Beat Hazard

[marcodolo]

This is an awesome Xbox 360 Indie game for 400 points. Its basically in the same mold as Geometry Wars but the main difference is it scans your drive for music albums. You can pick any track from any album and play it like a level, which you have to survive to complete. At the end it gives you a track percentage and an album percentage.
The pick ups are the usual score multiplier but then you get volume pick ups and weapons power/music effects, so the track/level becomes more intense the more you play.
Theres also 2 player co-op and challenge mode.
I dont know why more games cant let you use your own music library, I think its a missed opportunity.
By the way, DONT play this game if you are prone to seizures, especially if you crank it up to hard.
Enjoy.

[charlesr]

This is my first indie game trial. I immediately downloaded the full game.

I was using High Contrast's Watch the Ride mix album.
Standing close to the screen (42" on the wall), it was like I imagine it would be if music was piped into your brain. My whole world was music. My whole vision area was pulsing and exploding with the music - it's like a visualiser with game overlay.

Explosion sounds are a bit weak, but otherwise, good audio. Graphics are "spikey" and make good use of HD (something many shooters fail at completely). Enemies are more traditional than GeoWars' hunter style - like Zero Gunner perhaps.

I'm sure this will be good for a few hours of entertainment to drag me away from CoD6.

I'm not sure yet how much the music actually affects the gameplay (rather than the background visuals) - probably not much, but am looking forward to figuring that out.

[charlesr]

There's an update for this. Not sure what it does....

Still love this game.

[charlesr]

This is 80pts. Buy now!

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-GB/Product/Beat-Hazard/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550355

[Fader209]

Does this run the music off the hard drive or a CD in the tray?

[nonny]

I've got the iOS version on my iPhone and it's great.

[Neon Ignition]

I've got Beat Hazard Ultra on PS3, addictive as hell.

[nonny]

That's the one. Nothing like digging up rare tunes to see what it throws at you.

[QualityChimp]

Does this run the music off the hard drive or a CD in the tray?

I was playing a CD and it told me it needed the media player to work. So I stopped the CD and it seems to only work on songs you've ripped to the hard drive.

[Fader209]

Ahh cheers QC. Means I can't play it as I have zero space on my hard drive for music

[QualityChimp]

TBH, it comes with a bunch of songs and it's worth getting for when you do have space!

It really is great fun and a bargain at the moment.

[charlesr]

Yeah, the tunes that come with it are pretty good.

[BIG EDD]

I love it on my I pad 2 it uses Internet radio stations but it's brill on the 360 proper controls at last I can't believe I never spotted the indie section and its an absolute steal at 80 points DOWNLOAD NOW

[charlesr]

Been playing this with some Rage against the machine tracks. Hilarious. They have this habit of suddenly going all quiet and just doing a bass riff or just pausing. Which leave you with NO GUNS AT ALL. Normally right in the middle of a boss battle. Or they leave you with tiny comedy peashooters with which you are trying to take out some massive asteroid flying straight at you. So much fun.

Highly recommend trying the hard mode for extra visuals.

Unlocking Elite mode gives you the Beat Hazard weapon from the word go!

[BaronSqwelch]

just given this a go after getting a score brag off katsujinken x, think starting off with dillinja tracks was a mistake tho have now got ruined eyes aswell as ears thanks to DnB!! need to get some speedcore on the go next