A little over a month ago, I wrote an article about a game called Audiosurf. The game was released a few weeks ago and I finally got around to writing my review for it. So, does it fall flat, or does it live up to the hype (well, my hype)?

Audiosurf is a pretty basic game for the PC. You travel down tracks (created by your music files) collecting colored blocks, making combos, and trying to dodge gray blocks (in special Mono levels). The colored blocks disappear after you complete a combo of three or more, but the gray cars stay for a set period of time (in Ninja Mono’s case, they never go away). One thing to keep in mind is that you should not overfill any of the stacks, because this will empty that stack, causing you to have to wait a few seconds before you can hit anymore cars.

Instead of just telling you what I thought about the entire game, I am going give a brief description for each mode and what I thought about them.

Mono (Three types)
Mono is the most basic mode, it involves dodging gray cars and hitting the colored ones. The first type, just Mono, is pretty easy and mellow. Mono Pro takes out the shoulders (so you only have three lanes to move in instead of the five), and you get the ability to Jump (right mouse button) and Widen (left mouse button). Jump is pretty self explanatory, Widen lets you pick up all the cars going across the lanes at one time. The hardest Mono mode is Ninja Mono. It takes away the jump and adds the ability to destroy the gray cars, which never go away in Ninja Mono.

While Mono and Mono Pro aren’t great, Ninja Mono is really fun. It is probably the best mode in the game. It is much simpler than the rest of the game, but requires quick reflexes and timing.

Pointman (Three types)
In this mode, you have multiple colors to deal with (no grey cars, though). This mode is the most puzzle-like in the entire game. You press the left mouse button to grab incoming cars and then place them in whichever stack you want with the right mouse button. To earn a lot of points in this mode, you really have to try and plan combos. The three levels are Pointman, Pointman Pro, and Pointman Elite. They get harder by adding more colors, but there are no big changes like in the Mono modes.

Really, the game is too fast most of the time for some of the modes and this is one of them. You will be able to get some use out of grabbing cars, but I find that it’s too fast to plan out combos or anything like that.

Double Vision (Three types)
The description of Double Vision says that you can play with one person or two. It’s basically Pointman without the Grab. The track is split down the middle and you have to play with two cars - one on the left and one on the right. Each is controlled seperately.

This might be fun with two people, but in my experience it seemed too confusing and unintuitive to play by yourself.

Vegas (One type)
This one is pretty much the same as Pointman, minus the grab and with an ability that lets you randomize all the cars in your stack.

There is only one variation of this type and probably for good reason, because it really just seems like something they threw into the game. It’s not bad, it just seems kind of pointless.

Eraser (Two types)
In Eraser, you gather cars into your stacks and you can erase a color by holding down the left mouse button and running into a car of that color.

This is another mode that emphasizes creating combo, but it does it in a much better way than any of the previous modes. You don’t have to constantly worry about creating combos, you just glance down at your stacks and see if you have something that could work. It allows you to focus on hitting the cars, and then trying to figure out the best combo, rather than have to constantly plan them out.

Pusher (Two types)
In Pusher, you still gather cars into their stacks. Now, you can also hold the left or right mouse buttons to push cars into stacks that are left or right of you.

This mode is fun on slower songs; however, like so many other modes, it just gets to fast to really use the push ability effectively.

The concept of riding on levels created by music is just awesome and this title definitely shows promise. I’d buy Audiosurf just to support them and see what they do next. However, it does have it’s problems. The Ninja Mono, Eraser, and Pusher modes are really the only ones worth playing. Those are fun to play, but it’s never a good thing to have multiple modes that aren’t all that fun.

That said, I definitely recommend this game to people who like music and rhythm games. While it’s no Guitar Hero, at $10 (which also pays for the Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Ep 1+2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 soundtracks, including the internet’s favorite song), the price is definitely right.

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