Beatstream by Smule ($0.99)

[drelbs]

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Looks like you flip colors to match the approaching bars.

2X Warp mode could be crazy with techno - the speed up/down reminds me of toying with the CDR playback speed on the Sega Saturn...

[SharpCarlos]

I tried this out, and I'm impressed. Your "ship" is traveling along a path, sort of like in Beat Coaster, and you tap the screen to toggle between blue and green, to match the upcoming gate. The gates are spaced in such a way that you're generally tapping along with the beat. In other words, each gate or cluster of gates is just AFTER a beat. But, depending on how the song is going, you can't just tap every beat. You might get a few like-colored gates in a row, or a span of time with no gates, so you have to pay attention. At first it seemed impossible to me, even on easy, but then it kind of clicked and I was able to get 100% on a song. On easy. The medium difficulty is noticeably harder, and I haven't been able to unlock the highest difficulty yet.

The game does a good job of capturing the "ride your music" vibe that Audiosurf does so well. My favorite test case for games like this is a Death Cab for Cutie song called "Different Names for the Same Thing", because it starts out slow and quiet but then becomes more intense and beat-centric in its second half. And Beatstream handled it, with the ride feeling faster and more intense when the song shifted. Cool!

"Warped Mode" is about the stupidest thing I've ever seen, and I mean that as a compliment. If you go for a while without messing up, the game speeds up, along with your song. So suddenly this cool song you're a fan of is playing too fast and sounds ridiculous, which causes you to miss a bunch of gates, which causes the song to slow down to slower than its supposed to be, and the whole thing had me laughing out loud. Not the best way to enjoy your music collection, but fun.

I wish it was universal or retina enabled (I'm playing on iPad 3), but of course the graphics aren't the main draw here. Oh, that reminds me: when you make enough mistakes that you fail a song, it causes the music to slow down and die, which is a terrific effect.

So, my initial feeling is that this is going to take a proud spot in my "Music Games" folder.

[gunxsword]

Originally Posted by SharpCarlos

So, my initial feeling is that this is going to take a proud spot in my "Music Games" folder.

What other games in the folder use the player's music library?

Btw if it wouldn't be excruciatingly painful for you, is it possible for you to try a death/technical death/melodic death metal song and see if the app is any good in detecting its rhythm/beat?

Thank you for the review anyhow.

[AnarKitty]

Great user review indeed! This sounds very clever; I'll have to get this and give it a shot.

[Hoggy110]

Just bought this game and put it on my ipod, with a library of over 1700 songs, I think I will have a bit of replay value

One (Metallica) will just be awesome with this game

[SharpCarlos]

Originally Posted by gunxsword

What other games in the folder use the player's music library?

Btw if it wouldn't be excruciatingly painful for you, is it possible for you to try a death/technical death/melodic death metal song and see if the app is any good in detecting its rhythm/beat?

Thank you for the review anyhow.

The closest thing I have to death metal in my collection is the Japanese pop-punk band Maximum the Hormone. On medium difficulty, when things get fast and crazy, the game only makes you tap once every several notes. Essentially the same speed you'd be tapping your foot while listening to the song (depending on how much caffeine you've had). But on the hard difficulty (which I FINALLY unlocked), it seems to me like its doing a great job of detecting the rhythm in addition to the beat. Four quick guitar chords per beat means four gates. It also means a quick and horrifying failure for me, but I hope to get better...

I think a real measure of how good the game syncs up with the music is that I started doing better once I starting paying more attention to the music than to the graphics. Even on medium, the gates are sometimes coming too fast to react to them as you see them. But if you can "feel" the music, you start to tap faster than you can see. "BA ba da BA BA da BA" becomes "tap pause pause tap tap pause tap", if that makes any sense.

Other "use my own music" games I've found:

Beat Hazard
The Real Beat
Tunes World Touch

I also have Rhythmatic and Tapic, but they seem to be broken. iPad 3 issues, maybe?

[Hoggy110]

I have to say that warped mode with heavy metal just sounds epic, especially when its screaming at the highest speed