A very slick horizontal scrolling racer that has a lot in common with Rez.
There are few very unique and satisfying modes here, first off there's a Tournament race. It's just like any other tournament, where depending on how you place (out of 8) depends on your overall score in the tournament. So that means you can possibly place last somewhere in there so long as you redeem yourself later on. And there are a lot of different areas to race in, although none of the one's I've played last more than about a minute or so. There is a single race, which lets you just jump in and try a race right away from any of the tracks that you've unlocked. Which is a great way to practice up on an area where you're stuck at without having to go through the entire tournament just to get there. There's a Freestyle mode, which lets you manipulate the different streams to make music, which is really pretty damn cool. You can effortlessly change the note type from Beat to Riff for each individual stream, use the left and right bumpers to change what color you're using, turn the hi-hats on and off and change the background. It's just a shame you can't save the "masterpiece" you've put together. But for reasons I don't really understand, when you go to restart from the pause menu, it tells you that restarting costs you 1 tournament point.
Then there is Swarm mode, which I don't think I'll EVER get the hang of. In swarm mode, you control TWO different streams using the left and right analog sticks. And can go up to EIGHT players … 4 people conttrolling two streams at a time. This is something I've definitely gotta try this weekend. Now … I can type two different things on two different computers without skipping a beat. I can carry on 4 different conversations about God knows what WHILE playing Magic : The Gathering, but I CAN NOT do this Swarm mode worth ANYTHING. :P And I keep coming back to it because it's just really friggin' cool.
The graphics, as I said in the opening paragraph are GORGEOUS and you'll be hard pressed to find better in the Indie Games right now. Everything uses a glowing neon vector graphics look to it, with the exception of a VERY rare frame rate hit it moves along smooth as silk, and is just a pleasure to look at. And, your streams, for how simple they are really look elegant as they twist their way around the screen. It almost looks like a ballet. The sound is even more impressive than the graphics, because soundwise, everything reacts to everything. It's hard to describe, you've just gotta experience it for yourself. And this has some GREAT music to go along with it that NEVER gets old. Those of us who play Rez a lot will recognize a lot of the sound effects, and they fit this game perfectly. Mainly the few voices that are in the game, and some of the sound effects. And the game goes into a demo mode after a while of not doing anything at the start menu and just plays itself. Something that you really don't see that much anymore.
The control is sublimely perfect, when you start getting used to it you'll be slipstreaming off of opponents, getting within mere pixels of walls and using those strategies to blow your opponents away, because the way the game works is that going in a straight line makes you go faster, moving in any way slows you down a bit. Now, there are turbo pads of sorts that shoot you across the screen in a temporary speed boost, but being almost pixel perfect in your accuracy means you don't NEED to use them depending on you who you're playing.
Now for the bad. Even the best games have it, and with this one it's quite a nuisance. That elegant streamlined effect the game gives? Where they're PERFECTLY spaced? The engine forces that, and in tight corridors it'll actually realign you into a wall slowing you down to almost a complete halt. Which is extremely difficult to avoid in some parts and has cost me more races than I care to admit to. Now, when you're out in front this obviously isn't an issue, but if you're like me and it takes you a bit longer to get used to the tracks, it gets REALLY irritating.
This is a GREAT game and offers a hell of a challenge if you're a perfectionist. Some people will be put off by the 400 point ($5) price tag, but I look at it this way. If I saw this on a store shelf for 5 bucks with the right type of game description on the back of the box and those screenshots, I'd snag it in a heartbeat.