Beat Hazard

[Mincus]

Heh. And there's me on the Beat Hazard forums asking for FLAC support.

[Passerby]

Heh. And there's me on the Beat Hazard forums asking for FLAC support.

yes flac is a must have

is the game worth getting

[blue_h3x]

Heh. And there's me on the Beat Hazard forums asking for FLAC support.

yes flac is a must have

is the game worth getting

I was wondering about, the lack of demo was putting me off, I like to see the game in action first. And yes FLAC is needed.

[Mincus]

Heh. And there's me on the Beat Hazard forums asking for FLAC support.

yes flac is a must have

is the game worth getting

For the game itself, I would say yes.
But, it lacks some basic features, FLAC support was a big one, I've not tried OGG but I wouldn't be surprised if that's missing as well. However they use BASS (same as Audiosurf) so these should be easy to remedy once they recover from the inevitable torrent of audiophiles/geeks/sad gits like myself.
No unicode support yet either, which again is being asked for by many.
The Steam achievements are a bit lacking. There's no limit to the multiplier, so a 30 minute song on easy can see you get most of them as soon as you understand the basics of the game.
No resolution support and the game forces vsync off (even if you force it on through something like the nvidia control panel, the game will actively force it off during play).
Windowed mode is only achievable through alt-enter after the game is run and the window isn't resizeable, unfortunately.

So yes, despite that torrent of issues, it's because it's a cheap port from the 360 and has only been out on Steam for a few days. I'm sure most of those will be fixed but the game itself is fun.
It's less cerebral than Audiosurf (no puzzle element, just shooting with bullets / enemy spawn in time to the music) and I've not found any global high score tables yet, although they use Steam to compare your scores against your friends.

[blue_h3x]

There any PC gameplay videos about?

And, ew console port. Should be the other way round imo

[Mincus]

Few on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=beat+hazard+pc&aq=f

PC support just adds wasd + mouse to the dual-stick on the 360 pad. Only supports the 360 pad though, no others.

[blue_h3x]

Does look rather similar to bullet candy, though it's hard to see how the game changes with the music, and the ott effects make it hard to work out what's happening at times.

[Mincus]

Dev has said he's adding more file types, looks like FLAC and M4A will be included at least.
Also said that they'll be an update on Monday, so I'll post again if that is a deciding factor for anyone.

I know I shouldn't really advertise other games on one forum, but I suspect there's a significant overlap and I did mention Audiosurf when mentioning Unicode support over on the Beat Hazard forum, so I think I'm justified there.
Also, imo, helping any indie game helps the entire game industry right now, so many commercial titles are stagnant and even the more innovative companies like Valve tend to re-release same-game style content as much as coming up with something new.

Guess this is getting a bit off-topic, maybe it could be split into a separate thread in chat if people wish to continue talking about it.

[ViRUS]

Guess this is getting a bit off-topic, maybe it could be split into a separate thread in chat if people wish to continue talking about it.

You want it, you get it

[Mincus]

Guess this is getting a bit off-topic, maybe it could be split into a separate thread in chat if people wish to continue talking about it.

You want it, you get it

<3

[blue_h3x]

It's split, but no new stuff to read

Control wise, is it just arrows - move, mouse aim/fire?

[Mincus]

It's split, but no new stuff to read

Control wise, is it just arrows - move, mouse aim/fire?

Yeah, the actual base game is nothing new, but it pulls in your music collection, obviously.
The louder the music, the more you shoot, getting a boss at a quiet point in a track can be quite a challenge.

wasd or cursors to move, mouse to aim or left-stick for movement/right-stick for firing on a 360 pad.

[Razaeria]

Definitely eye candy, that's for sure.

Looks like Audiosurf and Geometry Wars had a lovechild.

[blue_h3x]

Definitely eye candy, that's for sure.

Looks like Audiosurf and Geometry Wars had a lovechild.

lol

Yeah, the actual base game is nothing new, but it pulls in your music collection, obviously.
The louder the music, the more you shoot, getting a boss at a quiet point in a track can be quite a challenge.

wasd or cursors to move, mouse to aim or left-stick for movement/right-stick for firing on a 360 pad.

So the music controls your fire power?

[Mincus]

So the music controls your fire power?

It controls pretty much everything, the more going on in the music, the more OTT the graphics get. I have a real problem tracking things with so much going on and I'm only JUST managing to play it on normal now.

Also, there is a little more strategy going on underneath than it first seems, it's not just "blast away for the entire song". If you stop shooting for around 5 seconds you get a "dare devil" bonus multiplier (the exact amount this adds to your multiplier depends on your "level"), so it's often worth ignoring a wave of basic ships or asteroids for 10-15 seconds to bump your multiplier up. Equally you can just use a smart bomb on a boss, which if positioned correctly will kill it in a single shot, then just bump your multiplier waiting for the next wave of enemies or you could save a smart bomb (they are the only way out when things get too hectic, afterall) and shoot it normally but miss the chance to bump your multiplier up so much.
It's not a lot, but it does add some variation and an added layer of difficulty to the game that is often missing from similar shooters.