Top 5 Indie PC Games of the Decade #3

Audiosurf is one of those games that offers something for everyone. You can cruise through a neon-future version of your favorite songs at a leisurely pace in freeride or low difficulty puzzle modes, or play as a hardcore gamer might, repeating tracks obsessively with the aim of conquering the leaderboards. A better fusion of casual and hardcore gameplay styles would be difficult to come by, particularly one with such boundless source material. The game is yours to manipulate as it readily acquiesces to your mood, making it worth playing on nearly any occasion, for any reason, for any person. -IGN

More after the jump.

A smoother, calmer song has deeper and cooler colors.

The long and the short of it is: Audiosurf rocks. Suffice it to say that Audiosurf is more than a game, but an experience. While a typical game might take you on an absurdly long quest to follow a definite goal, Audiosurf follows a more casual route and lets you choose how you want to play. Whether it be hard or easy, fast or slow, mind numbingly difficult, or painfully easy, Audiosurf presents you with a different experience every time you play. The genius behind Audiosurf is that it analyzes any song from your library, and converts the song speed, length, and sound range to actual speed, length and bumps in the game.

Tougher songs will become faster, bumpier, brighter and warmer.

While many a gamer would have been satisfied with Audiosurf as is, the creators of Audiosurf have also added quite a unique element to the game. Besides the song itself, you can also customize your game via the ships that you choose to ride with. With every ship comes a special ability or two, or a game modifier. The mono ships for example only require blocks of one color, and that you avoid all grey blocks.

The ship selection scree, showcasing my favorite unit 'The Ninja Mono' on Elite.

The ship you use can make or break the game. From song to song, the idea is to try different ships and abilities on varying difficulties to find what works best, and get the high score for that song. You'll begin to find that Audiosurf becomes a much more involved and competitive game once you get into the aspect of playing non mono category ships and attempting (Keyword: Attempting) to knock out buddies, strangers, and friends out of their high score spots on your favorite songs.

All in all, Audiosurf is a great game that is fun for all ages and can please any variety of groups. At the easiest settings, I'm fairly sure even some of your small pets would enjoy riding with Audiosurf. While I wouldn't recommend letting animals play Audiosurf on your computer, you are welcome to try. Get back to me with the results. Happy Valentines Day!

And by the way, check out http://fedensaudiosurf.blogspot.com , and suggest a song.