Bandolero - Posted October 16, 2019 Posted October 16, 2019 A chaotic, yet fun musical eye hazard. There are many beat-based games available today, from the classic but still fully supported osu! to the extremely new and po[CENSORED]r virtual reality game Beat Saber. Both previously said games fail at one thing: automatically creating a level or difficulty solely based on the song itself. Beat Hazard 2 does just that without any human input. Beat Hazard 2 is also unique in the sense that it does not necessarily have you play the level to the beat, but instead creates the level from the beat. However, Beat Hazard 2 is a true hazard for some individuals. If you suffer from photosensitive epilepsy, I strongly caution you when viewing this game as it utilizes bright, rapid flashing lights and colors. As previously stated, this game is based on a song’s beat. With that, there are many ways to give the game songs to use. You can use locally stored audio files on your PC, stream from an internet radio, or use Beat Hazard 2‘s newest feature, Open Mic. Since a majority of people no longer store their own music, Open Mic allows players to use any audio that is currently running on their PC. When enabled, the game will start listening for audio on your PC, meaning that you can use music from virtually any source. Apple Music, iTunes, Spotify and even YouTube are just a few examples that I’ve tested. Beat Hazard 2 then uses the audio to create a level, which varies from throwing different sized meteors at you to giant spaceships with several different types of weapons. In addition, the game uses a service very similar to Shazam called ACRCloud to identify the song that is currently playing. There were some songs that I played that weren’t able to be identified and were simply listed as “Unidentified track”. One example of a song that ACRCloud couldn’t list was Blue Zenith by XI. Firing micro missiles at a boss. Gameplay is fairly straightforward once you have a song playing. You have one small ship that will shoot lasers based on the beat. This makes specific parts of songs difficult because if the song slows down, so does your firing, in turn causing a DPS decrease. Though small, it does make a difference in your gameplay. The game features different power-ups as well, the two main ones being Color and Power. Color does exactly what you’d think, giving the space behind you and your lasers color. Other than the visual effect from it, I have not noticed any gameplay changes from this power-up. Power’s effects are also in its name and adds firepower to your primary lasers, making them fire a little more often with larger shots. An additional power-up you start with is a single bomb. It detonates from the position of the player, then moves outward from that position like a wave, destroying anything it touches. As the player goes through songs, they also earn money to be spent on perks. Perks are upgradable abilities that can be equipped to give you an edge. They range from one extreme to the next. Some are able to increase the amount of points you gain in a song by increasing the score multiplier at the beginning, providing multiplier power-ups more often throughout, or just increasing the raw point value of destroying certain things. Perks can also be used to increase your firepower by raw value or unlock additional power-ups that can be executed by hotkey. One such upgrade is a shield that will block anything from damaging you for a short amount of time and depending on the object, reflect it to the nearest enemy. Another upgrade, and one of my personal favorites, is the micro missiles. They are small autonomous missiles that seek out the biggest threat on the field. Once further upgraded, you are able to fire off many of them in a volley. The player maneuvering in space while being blinded from bright, blue light.
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