The music game genre completely died out a few years ago with the over saturation of Guitar Hero and Rock Band games, for many we questioned whether we would ever see the resurgence of the music game genre again. PC gamers who sought hard enough found Audiosurf and Audiosurf 2 on Steam, but despite Audiosurf's ability to use any song on your PC to play, it didn't quite fill the void. Both Harmonix and Activision attempted to revive the music game genre with Rock Band 4 and Guitar Hero Live respectively; but Harmonix had another trick up their sleeve that is much cheaper and more inventive.
In 2001 Harmonix released a little known music game called Frequency, it featured no plastic instruments, just the input of your PS2 controller and some quick fingers. Two years later they released a slightly more successful sequel called Amplitude but it still didn't attract enough attention to get excited about. These games went on to be cult classics and for a long time many thought the series would never see the light of day again, enter Kickstarter.
2016's Amplitude is the result of a successful Kickstarter campaign to revive the series and give music game fans a new experience that didn't require shelling out £60+ for plastic controllers. Instead Amplitude is a PSN game that costs just £15 and uses the shoulder buttons of your Dualshock controller to play.
The songs various instruments appear on different tracks, similar to what you would expect from a Rock Band game, but only have 3 types on note on the track (corresponding to L1, R1 and R2) as opposed to Rock Band's 5 notes. To play Amplitude you must complete a chain on one instrument then jump to another instrument track and play the notes on there, after a short amount of time the track will disintegrate and you can jump to another without having to worry about hitting the notes on that track.
In 2001 Harmonix released a little known music game called Frequency, it featured no plastic instruments, just the input of your PS2 controller and some quick fingers. Two years later they released a slightly more successful sequel called Amplitude but it still didn't attract enough attention to get excited about. These games went on to be cult classics and for a long time many thought the series would never see the light of day again, enter Kickstarter.
2016's Amplitude is the result of a successful Kickstarter campaign to revive the series and give music game fans a new experience that didn't require shelling out £60+ for plastic controllers. Instead Amplitude is a PSN game that costs just £15 and uses the shoulder buttons of your Dualshock controller to play.
The songs various instruments appear on different tracks, similar to what you would expect from a Rock Band game, but only have 3 types on note on the track (corresponding to L1, R1 and R2) as opposed to Rock Band's 5 notes. To play Amplitude you must complete a chain on one instrument then jump to another instrument track and play the notes on there, after a short amount of time the track will disintegrate and you can jump to another without having to worry about hitting the notes on that track.
To hear the instruments simultaneously and therefore hear the song as it's intended it's a game of strategy and memory, working out which tracks need to be played first and which songs can wait a little longer before the instrument will fade out. Depending on the song you'll have around 5-6 instrument tracks to juggle, so keeping the full audio track going proves an extremely difficult task, but an immensely rewarding one if you can keep your combo up and manage your track jumping well. To help you can unlock powers to aid you in clearing tracks or slowing down time to help you hit complex clusters of notes easier. Despite this Amplitude is a very difficult game, after having played on the 2nd easiest difficulty setting (Intermediate) for the whole campaign and struggling throughout I gave the next difficulty a try and was ashamed at how badly I screwed up, but I was compelled to improve and now I'm on the highest difficulty. This steep difficulty curve isn't frustrating but actually rather rewarding and addictive.
Unfortunately the song list is Amplitudes Achilles heel which for a music game is a pretty important part of the game. For fans of electronic and dubstep music, you're catered for up to the eyeballs with a game that was pretty much designed for you, but for everyone else you'll find nothing to satisfy you. No rock, no pop, no country (not that anyone is missing that), just straight up electro and dubstep. The majority of the tracks are created by Harmonix themselves and as a fan of electro music they are pretty damn good. This combined with the complex gameplay provides one of the best music game experiences I have had since DJ Hero.
The other big problem is that there aren't many songs available, 15 for the campaign and around 15 more unlockable songs for Quickplay. Not to mention that after playing for a few songs they kind of blur together a little because some sound quite similar. There are standout songs for sure, I'll probably get hold of them and put them on my iTunes but it's unfortunate the song list is so small in this, here's hoping there's more released through DLC.
Unfortunately the song list is Amplitudes Achilles heel which for a music game is a pretty important part of the game. For fans of electronic and dubstep music, you're catered for up to the eyeballs with a game that was pretty much designed for you, but for everyone else you'll find nothing to satisfy you. No rock, no pop, no country (not that anyone is missing that), just straight up electro and dubstep. The majority of the tracks are created by Harmonix themselves and as a fan of electro music they are pretty damn good. This combined with the complex gameplay provides one of the best music game experiences I have had since DJ Hero.
The other big problem is that there aren't many songs available, 15 for the campaign and around 15 more unlockable songs for Quickplay. Not to mention that after playing for a few songs they kind of blur together a little because some sound quite similar. There are standout songs for sure, I'll probably get hold of them and put them on my iTunes but it's unfortunate the song list is so small in this, here's hoping there's more released through DLC.
The games graphical presentation on the PS4 is gorgeous. Similar in style to Audiosurf, the tracks weave around interesting backgrounds that light up and react to how well you are plaing. Modelled around a human brain, you can see electricity pulsing through synapses and nerve endings responding to the music. It's extremely beautiful to look at and I often found times when I wasn't worrying about hitting notes to just stare at what was happening around me.
The ships are intricately detailed with several variants available. None of them have any particular benefit but you may as well look cool whilst playing the game. They all look like a cross between a pod racer from Star Wars Episode I and something out of Tron, almost alien in design and held together by light. The sound, is as you would expect from a music game, superb. That's really all there is to say on that.
Amplitude also has a story to it. It's also a really really interesting one, but unfortunately it's kind of in the background with only a few short lines of dialogue before songs to give you any idea as to what's actually going on.
It appears that Amplitude is an experimental medical program that is designed to bring people out of a coma by stimulating their brain with music in an attempt to reactivate it. Your journey is through the brain of a woman known as Sarah and besides hearing a few unknown voices giving you an update on her condition you know little else. But when failure of a song means giving Sarah irreversible brain damage you kind of begin to have an incentive to not fail beyond just having a crappy score at the end.
It would have been nice to see this fleshed out more as it certainly gives Amplitude another layer of complexity that many of the music game rivals simply can't compete with.
So is Amplitude worth your time? If you like electronic or dubstep music then absolutely, if not and you're willing to give it a try then sure go for it, but if you can't stand the stuff then steer well clear. It's a shame because Amplitude is such a fantastic game, from the way it's complex gameplay is designed to the beautiful graphics and intriguing story. Here's hoping DLC song packs get released for it and perhaps even a new sequel a few years down the line!
The ships are intricately detailed with several variants available. None of them have any particular benefit but you may as well look cool whilst playing the game. They all look like a cross between a pod racer from Star Wars Episode I and something out of Tron, almost alien in design and held together by light. The sound, is as you would expect from a music game, superb. That's really all there is to say on that.
Amplitude also has a story to it. It's also a really really interesting one, but unfortunately it's kind of in the background with only a few short lines of dialogue before songs to give you any idea as to what's actually going on.
It appears that Amplitude is an experimental medical program that is designed to bring people out of a coma by stimulating their brain with music in an attempt to reactivate it. Your journey is through the brain of a woman known as Sarah and besides hearing a few unknown voices giving you an update on her condition you know little else. But when failure of a song means giving Sarah irreversible brain damage you kind of begin to have an incentive to not fail beyond just having a crappy score at the end.
It would have been nice to see this fleshed out more as it certainly gives Amplitude another layer of complexity that many of the music game rivals simply can't compete with.
So is Amplitude worth your time? If you like electronic or dubstep music then absolutely, if not and you're willing to give it a try then sure go for it, but if you can't stand the stuff then steer well clear. It's a shame because Amplitude is such a fantastic game, from the way it's complex gameplay is designed to the beautiful graphics and intriguing story. Here's hoping DLC song packs get released for it and perhaps even a new sequel a few years down the line!
STORY: 5/10
GAMEPLAY: 9/10
PRESENTATION: 8/10
LIFESPAN: 7/10
SCORE: 7/10
A lot of thought and love has gone into this game and I'm proud to be a part of helping it see the light of day through Kickstarter.