One day I was listening to music on my stereo while playing through songs on Guitar Hero; I just got bored of the songs that are on Guitar Hero itself, but I still enjoy the game play. Quite perplexing. Well, what if there was a game where I could play through any song of my choice and feel pretty cool while doing it? That's where Audiosurf comes in, an interactive music game from Dylan at BestGameEver.com.
Audiosurf's scheduled release is for February of 2008, and it's going to be a free music "riding" game for your PC.
Audiosurf allows you to experience the intensity and emotion of your songs in real time, in full color, and in 3D. Songs that give you an adrenaline rush are converted into wild roller coaster rides full of color and motion. Songs that calm you down appear as cool colors against a relaxing sky. Audiosurf enhances the experience of your music collection by synchronizing its environment to the events in your songs--the beats, the intense sections, the long pauses followed by a burst of sound, all take on a more vivid meaning.
Sounds good, but what does it mean? Well I wondered that same thing so I signed up for the Beta release which I just got accepted into yesterday and boy oh boy is this game fun.
What you do is load a song; any song that you wish, be it from a CD, your computer, or just one of the songs preloaded into the game itself, and the game scans the song and creates a track that moves with the song. The game reads all CD, MP3, iTunes M4A, WMA, or OGG files for your listening and traveling pleasure.
You control a ship that flies along the track with one goal, try to get as many points as possible. To get points you have to collect corresponding colored blocks which build up and earn you points. It's pretty simple and lots of fun.
Slow parts of songs slope upwards while fast parts jet downwards in a blurry haze of colored blocks and trippy graphics. Also depending on what difficulty you're playing on you have a choice between a few characters who each have their own special ability to help you amass points during a song; such as Pointer who can pick up a colored block and put it in a different column, or Shuffler who mixes the columns up and hopefully scores you some points by doing so.
There's even an online leader board for every single song that ever gets played, so if you're playing through a ton of obscure underground music chances are you're not going to have too much competition there, but if you play something mainstream or well liked you'll have to beat the best of the best to get a high score.
I'm really enjoying my time on this game, it gives me that adrenaline boost that I haven't gotten from games in a really long time. Audiosurf is also ideal for relaxing after a long day at work or school, just pop in a slow song and cruise down the highway and groove.
You can visit the informational site here.
You can also visit the other site where you can sign up for the Beta (if they're still accepting) here.
-Undrallio 
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