A game that breaks the mold of traditional rhythm games
The reason that Amplitude stands out from the average rhythm game is that you actully CONTROL the music (and you can play without looking like a dancing fool.) You have a whole range of instruments from Bass, to Vocals and Guitars, and Drums. All of these instruments run along a wide road of bars, with different colors to match the instrument. Blue is Bass, green is Vocal, and orange is Guitar. The goal here is to use your so called Beatblaster and capture every musical note on the bar using the shoulder buttons (L1 for left, R1 for middle, and R2 for right.) Capture all the bars, the bar explodes, and the track for that instrument will play until a new bar for it is reached. When I say that the track continues playing, that means that capturing notes on other bars for the song you are playing will add an instrument from that song. If you capture all the notes on Drums and Bass, the bass and drums from that song will play on until new bars for it come up. There are also power-ups such as Slo-Mo , Score Doubler and Freestyle , which lets you fly around as a circle of light and allows you to add to the music, depending on what song is being played. Scratching, weird sound effects. It's also a great tool to use if you're running low on power and end up on difficult notes, because you are free from notes for up to 30 seconds. Plus, freestyling (done by holding the shoulder buttons and moving around, or hitting L3/R3) will raise your score. Very useful.
You can also initate combos which multiply your score up to eight times. To do this, you need to destroy a bar and move to another bar with an arrow pointing at it and the multiplier above it. Multipliers range from 1x to 8x. The higher the score, the better your rank is. Having a higher score will let you unlock bonus stages. Aside from that, they do not serve much purpose in Amplitude.
The game has over 20 songs. 26, to be exact. from David Bowie , to Quarashi , Pink , and Weezer . nd so so much more. All of these songs are full of attitude, and they put you in the mood to move those fingers like you've never moved them before. And trust me, you will need to.
Amplitude also sports rather basic graphics, but puts them to great use. Hitting a note will make the background react to it. It's hard to say what will react, as every song has it's own level, and each level has it's own theme. So one song will have speakers pumping and video screens turning, and another will have a funky background shifting around with different colors and shapes everytime you hit a note, sending bursts of magical seizure-inducing color into your eye sockets. Don't blame me if you lose your tounge.
One of the rather unimportant (but still neat) parts of Amplitude or your "freQ", your avatar. You can customize him with a selection of heads, chests, legs, arms, emblems, accessories, which can all be unlocked as you play through the game. Certain avatar clothing can only be obtained over certain difficulties on certain songs, so if you do want to unlock everything there is for your freQ, you'll probably be spending a lot of time. Your freQ als will be shown in a singleplayer game (sometimes on the monitors in the background) and transfered online for all to see. Bragging rights are fun!
The game will give you countless hours of replay time. There's the singleplayer mode, which lets you play the game with four difficulties. Mellow, Normal, Brutal, and Insane . Some songs can only be played on the harder difficulties. On Insane, all 26 songs can be unlocked and played. Besides singleplayer, you can also enter the remix mode. You can select any of the 26 songs in the game and set the notes for the song using L1, R1, and R2. You can set the BPM, how long they repeat, their pitch, ect. They give you a lot to customize. Once you're finished with the remix, you can play them, or upload them online. And I have to mention the online mode. It's like regular Amplitude, but you have the ability to play against other people across the world. Nowadays it does not have many players, and I cannot comment on how well it plays online as I am dealing with firewall problems which forbid me from joining an online game. But I assume it's just as good as the singleplayer, but you have the ability to play up to against four people on the selected song. No matter how you play the game, you'll end up throwing your controller at the wall in sheer frustration.
If you have a PS2 and $15, this game is a very worthwhile purchase, even if you are not into rhythm games. It has a very well done soundtrack, colorful graphics, great gameplay, great extra features, and an online mode that will keep you hooked for hours on end. Just remember that you might spend extra on Excedrin Migraine.