Audiosurf

Title
Developer
Publisher
Genre
ESRB Rating
Demo Release Date
Full Release Date
Platforms
Official Website
Demo Download Size
Review Date

Audiosurf
Dylan Fitterer
Valve
Rhythm
Not Rated
15th February 2008
15th February 2008
PC (Reviewed)
http://www.audio-surf.com
Unknown
4th September 2008

What did I think before playing?
I had heard a lot of hype about this and it is a bit of an Indie hit. It would be cool to take the music I already had into a game to play, but I didn't think it would really work, (e.g. match up to the beat.)

What is included?
Tutorial levels that show you how the game works, what you need to do and what affects different songs will make on the game. You can also create an online account to add yourself to leaderboards for the games you play. While online you can also search for the scores for pretty much any other song you can think of since someone will have used it in Audiosurf.

What did I think afterwards?
It turns out that this is really just a Columns style game of connect-tree-or-more with a little bit of decision making to be made while flying through the beats of your songs. I only have a couple of MP3s handy and I wasn't familiar with them so it is touch to judge how well the "notes" matched up to the songs, but it did feel like certain colors matched up to the beat. I'm not so sure about the rest of the notes that were flying at me, but that was usually because many more came at you during the busier sections of the music, so it seems like the processing is working.
It was quite impressive that my performance could be rated against other players that had played the same track as me through the use of leaderboards and stats, even though the chances of us having the exact same MP3 are probably very low.

Would I buy the full game?
This would be a fun time killer. I'd be much more inclined to purchase this on my iPod Touch to play on the go, especially since I can guarantee I have MP3s on the device whereas I have to periodically purge my PC's hard drive to make room for other stuff. While playing on a PC, (outside of a web browser,) I'm typically looking for a fuller game experience than Audiosurf is going to provide me.

Demo Pros
Learn the game and even play with your own tracks. Online leaderboards tease your competitive streak.

Demo Cons
The game did crash while I was searching the leaderboards for other tracks. As such, I'm not sure of the full limitations on playing the demo vs. what you get when purchasing the full title.

Demo Rating 8 / 10

Thoughts after playing the full game?
If I play the full game I will put comments here about whether I feel the demo was representative of the final product and if I am happy with the purchase.

Sales Figures
If I can find sales information about a game after it has been released I'll add that here. It may be useful to track demos to sales performance.