AudioSurf (2008)

AudioSurf (2008)
Dylan Fitterer (Indie)
PC
Single
Arcade

This is a quirky niche game that does sufficiently well what dozens of others have accomplished better. I can't say I didn't like it because something that combines your own personal music (or audio books as I got bored one night) with an F-Zero-esque game is definitely worth a sale purchase and try.

Let me say by a seemingly independent individual this is amazingly done, something I would expect from an upper level college game project (at time of publication) or low-industry end release. Well done sir, my hat is off to you (truly). It has a few ability differences with a limited number of ships to select from, a small assortment of game types, and a frequently steep difficulty curve. The real problem where this falls short for me is the bland progression and limiting versatility. The difficulty of the game is highly HIGHLY dependent on the audio files you load, the game type/mode differences can be so subtle sometimes you don't realize you accidentally selected hard with a slow, soft song--but are ready to curse the gods and your creator when you throw a hard n' heavy song on normal mode.

This falls into a growing chunk of games who do something similar if not exactly alike with nuance-differences to set this apart. As much enjoyment as I myself for 3 hours, I couldn't find anything that set this above or beyond, or achieved through something that gives it a uniqueness I would return to at some future nostalgia pangs. I do expect to review more of them as I go, but I'll purposely spread them around to avoid the copy+paste trend of the reviews.

3/10