Rhythm and music combine in this original game
Synaesthete is a highly original game that mixes music and arcade action in the style of Dance Revolution.
The objective of the game is to basically eliminate all enemies in each room - or phase. To do so you must move your character around by hitting a sequence of musical notes whilst lasers fire at them. Therefore, the movements of your character are also dictated by the musical rhythm of the soundtrack. If you've played Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero, you'll know what I mean. If you haven't, then it works by making you push one of three keys in the right order to keep pace with the tracks. The better you do, the more your character avoids being struck down by a shot or laser beam. The graphics are 3D vector style and you have to guide your tiny character around the grids and across bridges which does get a bit boring. The 3D images are not exactly well crafted and in this respect, the developers could have done a much better job. However, for pure originality and pumping soundtracks, it's guaranteed to keep you buzzing for a while.
Synaesthete gets full marks for originality and if you're a Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero fan, you'll probably enjoy this a lot.
User reviews about Synaesthete
by Anonymous
Review of Digipen's awesome music-shooter..
The game is simply awesome. Every aspect of it reeks style, with cool visuals, satisfying and fun gameplay coupled with some of the best in-game music I've ever heard. You play as the Zaikman (a play on the producers name) who travels into the human conciseness to restore order in various areas by defeating enemies with power of music. This is where the unique gameplay comes in-in order to destroy said baddies you need to hit notes that scroll across the screen with the J, K and L keys, in a similar fashion to games such as Guitar Hero. At the same time each note you strike successfully is shot out as an energy beam which automatically targets enemies and destroys them. You also need to avoid being touched by the enemies, which takes away life and ultimately leads to game over. There are ten stages and a tutorial level to work through, so overall the game is quite short - only about 1 and a half to 2 hours, but it is a wonderful and immensely enjoyable amount of time. The game revolves around music, so it's a good job it's truly brilliant and exhilarating. All sounds are very high quality and is some of the best techno music (in my opinion) ever, so music fans will get more out of it than others. The graphics are also very stylish and it runs very smoothly while being reasonably technically impressive, but it falls down at the stage and enemy design. There's very little different with the layout of the levels and the enemies are even worse, being only small, pop-up squares. The bosses serve to break things up though, and are fantastically designed and rendered - the last boss deserves a particular mention, being one of the most exhilarating experiences I've ever had. Simply, you have to try this game out - the things freeware for goodness sake! It's at Digipen.com and is fairly easy to download, and once you have you'll be all the better for it. It's stylish, original with outstanding music (I can't stress that enough!) - what more could you want? Pros:
Outstanding music.
An exhilerating experience.
Truly original and unique.
Realy stylish, polished and classy.
Cons:
Repetetive stage and enemy design.
Occasionaly unfair and annoying. More
by Anonymous
Rhythm and music combine in this original game.
The objective of the game is to basically eliminate all enemies in each room - or phase. To do so you must move your character around by hitting a sequence of musical notes whilst lasers fire at them. Therefore, the movements of your character are also dictated by the musical rhythm of the soundtrack. If you've played Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero, you'll know what I mean. If you haven't, then it works by making you push one of three keys in the right order to keep pace with the tracks. The better you do, the more your character avoids being struck down by a shot or laser beam. The graphics are 3D vector style and you have to guide your tiny character around the grids and across bridges which does get a bit boring. The 3D images are not exactly well crafted and in this respect, the developers could have done a much better job. However, for pure originality and pumping soundtracks, it's guaranteed to keep you buzzing for a whil
Pros:
Graphics are poor
Cons:
* Original gameplay
* Great soundtracks
More