"Beat Hazard" offers new spin on music game genre
Dune Lorenz
Issue date: 2/22/10 Section: Entertainment
"Beat Hazard" puts a face on your music, a face with asteroids and space ships who want you dead. You cannot help but smile and say, "Bring it."
A downloadable Xbox Live "Indie" game, "Beat Hazard" was community-made by developer Cold Beam Games. "Beat Hazard" is a space shooter which takes uploaded music from your Xbox 360 and generates enemy patterns and weapon power based on the selected song. The idea behind it was to turn music visualizations into an actual game.
As a result, "Beat Hazard" emerged and favorite music tracks are turned into deadly enemies. Songs are turned into levels, where the goal is to defeat 100 percent of the song while racking up points.
More fast-paced songs tend to generate more enemies, while slower made the levels easier, but the developer made sure fans of either do not miss out with their offering of a fine-tuned balance and adjustable difficulty.
However, for those who may suffer from epilepsy, the game was a little harsh on visuals, especially when it is so demanding on attention. The visuals also generate differently per song, and in the more hectic songs, it is not an exaggeration to say fireworks are exploding in your eyes constantly.
Enemy reactions to your chosen "fight song" quickly becomes addicting, especially if you have a whole library of them. With each song, however, the enemies and power-ups were a little unvaried, but the way they were scattered is key.
Missing a note no longer kills you like in other music-oriented games such as "Guitar Hero." Instead, the killer is an asteroid or a hurtling spaceship caused by the note; it makes saying, "hit me again" far too exhilarating.
You have to keep your eyes wide open as you learn to scurry for those few power-ups. They become your prized weapons in battle.
Scurrying for those "weapons" were often some of the best moments in the game. A good example is when your spaceship reaches a super power-up just in time to blast a gigantic, towering asteroid out of your way as the "fight song" hits its climax. This is only furthered when a batch of enemies surround you at the climax and your super-beams come blasting out of your spaceship, annihilating them all as you taunt them for more.
Despite some flaws, fighting against your music library in "Beat Hazard" is much more fun than just listening to the music, and earns the Pere-Grin.
A downloadable Xbox Live "Indie" game, "Beat Hazard" was community-made by developer Cold Beam Games. "Beat Hazard" is a space shooter which takes uploaded music from your Xbox 360 and generates enemy patterns and weapon power based on the selected song. The idea behind it was to turn music visualizations into an actual game.
As a result, "Beat Hazard" emerged and favorite music tracks are turned into deadly enemies. Songs are turned into levels, where the goal is to defeat 100 percent of the song while racking up points.
More fast-paced songs tend to generate more enemies, while slower made the levels easier, but the developer made sure fans of either do not miss out with their offering of a fine-tuned balance and adjustable difficulty.
However, for those who may suffer from epilepsy, the game was a little harsh on visuals, especially when it is so demanding on attention. The visuals also generate differently per song, and in the more hectic songs, it is not an exaggeration to say fireworks are exploding in your eyes constantly.
Enemy reactions to your chosen "fight song" quickly becomes addicting, especially if you have a whole library of them. With each song, however, the enemies and power-ups were a little unvaried, but the way they were scattered is key.
Missing a note no longer kills you like in other music-oriented games such as "Guitar Hero." Instead, the killer is an asteroid or a hurtling spaceship caused by the note; it makes saying, "hit me again" far too exhilarating.
You have to keep your eyes wide open as you learn to scurry for those few power-ups. They become your prized weapons in battle.
Scurrying for those "weapons" were often some of the best moments in the game. A good example is when your spaceship reaches a super power-up just in time to blast a gigantic, towering asteroid out of your way as the "fight song" hits its climax. This is only furthered when a batch of enemies surround you at the climax and your super-beams come blasting out of your spaceship, annihilating them all as you taunt them for more.
Despite some flaws, fighting against your music library in "Beat Hazard" is much more fun than just listening to the music, and earns the Pere-Grin.
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