Edits: I realized I started a new thread on Audiosurf when one was already created, and therefore I apologize. Anyways, here's my quick review...
There's this new game that came out called Audiosurf that I decided try. Priced only at roughly ten bucks downloaded from steam, I figured I had nothing to loose. Of course there's a demo version for those to try out before finally deciding on making a purchase. The way Audiosurf works is considerably different compared to most of the music oriented games out there as such Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero. Audiosurf allows the user to load most sound files from anywhere on their hard disk and will analyze the song file format and render a playable track for the user to surf on.
Initially loading a song will take some time depending on song duration. On average, the song was analyzed and used to render a track in no more than thirty seconds. Unfortunately, most people that begin Audiosurf will suffer from heavy game lag which in turn makes the game play experience unbearable. Ditching all the pretty graphics will up your frames per seconds considerably as well as downloading your latest video card drivers.
When the game starts your character will move automatically much like Tempest (for those who are familiar) and the speed corresponds to the beats and tempo of the song currently playing. I'd recommend selecting a slow song so you can get a good feel of the game play. There are three lanes in which colored blocks will come at you in which you have to collect them in a way similar to how you would in Bejeweled. In addition there are a left and right shoulder in which there is no traffic, (much like a highway) or blocks for that matter. Lining up three or more of the same colored blocks will earn you points. The more you have lined up and the hotter the color, the more points you will rake in.
There are different game modes aside from collecting different colored blocks, for instance you can either play as a Mono Ninja in which case your main objective is to collect as much of the same color (Only one color in this mode) and to avoid gray blocks. Game mode is depended solely on what character you choose. There are fourteen characters you can choose from each one belonging to its own difficulty bracket. You have three casual, six pro and five elite characters to play with. Each character you choose will have a unique set of abilities (with the exception of Mono Ninja and Double Vision) as well as different styles.
At the end of each song your score will be transmitted to the game server, listing your high score compared to other people around the world who played the same song as you did. You might be wondering how the game knows if the song you played is exactly the same. Well, there's really no way to tell for sure. And by same, we are talking about the song artist and song title. The downside is that anyone can alter their music file information to anything they want which then can promote cheating. To battle such unethical cheating endeavors, the author has included the option for reporting players for unfairness. When you mouse over a username in the leader boards, you can see a line graph of the track that was rendered from their song file. If you can distinguish a considerable difference in the line graph of a particular user compared to what the line graph of the original song should look like then you can therefore make a judgement call to report the user in which the administrators will investigate.
Overall, I'd give Audiosurf a 7.5 out of 10. The biggest disappointment for me was the lag which makes surfing tracks with a fast beat intolerable. The devs however are working to resolve this issue, in the meantime you can visit the offical website (just google it) which offers viable solutions to heavy lag.
