There are three meters, for track progress, volume and weapon power. These change colour and pulse with the music. Destroying waves of enemies will yield collectable icons, which will increase the volume of the music, power up the weapons or increase the score multiplier. Collecting enough volume and power icons to fill the relevant meters turns on the Beat Hazard weapon, which being the most powerful form should be achieved as quickly as possible so you start laying down the law with style.
The other variation to your fire power is via the music. If it’s quiet, you get a peashooter. If it’s thumping, you get a much larger swathe of destruction to play with. This is frankly awesome because you’ll be in the middle of some serious moshing when all of a sudden, you are left with nothing! Think about the middle of Killing in the Name. However, all is not lost because you can use a few seconds of not firing at all to build up the Daredevil which adds to your multiplier the longer you leave it. You can start to see how each piece of music will lead to a different experience.
When firing the main weapon, the edges of the bullet storm peel off, sparking and pulsing with the music. In addition, destroyed enemies or asteroids leave harmless colourful debris that also joins in with the visual assault. So the more powerful you get, the more destruction there is and the more the screen fills with dancing, flashing, swirling pixels. After a while it can even become overwhelming and there are some seizure warnings that should be taken seriously. Assuming you can handle it though, it’s a visual treat which can be amplified further by levelling up to unlock harder difficulty levels. These are essential to aim for, ensuring it stays fresh in line with your skills.
There are boss battles which fire various forms of bullets or lasers – they aren’t bullet hell on their own and don’t represent too much extra challenge, but if you don’t polish them off quickly the game continues with all the other enemies arriving and suddenly you are in trouble. There is a smart bomb though which can help and also tries to do similar damage to your retinas.
As you level up, various benefits are unlocked so that your score for a particular track can improve, such as increased starting multiplier or even starting with the Beat Hazard weapon. So if you are a score chaser, the boundaries of possibility increase as you progress, so you’ll want to get to the level cap quickly before really going for the scores. You can send bragging notes to those on your friends list which is a cool touch, but there are no online leaderboards. If you have a friend that also enjoys being subjected to strobe lights, then there is a 2-player (local) Co-Op mode. The music is easy to select, being arranged into albums>tracks.
What Beat Hazard has achieved is to be applauded – an indie game with a low price that stands amongst very few games that have succeeded in blending your own music with a fantastic game. It has done it so well that anyone that likes Rez or twin-stick shooters, or having their eyes melted should really give this a shot.
Score: 9/10
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