Beat Hazard- Indie Game

‘Beat Hazard’ combines the two best things into one, no it is not sex and extra violent movies, it is music and games. ‘Beat Hazard’ is created by ‘Cold Beam Games’ and can be bought on computer ($9.99 for full game, $12.99 for full game + all dlc), PS3 ($9.99 for full game + all dlc) and Ipod/Iphone ($2.99 for full game).  

Gameplay

In ‘Beat Hazard’ you are a little space ship in space and random meteorites and enemy space ships attack you. The controls are very basic, all you have to do is move, aim and fire (unfortunately the IPod/IPhone version auto aims). When the game starts up you are given the option of how do you want to play which are single player, local multiplayer and online multiplayer (IPod/IPhone does not come with multiplayer). Once selected, you get to choose your game mode which are a basic mode (game goes for one song or until you run out of lives), survival (game goes through your entire library of music until you run out of lives) and free mode (game never ends and you have infinite lives).

Then the unique part comes in, you get to choose a song from your music library to play on. Each song will have its own unique feel. Depending on the intensity of the song, your level will be harder the more intense the music is but your lasers will be stronger. Various upgrades are dropped from enemies like increase the sound of the music making your lasers stronger and also a power upgrade which also increases your lasers damage. The game has a very awesome arcade feel to it by having a point system so you can compare to your friends and beat their high scores on various songs.  

When you start to rack up your points, you could trigger a random boss battle. These boss battles can be very annoying but fun at the same time. Also, with all the different coloured lasers flying across the screen, it makes you feel like you are witnessing a colour explosion (probably because your spaceship just exploded).

Graphics

The graphics of the game are very basic because it is a bird’s eye view game but the amount of colour in the game just blows my mind. I have honestly never seen so many colours on my screen at one time.

Overview and rating

‘Beat Hazard’ is defiantly a unique Indie Game and I just love the game. I could play it for hours. Also the freedom it gives you by getting to choose one of your own songs from your computer, PS3 or IPod/IPhone just makes the game feel very personal and I just loving destroying enemies while rocking out to my favourite song. Down sides are the insane difficulty some of the boss battles you get and also that you have no health, one hit and you’re a life down. But I say that this game defiantly needs to be played by more people and I just love the feel of the game.

That is why I am giving ‘Beat Hazard’ a

9/10

Review written by Will