Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Broken"

If you don't know, AudioSurf is game in which you pilot a small, futuristic-looking aircraft down a highway modeled after any audio file, and selectively avoid or purposely crash into colored blocks along the way. It's a unique concept, and would be an instant classic if executed well. Unfortunately, it fails at carrying out its basic premise.

Unlike in most other music/rhythm games, the levels in AudioSurf are not actually created by the designers, or even by the player in a corresponding editor. Instead, the in-game highway is procedurally generated by an internal code that attempts to decipher the waveform of the given song.
Keyword: Attempts.
Standard digital audio files do not have markers indicating when each instrument plays a note; how does the game compensate for this? It doesn't. The highway of a given song is created based on volume, and no other factors. This means that only drums will be followed, since they are the loudest instrument. If a song does not have drums, it registers as "mellow" and barely has any notes on the highway. Case in point: "Eruption" by Van Halen is an easy song. There does not exist a song for which AudioSurf will correctly recognize the melody.

So, the "Ride Your Music" motto is inaccurate at best. The game actually consists of riding a random wobbly path while some of Your Music plays as the soundtrack. How does it fair at that task? Unremarkably.
There are six "characters" (game modes) to choose from, though only three are available in every difficulty (without any justification for this omission), and the difference between Vegas, Pointman, Pusher, and Eraser is negligible. Those four, as well as the "Double Vision" multiplayer mode, involve a system of collecting colored blocks and destroying them by matching colors. This combination of frantic obstacle racing and puzzle-esque color matching doesn't mesh in the slightest. Seeing this as a solitary racing game, I find the color matching trivial and annoying, and I'm sure I would find the speed and franticness annoying if I were more laid back and thought-seeking. The one upside is that the goal is to get the best score possible, rather than to "beat" the song (except in Ironmode, a difficulty-increasing option that's disabled by default.)
The only good character is "Mono", which ditches the convoluted color-matching system in favor a simpler objective: Hit the colored blocks, don't hit the gray blocks. This is the one mode you can pick-up-and-play, rather than learning through experience. It's also unambiguously oriented towards skill and reflexes. There's a saying, "less is more" - Mono should have been the only game mode.

AudioSurf is a great and novel concept, but will only shine when given more sophisticated code or a combination of supported editor and large fan-base.