Audiosurf (and the best songs to play on it)

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 12:38 am

http://www.audio-surf.com/

Here we have a video game ($10 on Steam) whose levels are derived from audio files. The full version comes with the soundtrack to The Orange Box and lets you use any mp3, m4a, wma, ogg, flac, or cda file on your hard drive (provided it's DRM free). It reads tempo more or less accurately, and places the power-ups and obstacles in accordance with beats. It tends to favor songs with really heavy beats. Winds up playing a bit like a cross between Guitar Hero, Tetris, and a rhythm game.

And it's totally addictive.

I've had fun so far with (in particular):

Warren Zevon - Detox Mansion
Poe - Wild
AC/DC - Thunderstruck
Electric Six - Improper Dancing (especially the "Stop! ...Continue" bit)
really anything by Electric Six
Anything by Andrew W.K. (I knew there was some use for him!)
MC Frontalot - Pr0n Song
Doves - There Goes the Fear
The Traveling Wilburys - Heading for the Light
Dexy's Midnght Runners - Come on Eileen

Has anyone else tried this game yet? What songs have you tried, and found to work well?

Billy's Little Trip · Fri Feb 29, 2008 11:32 am

Looks interesting. Did you buy it, or just using the demo?

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 11:41 am

I tried it out briefly on demo mode. It is pretty cool. The first song I used was, somewhat appropriately (and accidentally), a Severed Heads song called "The Men Who Get More"... I liked picking up those sets of boxes while the dude says, "These are the men who make one call before quitting... make two calls... make three calls... make thirty-seven calls!"
-bill

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 12:27 pm

I played it on my friend's account; he bought the full version of the game, and I will too as soon as I get a free hour or so.

Tonamel · Post by **Tonamel** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 3:16 pm

I met the guy who made this at the GDC. He's a cool guy, so it's nice that the game's been so successful. When I spoke with him a week ago, it had been the #1 seller on Steam ever since it's release.

Also, Battles - Atlas is double awesome in this game.

EmbersOfAutumn · Post by **EmbersOfAutumn** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:35 pm

Just bought the full version today. Love it, but then again--i'm pretty easily amazed when it comes to video games. I've played some of my favorite SongFight! artists, some of my songs, and a few albums on my computer. It's pretty innovative actually. I'm thinking of posting some levels on YouTube of songs from songfight--...as soon as i figure out how it's done.

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 8:48 am

I've noticed some Songfighters' songs, even the ones who are renowned for their production quality, tend to be fairly sparse, or lurch a little more than mainstream recordings do. I wonder why this is?

Anyway, I forgot to mention The Grammar Club. Pretty much the whole Bremelanotide EP is really fun on Audiosurf.

I finally bought the full version. My Steam name is Trickyhipster, if anyone wants to friend me.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 1:04 pm

Yeah, this is fun, I bought it (so cheap!). I am unsurprisingly HeuristicsInc on there. I also added Mr. Eric to my friends.
-bill

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:05 pm

MC Frontalot - "Hassle: The Dorkening" has a ridiculously high traffic concentration: 235 cars in 2:23. It's intense.

EmbersOfAutumn · Post by **EmbersOfAutumn** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 7:01 am

I'm thinking of posting a few on YouTube, but the video capture program starts to bog down with the AudioSurf program running at the same time.

Does anyone know of a good video capture program that uses computer resources well and won't bog down the gameplay?

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:25 pm

Hey, is goetzathome one of you guys? We've been fighting for the top spot on a bunch of MC Frontalot songs. Fun stuff.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:01 pm

Does the program depend entirely on ID3 tags for its comparison to other players? It seems that in the absence of tags it can't figure anything out.
-bill

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 2:18 pm

It reads tags for artist and title, and anyone with a tag which says the same thing will be scored for the same song. This means that live songs which aren't labeled as such will get scored with the same players who played on the studio version.

When you see the scoreboard, you can highlight any name up there and get a graph of what their track looked like, and report fraud if you suspect it.

That also means that thanks to my idiosyncratic labeling system, I'm the only person in the world who's played "Stephen's Last Night in Town" by "Ben Folds (Five)." Heh.

And yeah, untagged songs confuse Audiosurf. You can still play them, you just can't compare scores online. My copy of Brother Machine's Going Nuts is untagged, so that kind of sucks. Oh well.

Get this game, people! What are you waiting for?

jimtyrrell · Post by **jimtyrrell** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 4:24 pm

Gotten. Awesome.

I think I'm the only one who has done I Can Not Function by Glenn Case. I CHALLENGE YOU

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:58 pm

Challenge accepted, dominated.

JimT, I tried to friend you, but Steam couldn't find you. Weird.

jimtyrrell · Post by **jimtyrrell** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:27 pm

My profile name is exactly that: JimT.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:28 pm

Generic wrote:Challenge accepted, dominated.

Who dominated? Heh! Rock.
I'd never heard that song before. It's great!
Strangely bouncy course. The courses in this game really do mirror the sound of the song well.
-bill

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:54 pm

Oooh, touché.

jimtyrrell · Post by **jimtyrrell** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:50 am

Holy crap HInc.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:26 pm

heh, thanks. want a challenge? i tried one of my favorite songfight songs, "more than soup" by starfinger. the instrumental breakdown part gets crazy fast. awesome. anyway there is my challenge for, uh, i guess today. it's after midnight.
-bill

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 8:48 am

I got an email that says JimT dethroned me from the Glenn Case song

Doesn't say whether that's Novice or Pro, though, have to check later.
-bill

jimtyrrell · Post by **jimtyrrell** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 9:47 am

BWAHAHA it's novice.

Here's a couple songs I tried this morning:

1) Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire. Not as frantic as I thought it'd be. But I was doing that one on novice too.

2) Frank Zappa - Jazz Discharge Party Hats. From the album 'The Man From Utopia'. I was laughing the whole way through this one.