faster parts go down steeper slopes, and slower parts are uphill crawls. The slopes are determined in relativity to the pacing of the songs. But even considering the logical construction of game from music, it does create a different way to interpret and experience the music. Visualizing music is an interesting hobby, and the game is a form for allowing the visuals to serve a function, and for that function to be redeeming in so far as a fun experience.

    Audiosurf’s other virtues are many fold. It’s infinitely replayable, and only ends as soon as you’re out of songs to play. Its aesthetic is beautiful, confident, and moldable to player specifications. It’s an avenue for distribution of new, obscure music that would be difficult to find any other channel. It’s $10. It’s constructed with the love that only a singular developer can provide, AND that developer didn’t go insane and say he was better than some random designers combined. It’s easily scalable and compatible on a host of machines. It supports a wide array of file formats.

    The one possible knock to have against the game is the lack of narrative, which is something that is becoming increasingly necessary in games, for better or worse. There’s no good answer to that, and in the face of the rest of the things games provide, it’s really such a small thing.

    All of these things are why I think Audiosurf is the best game of the year. Sorry it’s out after the actual relevance of the Giant Bomb awards, where I did vote for Audiosurf.

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    LAMP

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    #1  Edited By LAMP

    I promised this quite a while ago, but it’s finally done.

    I’m going to do this Lawrence Lessig style, and explain three issues and then how Audiosurf counters these three issues.

    1. I was going to start with some anecdote about the way things were, but, I know a frankly horrifying amount of people that started playing console games last generation, or maybe with the playstation. They genuinely don’t remember how things used to be on consoles and arcades. So I’m going to attempt to explain this as best as possible.

    Before “immersion” and “storytelling”, games were about “fun.” It’s a weird concept, I know. The idea that having fun and achieving goals isn’t related to story progress or statistics seems completely foreign. Rather, your reward used to be things like entering three characters as your initials and watching your name on the high score board. That used to be enough! That used to be the Holy Grail, the top ten, fifteen, or twenty names on a leaderboard. It was a tangible, provable statistic of how good someone was at a game.

    The issue is that consoles, for a long while, did not have online systems of any fashion. Sega made the first steps towards an internet gaming service on a console, first with the Saturn adaptor and then with the Dreamcast. I’m sure someone will call me out for this, but, there were very rarely games that took advantage of the idea of having people all over the world compete for scores. And despite that, the 32 Bit Era disposed of scores, except for Time Trials and ports of Arcade shooters, instead of the idea of most games having points.

    The modern answer to this is twofold, both best shown on the 360: Friends leaderboards, which I find self explanatory, and Achievements, which were deliberately, and cynically, designed to fill this need. They fail at this task because they don’t say you are the best at anything, just that you can do certain things of varying difficulty. They aren’t a measurement of skill, but rather, of time, and of varied libraries. How do we get rewards in games anymore?

    2. As games have grown, inputs have grown. Pong was played with a dial. Pac-Man was played with a joystick. Galaga was played with a joystick and a button. The NES had the D-pad, two action buttons, and a start and select buttons. Controllers now have at the least 14 buttons (D-Pad is one button, that’s why a D-pad works). This is a key factor as to people losing their interest in gaming. If you have four or five buttons, it’s pretty easy to explain what’s supposed to happen, and what’s supposed to do what. A lot of modern games that we, the game consuming public, think to be the best games ever made alienate these casual players. There’s just too much to remember.

    The need for so much complexity seems artificial most of the time, since it is entirely possible to make games with limited command inputs. The less a game does, mechanically, the more critically acclaimed it seems to be, with the exception of PC gaming. However, the complexity is balanced by the availability of Popcap and other available casual games that almost seem like miniature games.

    The connection between minimalist game design and consumer response is well established; most games that attempt to design a game with as little as possible end up getting large critical acclaim and mild cultural impact, with very little in the way of sales. That is to say, the games that do more with less developed a large, dedicated fan base. Think of how many people you know that quoted jokes from Portal after it came out. Think of how many people- myself included- get excited at any news from Team Ico. Think of how many videos exist of detailed Ikaruga runs. Think of the market response to Mega Man 9.

    The best example of the power of small, minimalist gaming is the Wii game series. All four of those games- Wii Play perhaps undeservedly so- have enjoyed large scale successes, critically and from word of mouth. Of course, Wii Sports was a pack in, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was an extremely well received experience. The lack of complexity resulted in easy explinations, and easy understandings of the system. The limited negative response to Wii Sports seemed to mostly be a case of disliking popular things, or probably more accurately, a backlash against Nintendo for not packing in what we would view as a “Real” game.

    3. Music in games is a very powerful force. Great game music is relived and played on a variety of formats and instruments. Many different songs live on in video game history, being revisited and often remembered favorably. There are now games dedicated exclusively to music, although the interpretation of what a game about music should be seems strange. They extol virtues of you recreating the music, instead of you creating or experiencing the music. It is very much a celebration of songwriters, but not songs.

    Audiosurf meets all three of these concerns, and then extols virtues of its own.

    Firstly, the entire purpose of the game is fun. It aspires to nothing else but fun, and excels in this. The point of the game is to use a vehicle of your choice- each vehicle has different tricks and scoring mechanics- and traversing a course. It takes the familiar puzzle mechanic of tiles moving towards you, and instead, moves you towards the tiles. You collect them and score points with them. There are different achievements and multipliers that can positively or negatively affect your score. Most importantly, for replay value, the levels are automatically uploaded to a global scoreboard. You can immediately compare your own progress with anyone else that has played the level.

    Secondly, the inputs are as simple as it gets. You can either use the keyboard, mouse, or gamepad, but no matter the inputs, the controls are the same. You move left to right, and you collect colored blocks. Some cars have specific actions that are activated with an action button. Never does the game get more complicated than “move, get some, dodge others, action button does stuff.” This makes anyone able to play the game. However, unlike most games, there are clearly terms of failure, like when you collect so many blocks that the grid overflows.

    Thirdly is how the game uses music. See, when I was discussing the levels, I didn’t mention- purposefully so- that the levels are generated from the music you select in the program. Any audio file you have- provided it’s not laced with DRM- is a new, exciting level in the game, and a different challenge to overcome. The game intelligently analyzes the song, and forms a landscape with it. The blocks are placed in correlation with the song’s instruments, and a landscape is formed with the pace. Faster parts go down steeper slopes, and slower parts are uphill crawls. The slopes are determined in relativity to the pacing of the songs. But even considering the logical construction of game from music, it does create a different way to interpret and experience the music. Visualizing music is an interesting hobby, and the game is a form for allowing the visuals to serve a function, and for that function to be redeeming in so far as a fun experience.

    Audiosurf’s other virtues are many fold. It’s infinitely replayable, and only ends as soon as you’re out of songs to play. Its aesthetic is beautiful, confident, and moldable to player specifications. It’s an avenue for distribution of new, obscure music that would be difficult to find any other channel. It’s $10. It’s constructed with the love that only a singular developer can provide, AND that developer didn’t go insane and say he was better than some random designers combined. It’s easily scalable and compatible on a host of machines. It supports a wide array of file formats.

    The one possible knock to have against the game is the lack of narrative, which is something that is becoming increasingly necessary in games, for better or worse. There’s no good answer to that, and in the face of the rest of the things games provide, it’s really such a small thing.

    All of these things are why I think Audiosurf is the best game of the year. Sorry it’s out after the actual relevance of the Giant Bomb awards, where I did vote for Audiosurf.

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    kmdrkul

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    #2  Edited By kmdrkul
    MaSuTa said:
    "

    Before “immersion” and “storytelling”, games were about “fun.” It’s a weird concept, I know. The idea that having fun and achieving goals isn’t related to story progress or statistics seems completely foreign. Rather, your reward used to be things like entering three characters as your initials and watching your name on the high score board. That used to be enough! That used to be the Holy Grail, the top ten, fifteen, or twenty names on a leaderboard. It was a tangible, provable statistic of how good someone was at a game.

    "
    Fun can be found via many different types of games.  That "immersion" and "storytelling" that you put quotes around are prime elements of why so many modern games are fun.  I appreciate your argument, but Audiosurf for GOTY my behind.  You cannot say the game is GOTY when you are using your own definition of GOTY.... unfortunately, that isn't how it works.  Great game? Yes.  Possible other rewards?  Easily...
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    #3  Edited By Gizmo
    MaSuTa said:
    "

    I promised this quite a while ago, but it’s finally done.

    I’m going to do this Lawrence Lessig style, and explain three issues and then how Audiosurf counters these three issues.

    1. I was going to start with some anecdote about the way things were, but, I know a frankly horrifying amount of people that started playing console games last generation, or maybe with the playstation. They genuinely don’t remember how things used to be on consoles and arcades. So I’m going to attempt to explain this as best as possible.

    Before “immersion” and “storytelling”, games were about “fun.” It’s a weird concept, I know. The idea that having fun and achieving goals isn’t related to story progress or statistics seems completely foreign. Rather, your reward used to be things like entering three characters as your initials and watching your name on the high score board. That used to be enough! That used to be the Holy Grail, the top ten, fifteen, or twenty names on a leaderboard. It was a tangible, provable statistic of how good someone was at a game.

    The issue is that consoles, for a long while, did not have online systems of any fashion. Sega made the first steps towards an internet gaming service on a console, first with the Saturn adaptor and then with the Dreamcast. I’m sure someone will call me out for this, but, there were very rarely games that took advantage of the idea of having people all over the world compete for scores. And despite that, the 32 Bit Era disposed of scores, except for Time Trials and ports of Arcade shooters, instead of the idea of most games having points.

    The modern answer to this is twofold, both best shown on the 360: Friends leaderboards, which I find self explanatory, and Achievements, which were deliberately, and cynically, designed to fill this need. They fail at this task because they don’t say you are the best at anything, just that you can do certain things of varying difficulty. They aren’t a measurement of skill, but rather, of time, and of varied libraries. How do we get rewards in games anymore?

    2. As games have grown, inputs have grown. Pong was played with a dial. Pac-Man was played with a joystick. Galaga was played with a joystick and a button. The NES had the D-pad, two action buttons, and a start and select buttons. Controllers now have at the least 14 buttons (D-Pad is one button, that’s why a D-pad works). This is a key factor as to people losing their interest in gaming. If you have four or five buttons, it’s pretty easy to explain what’s supposed to happen, and what’s supposed to do what. A lot of modern games that we, the game consuming public, think to be the best games ever made alienate these casual players. There’s just too much to remember.

    The need for so much complexity seems artificial most of the time, since it is entirely possible to make games with limited command inputs. The less a game does, mechanically, the more critically acclaimed it seems to be, with the exception of PC gaming. However, the complexity is balanced by the availability of Popcap and other available casual games that almost seem like miniature games.

    The connection between minimalist game design and consumer response is well established; most games that attempt to design a game with as little as possible end up getting large critical acclaim and mild cultural impact, with very little in the way of sales. That is to say, the games that do more with less developed a large, dedicated fan base. Think of how many people you know that quoted jokes from Portal after it came out. Think of how many people- myself included- get excited at any news from Team Ico. Think of how many videos exist of detailed Ikaruga runs. Think of the market response to Mega Man 9.

    The best example of the power of small, minimalist gaming is the Wii game series. All four of those games- Wii Play perhaps undeservedly so- have enjoyed large scale successes, critically and from word of mouth. Of course, Wii Sports was a pack in, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was an extremely well received experience. The lack of complexity resulted in easy explinations, and easy understandings of the system. The limited negative response to Wii Sports seemed to mostly be a case of disliking popular things, or probably more accurately, a backlash against Nintendo for not packing in what we would view as a “Real” game.

    3. Music in games is a very powerful force. Great game music is relived and played on a variety of formats and instruments. Many different songs live on in video game history, being revisited and often remembered favorably. There are now games dedicated exclusively to music, although the interpretation of what a game about music should be seems strange. They extol virtues of you recreating the music, instead of you creating or experiencing the music. It is very much a celebration of songwriters, but not songs.

    Audiosurf meets all three of these concerns, and then extols virtues of its own.

    Firstly, the entire purpose of the game is fun. It aspires to nothing else but fun, and excels in this. The point of the game is to use a vehicle of your choice- each vehicle has different tricks and scoring mechanics- and traversing a course. It takes the familiar puzzle mechanic of tiles moving towards you, and instead, moves you towards the tiles. You collect them and score points with them. There are different achievements and multipliers that can positively or negatively affect your score. Most importantly, for replay value, the levels are automatically uploaded to a global scoreboard. You can immediately compare your own progress with anyone else that has played the level.

    Secondly, the inputs are as simple as it gets. You can either use the keyboard, mouse, or gamepad, but no matter the inputs, the controls are the same. You move left to right, and you collect colored blocks. Some cars have specific actions that are activated with an action button. Never does the game get more complicated than “move, get some, dodge others, action button does stuff.” This makes anyone able to play the game. However, unlike most games, there are clearly terms of failure, like when you collect so many blocks that the grid overflows.

    Thirdly is how the game uses music. See, when I was discussing the levels, I didn’t mention- purposefully so- that the levels are generated from the music you select in the program. Any audio file you have- provided it’s not laced with DRM- is a new, exciting level in the game, and a different challenge to overcome. The game intelligently analyzes the song, and forms a landscape with it. The blocks are placed in correlation with the song’s instruments, and a landscape is formed with the pace. Faster parts go down steeper slopes, and slower parts are uphill crawls. The slopes are determined in relativity to the pacing of the songs. But even considering the logical construction of game from music, it does create a different way to interpret and experience the music. Visualizing music is an interesting hobby, and the game is a form for allowing the visuals to serve a function, and for that function to be redeeming in so far as a fun experience.

    Audiosurf’s other virtues are many fold. It’s infinitely replayable, and only ends as soon as you’re out of songs to play. Its aesthetic is beautiful, confident, and moldable to player specifications. It’s an avenue for distribution of new, obscure music that would be difficult to find any other channel. It’s $10. It’s constructed with the love that only a singular developer can provide, AND that developer didn’t go insane and say he was better than some random designers combined. It’s easily scalable and compatible on a host of machines. It supports a wide array of file formats.

    The one possible knock to have against the game is the lack of narrative, which is something that is becoming increasingly necessary in games, for better or worse. There’s no good answer to that, and in the face of the rest of the things games provide, it’s really such a small thing.

    All of these things are why I think Audiosurf is the best game of the year. Sorry it’s out after the actual relevance of the Giant Bomb awards, where I did vote for Audiosurf.

    "
    k
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    Hdfisise

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    #4  Edited By Hdfisise

    I kinda agree with you on this point MaSuTa but I have to disagree about the infinite replayability. While you can use any song it does get extremely boring after a while to most people meaning for everyone I know who bought it, it goes mainly unnoticed. if it had a bit of variety to the events - different minigames to music? I would still be playing it probably but in the current state I just don't think it has the extra oomph needed to take game of the year.

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    Rowr

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    #5  Edited By Rowr

    "You cannot say the game is GOTY when you are using your own definition of GOTY" - kmdrkul

    You got it backwards man, it is HIS GOTY. He can pic whatever the fuck he wants.

    "Before “immersion” and “storytelling”, games were about “fun.” " -Masuta

    Man you can go back pretty much as far as you want in gaming and find titles that were all about immersion and storytelling, granted its become bigger, better and more prominent in recent times.

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