Amplitude (Hands-On) Preview

Developer	Harmonix Music Systems
Publisher	SCEA
Genre	Puzzle
Release Date	3/24/03

Frequency was the definition of the term “sleeper hit”. Infectious grooves, addicting gameplay, smart visuals, and after an upgraded release, online play. At their core, music games are simple games of rhythm and “Simon Says”, turned up a notch for tech and techno-loving gamers. But in the sequel to Frequency, it’s this simple, yet compelling gameplay that we can’t get enough of.

This past week, Sony sent GWX a short demo and behind the scenes footage of the making of Amplitude and got us hooked like smack users having received a free handout. Amplitude takes the same principles of Frequency and turns it to 11, making us go back to the demo – the two level demo – over and over and over again, tapping our feet and moving our fingers to the delectable grooves provided.

What’s included this time around?

- Over 25 songs from Alternative Rock, Hip-Hop, Heavy Metal, and other genres give the game a great variety for all music lovers.

- Multiplayer mode, allowing you to get your groove on with friends and family

- Online play! Yes, that’s right, challenge people around the globe to remix tunes exactly the way you like them.

- Create your own “Freq”. Amplitude has a cool avatar system that allows you to create your own character to represent you and your mad skillz. The further you progress in the game, the more features you can unlock for your avatar. Very cool.

We were only provided with a solo game consisting of two songs, but that was more than enough to wet our whistles. The demo provided included two songs by Garbage and Quarashi, along with Training and Advance Training modes. The rules of the game are deceptively simple: guide your vehicle along what can best be described as a futuristic multilane highway, blasting the “notes” as you pass over them by pushing either the L1, R1, and R2 buttons or the square, triangle, and circle buttons, depending on which you are more comfortable with. Each “lane” represents a different track (drum, guitar, vocals, bass, keyboard, whatever), and by opening up that track you can remix the songs in a multitude of ways. Think Tempest with a musical twist.

At first, when progressing through the level, your hits and misses will make the tunes sound cut up and random. But after some practice you’ll figure out how to customize the tunes just the way you like them. Want to drop out the drum track? Skip it and head over to the vocal track. Or, when the song needs an extra kick, bust over to the guitar track and give it a blast. It’s amazing how gratifying it can be to take the tune and mix it up to give it a completely different feel.

Visually, the game comes off like a Pink Floyd laser light show for the new millennium. The graphics consist of the familiar neon/laser techno flare and fans of Frequency and Rez will be more than impressed with the visual style and how everything on screen seems to melt together and pulse with the beat.

Aurally, the game is a pleasure, as it should be considering the genre it falls into. In a music game, the sound is equally important as the gameplay and from what we’ve heard, the folks at Harmonix Music Systems have selected the perfect sampling of tunes for the game.

I’ve never been a huge fan of music games, so I was completely taken by surprise by how the short demo reeled me in and got me hooked. In preparing to write this hands-on preview, I’d continually stop what I was doing, and say, “I’ve gotta try that again!”

Overall, the demo has us longing for March 25th. In the meantime, we’ll be busting out our copies of Frequency to prepare to meet you online and lay down our grooves together.

GamingWorld X will have a full review of Amplitude shortly. Stay tuned.

Preview by John Luedtke