Rhythm

It's Friday which means it's time to kick back, go see a movie, hang with a significant other or maybe try out some new games. Valve's Steam service has two games in their line-up priced well below their regular price for this weekend only. One is Beyond Good and Evil, the acclaimed Ubisoft fantasy action-adventure title. It's priced at only $4.99 this weekend. Buy it and check out its goodness before Ubisoft releases its announced sequel to the game.

The other game on sale at Steam this weekend is the indie music rhythm-racing title Audiosurf. For just a few days you can buy and download the acclaimed title for just $4.99, which is a near-perfect price to see what all the fuss is about.

At the young, impressionable, and stupid age of 13, I remember being influenced by Nintendo's horrid Play it Loud television commercials. The sight of gamers like myself rocking out while playing Mortal Kombat II, Super Mario World, Star Fox, Super Street Fighter II and other popular titles at full volume looked totally fun, a guaranteed way to increase the immersion factor of my favorite Super NES games and rebel against the serious, studious parents who, according to Nintendo, wanted to limit my precious gaming time.

Those of you who, like me, attempted to play "it" as loudly as possible most likely recall that the commercials were all hype -- loud, painful, and unrewarding. While pleasant at lower volumes, the sound on the SNES, while not as grating as the underwater gurgling emitted by the Sega Genesis, were muffled, crackly, and distorted at medium to high levels. Even worse, playing it loud didn't exactly sit well with parents. Sure, the commercials showed authority figures staring in disbelief at their wild teenage gamer children, but they forgot to show the part where those crazy kids got grounded for playing games at ridiculous volumes.

Quality sound systems have come into their own since then, with many snazzy setups readily affordable and worth every penny due to the theater-like atmosphere they provide. Couple that with the fact that this generation of games is actually meant to be played at a higher volume than five or six, and it's easy to understand why many gamers value their sound systems above pricey graphics cards.

The Phillips amBX system is more than just a quality audio experience. Equipped with speakers, lights, fans, and a wrist pad offering a more dynamic level of force feedback, amBX is deservedly being billed as a total immersion system, one that won't just bring pleasure to your ears, but to every part of your being involved in the gaming experience.

It didn't get a lot of publicity but last year Guitar Hero III was released for the PC and Mac by Aspyr and it's possible that the next major game in the series, Guitar Hero World Tour, could be heading to the PC as well. A listing on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board site clearly shows a "Windows PC" listing for the Activision game alongside the console versions.

Guitar Hero World Tour will not only feature guitar controllers but a new drum controller as well as singing for the first time along with a way to create your own music that can be used in the game. It's currently due out for release for consoles this fall but so far Activision has not yet confirmed if the PC version will actually be released.

Talk about making a game better on a regular basis. Audiosurf has already received one free, massive update, and now comes another one. This one, though, is interesting. This new update allows the players to make their own game modes by changing the names of the song they are playing. They can do so by adding one or multiple tags after the title of the song. We have to say that this sort of improvements to an already great game just impress us all that much more. An explanation of the system can be found on the Audiosurf forums, and the full list of tags can be found after the break or in the Steam update.

Much like another game we talked about that was a part of the TIGsource Procedural Generation Competition, Cowgirl and Gospelboy ["Sue"] is about surfing along a line while doing some sweet tricks. Unlike sin(surfing) though, Gospelboy dynamically generates the line based on the music. You can either go with the default 2 minute songs or add your own by editing the songs.all file. It's not so much a game as a fun way to relax to your music, almost as if it's a musical screensaver. This TOJam 2008 competitor was also designed and coded by the TOJam founder Nelson Yu. It's a fairly lightweight install, so enjoy!

MCV magazine recently spoke with Activision Blizzard CFO Thomas Tippl on the recent merger between Activision and Vivendi that resulted in the largest gaming conglomerate in existence.

Due to the high number of popular franchises developed by Activision and Blizzard individually, MCV was curious as to which titles might be considered high priority in terms of the new juggernaut's future plans. Not surprisingly, Tippl was quick to herald Guitar Hero, which he stated has "sold more than any video game in the history of the industry," and the continued focus on Call of Duty.

On Blizzard's side of the equation is the ever-popular World of WarCraft, which now boasts more than 11 million worldwide subscribers, making it the leading subscription-based MMO. Coupled with last year's StarCraft II announcement and the more recent unveiling of Diablo III, Tippl didn't have to work hard to convince MCV (or anyone else in the gaming world) that Blizzard's line-up will be as strong as ever through the next several years.

Specifics regarding stock shares were also discussed. When asked if Vivendi's 52 per cent holding classified the merger as more of an acquisition of Activision than a partnership, Tippl discussed the company's recently announced self-tender, " which will last for 20 business days. During that period of time, shareholders who want to sell up can do so at a price of $27.50."

The full interview is available at MCVUK.com.

Now that the TOJam 2008 entries are available, we've decided to showcase some of our personal favorite entries in the competition. One of them, Seas of Cheese, intrigued us with its premise like none of the other TOJam games. While it is a simple side-scroller, it has more to it than meets the eye. The reason? The game is meant to be played with the Rock Band drum controller. Sessions quickly turn into impromptu songs as the player furiously beats on the drums to move and attack. Quite possibly one of the best non-conventional uses of a peripheral we've seen so far.

Just as they have done with iTunes, those in control of The Beatles music have been holding out on video gamers the world over. Until now. According to several sources (Financial Times, GameSpot), MTV Games and Activision are duking it out for the rights to bring The Beatles into the video game revolution.

As everyone knows, Activision publishes the Guitar Hero games, series, which includes Guitar Hero World Tour (the multi-instrument version) due out this autumn, while MTV Games publishes its rival, Rock Band. Obviously both would do just about anything to secure the rights to The Beatles massive back catalog of mega hits.

The Financial Times cites that a deal could be done in just a few weeks; a deal that will in all likely-hood be worth several million dollars. However, final approval would have to come from both EMI (who owns the master recordings) and Apple Corps (who watches over the band's business affaris). With that many levels of red tape, and the fact that Apple Corps has been insanely protective when it comes to releasing their music to digital licensing... let's hope we see it happen in our lifetime.

[via X3F]

At a recent Valve press event, Audiosurf creator Dylan Fitterer spoke on a number of topics related to his Independent Games Festival award-winning title, including why he chose to release his title on PC rather than join the stampede of developers flocking to consoles. Gamasutra was in attendance at the event and offers a synopsis of Fitterer's insightful talk.

As noted by Gamasutra, Audiosurf's success on Valve's Steam digital distribution service "spoke to Valve's unique position in the industry. Still an independent studio, the company is blurring the lines between developer and publisher within the context of digital distribution." Audiosurf quickly became Steam's most successful title in Feburary of this year when it was released, both in terms of revenue and units sold. Priced at a thrifty $9.95, Audiosurf's generated revenue is especially impressive.

Audiosurf's success has pleased Fitterer, who eloquently summarized the process which propelled him from an unknown to veritable indie developer: "I made it basically by myself, I released it on Steam, and it's changed my life. It's been a really big success, way beyond my expectations."

Fitterer's decision to release Audiosurf on the PC had to do with the relative ease of releasing the title when compared to consoles. "I just kept working on it, and eventually I had Audiosurf. I didn't have to ask anyone to release it ... Nobody could turn it down."

Foregoing expenses such as development kits enabled Fitterer to save money, an important factor for any independent developer. The PC's design as an open-ended platform allowed Fitterer to easily and cheaply create content for his customers, something he considers paramount to Audiosurf's success. One such feature: automatic leaderboard generation for any track a user plays.

"On the PC, I have an open dialogue with the customers, a real direct line On the internet, it's emails, it's chats, forums, and social networks. Consoles, to me, are kind of across the wall from all that. There are over 10,000 YouTube videos of Audiosurf. I love that stuff."

Visit Gamasutra for the full Audiosurf postmortem.

Guitar Hero 3, while not as good as some other entries in the genre, is a solid rhythm-music game with a good song selection. While it may suddenly become impossible around the last set or lag when you perform star power, it still has the necessary Guitar Hero chops to be fun. For those who decided to pick it up on PC, good news! There is a new patch for the game, adding optimization for laptops and a "Front Row" camera to reduce framerate lag. Now all they have to do is make Through The Fire And Flames possible, and the game will officially be for the everyman! You can pick up the patch in our very own downloads section.

For those of you who own Audiosurf, (and if you don't then go buy the game, it's cheap!) Dylan Fitterer -- the creator of the indie smash hit -- has released a pretty large update to the game that's completely free. The updated -- titled the FM update -- addes in last.fm audioscrobbling, comments tab on every song's scoreboard, customized player news for the song loading screen and tons more changes. Apparently many of these alterations were made in response to community suggestions and requests.

It's always nice to get big, free updates for games you've already played for hours. Giving players a reason to go back to a game will only remind them of how much they loved it to begin with, especially when things have been improved. We hope this is a continued effort from Dylan with both Audiosurf and his other projects.