In my ever growing quest to use a shit load of money on crap I don't really want/need, I headed to the steam store where upon I saw Beat Hazard, a relatively obscure looking (at the time) indie game for the low low price of £5.29 or something stupid. As I was already on a spending spree of various things that day, I thought to myself "SOD IT! I am going to buy this for no reason and with the intention of playing it for 5 minutes, getting bored and leaving it like many other steam purchases!". So I did. I bought it...
4 Hours later....
This is brilliant! Why wasn't this game made years ago!?! If you could possibly imagine a weird Frankenstein-esque stitching together of the games: Asteroids (gameplay), Ikaruga (style) and Audiosurf (colours and music-ness) you kind of have Beat Hazard. It's a kick-ass rollercoaster ride of pain and bright colours as you shoot the shit out of your music collection. As I previously said, it's core gameplay is Asteroids - avoid stuff and shoot. But this time it's twisted with elements of Ikaruga, you get power-ups for killing enemies and destroying inexplicable space debris that come in various flavours.
1. Vol - This allows the volume of the track to increase slightly, you start off with the track quite low and quiet and this powerup makes it louder and clearer
2. Pow - This increases your weapon power and once it's maxed out along with the volume counter, it will produce a rather strong beam that will help eliminate enemies with much more ease
3. +1 - Score Multiplier - it's pretty self-explanatory
4. (bomb icon) - Adds a superbomb - otherwise known as the 'Fuck you missile' or the 'Oh I'm in shit, last resort weapon'
If you've played Asteroids before, you can guess at least one of the types of enemies that you'll encounter in this game, this time replaced only aesthetically by balls of space debris. They make up the largest enemy base but there are enemy space ships as well along with deadly orbs and missiles. The mini-bosses are large space ships that have two guns on each side and have several special attacks ranging from a laser beam shot to shooting several missiles at once. It's quite common for several of these mini-bosses to appear frequently in certain songs (yes, even in classical music).
There is no health system, if you get hit, you lose a life. People have become too complacent with pussy health meters and so on. Losing a life incurs a penalty on your powerups and on your score multiplier and you eventually learn to stop being a bitch and take it like a man. After each song is completed or you've run out of lives, your total score will be listed and a progress bar will fill up. After a certain amount of points has been accumulated you'll rank up and unlock new things such as more lives or even starting out with a few power-ups.
There are a total of 4 difficulty levels Easy, Normal, Hardcore and Elite. Easy is a piece of piss and a one armed hobbit with one eye could play it. Normal is more challenging with increased visuals and enemies, Hardcore is a step up from that but Elite is a pain in the thumbs, seriously, unless you have a magic ability to concentrate on about 80 things at once, look where you are firing and listen to music, this will pwn you into the ground.
Graphics & Audio:
The graphics in general are decent whereas the visualizer effects found in the game are quite impressive. While playing on hardcore or elite, you'll be sure to be tripped out by the visuals. As for the audio, the game included some default tracks to get you started which along with the sound effects were decent.
Warning: The visuals do get a bit rough on the eyes after a while though so you might want to avoid playing "Hardcore" or "Elite" continuously unless you have amazing eye vision. That seizure warning in the main menu is probably no joke either....
All in all, an excellent, little, cheap, shooter which has infinite replay value and stunning visuals. You make the soundtrack so I can't complain about that... Actually, I haven't complained about anything... Oh wait, when selecting tracks, there is the option to "show folders", my suggestion is to do away with that and have them showing all the time because it is a bit of a pain to keep clicking it. That is literally my only gripe. I love this game and will be beasting my way through it to get those sweet, sweet steam achievements.
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Originally Posted by Gamerfm_tango
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