Audiosurf/Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale

Game: Audiosurf, Invisible Handlebar, 2008, PC
Beer: Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale, 12 fl. oz., 5.5% abv
# of beers consumed during play: 5
Level Reached: Six songs or so.
Level of Intoxication: Three Sheets to the Wind

Game
 Games and music have not always had an easy relationship. Back in the days when videogames were much more primitive, and before it was cool to do music for a videogame, games got by (and at times excelled) with the rudimentary complement of bleeps and bloops. Audiosurf is a giant neon yardstick showing how far we've come. In Audiosurf, music is the game.

Gameplay
Created by an independent developer, Audiosurf is an ingenious amalgamation of several gameplay mechanics. Before we continue, I'm going to politely remind you to buy this game as soon as possible. My review doesn't do the actual game proper justice and the guy who made this game is a genius and should be helping NASA develop inter-dimensional space travel. Firstly, the game uses actual music tracks to define and power the levels. Lest one become dissuaded at the prospect of another music game in the vein of DDR, the best way to describe the gameplay is thus: equal parts roller coaster, driving simulator, Klax-style block matching, and trippy spaced out visuals all cohere into a slick, synchronized romp through your own personal song collection. The core of the game is you controlling a floating ship on a linear track that turns, dips and undulates along with the song you've selected. As you zip along, colored blocks appear in front of you that you collect in a grid which lies underneath your ship. How you collect these blocks and when determines how they match up, match three or more of the same color, and they vanish and add points to your score.

I was tempted to pepper that last paragraph with adjectives such as "awesome" "sweet" "tubular" "crazy" and the like, in an attempt to make the admittedly dry description I gave above a bit more exciting. The great thing about Audiosurf is I don't have to do that, the next few paragraphs will do it for me.

Before you fire up this game, you may want to grab a diaper and some Dramamine, the ride this game takes you on is not only awesome, but sweet, tubular, and crazy as well. There are three levels of difficulty, each with a different complement of gameplay styles represented by different characters. Some characters such as "Mono" are easy, and are intended as an opportunity to "ride your music" as it were, with less emphasis on being crushed under the weight of tons of colored blocks and more emphasis on taking a favorite song and going on a technicolor stroll through your frontal lobe. Other characters pose unique challenges, such as "Double Vision" where you can play alongside with a friend, or if you are feeling particularly ambidextrous, can play by your lonesome, controlling two independent ships at once. Each game mode has unique abilities, such as being able to jump over unwanted blocks or the power to shuffle the entire board. With fourteen different characters to choose from, not only will everyone find a play style that perfectly suits them, they will finally be able to wonder aloud "Hmmm, I wonder what Achy Breaky Heart would be like Vegas-style..."
The game also comes with a handy-dandy Ironmode option, just in case you were feeling like your other videogames weren't quite hurting you enough. Ironmode offers increased point values as well as increased difficulty and more wall-punching frustration. Fill a grid column to the top in Ironmode, and instead of getting a slap on the wrist such as point deduction in the non-Ironmode, you are immediately kicked out of the song. Learn how to match colors better.

All this culminates in probably the coolest feature of the game, it's online which means your points standings for each song are automatically added to online leaderboards, allowing you to vie ceaselessly for position in global, local, and friend-based tiers. In addition, you can comment on the song and your experience with it, which, from glancing at the message boards ingame, basically amount to "ZOMFG THAT WUZ INTENSE!!" Many achievements can be obtained in the game, which while it won't make you more attractive to the ladies, will increase the size of your e-peen, much like an Xbox 360 Gamerscore and that Megan Fox wallpaper you have. Also, lest you think there's already too much gravy for your potatoes here, let me go ahead and add that every week, free audio tracks are available to download and play from independent artists, meaning that even if you somehow manage to exhaust your own music library, as soon as you log in, you can play fresh new tracks that have been handpicked by the Audiosurf team. What's that I hear? Is that the sound of you buying the game right freaking now? About time.

Graphics/Sound
The visuals in this game are extremely clean. Vibrant colors and sharp, defined lines present the game clearly and efficiently, allowing the player to see at a glance what's going on. While the interface is somewhat spartan, once things get rolling, visual elements and effects begin to come together fantastically and before long, you're zipping down this psychedelic rollercoaster at a gajillion miles a second, collecting blocks while your favorite songs are throbbing along, making you feel like Maverick from Top Gun. Or Iceman...depends on if you had a crush on Tom or Val. I'm not here to judge.

Splashes of color appear whenever you collect a block, and strange polygonal shapes thrash around alongside the track. The color of the surroundings change depending on the mood in the song, from greens and blues in calm portions, to yellows and reds in the faster, more manic parts of songs. The game, knowing its core audience, even has options to increase the trippy factor, such as different graphic filters and even a "visualizer mode" which is great for those people who fancy intoxicants above and beyond the limits of alcohol.
Just sayin'...

The sound is outstanding, mainly because the soundtrack for the game is all your most beloved artists. A few games in the past allowed us to substitute our own music, with widely mixed results, but no game I can recall has integrated the player's own music into the experience so tightly. Again, the guy who made this game should be a millionaire. Of course, the game does have sound effects beyond the player's music, and they are all adequate, each one carefully weighted against the event it is intended to signify. For my own part, I choose to turn the ambient noises almost all the way down, since I like to create an experience around the music I've selected, and the game's sounds often have a detrimental effect on the atmosphere of a given level. Other people may like the sounds and want to turn them up, that's why there's a slider for them.

Story
Sorry kids, this game is totally abstract. No narratives here. If anything, it allows the music you've chosen to tell its own story, which could range anywhere from you shooting the sheriff to how hot it is in here, and how that relates to you removing all of your apparel. Again, I'm not here to judge.

Beer
So Halloween is coming up, and everyone is getting into the spirit. Homeowners are decorating their houses with fake spiderwebs, businesses are hanging up black and orange advertisement banners, and the well known Michelob Brewing Company is turning out vat after vat of something called "Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale." I was perusing the alcoholic choices at my local supermarket and this happened to catch my eye. As soon as I saw the six-pack in the cooler, I ruminated on what this beverage might taste like. Perhaps it would be sweet and lightly spicy, like a pumpkin pie, owing to the fact it brags about being brewed with Golden Delicious pumpkins and spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and clove. Perhaps it would be more spicy with undertones of fruits, with a crisp snap from the fermentation process. I grabbed the sixer and headed for the checkout, my head swimming with tantalizing fantasies of what ten freaking dollars would gift me with. After so much $2 ghetto-swill, I was finally getting the opportunity to treat myself with something distinctive and unique.

Goddammit.

Michelob Brewing Company, I hate you so much. First off, upon opening the first bottle and breathing in the freshly opened contents, I smelled what would seem to be absolutely pedestrian malty crap. In fact, it smelled almost exactly like your average fawtie of malt hooch with the slight hint of cinnamon smell lurking Jaws-like beneath the surface. That should have been a warning right then and there, but as my wife is so happy to remind me, I'm a blockhead, and I dismissed the smell and its portents of mediocrity.

The first sip was so far removed from my wild imaginings that I actually experienced a placebo effect and tasted what I wanted to taste. For a split second I felt as though I was in Willy Wonka's factory, drinking down some wonderfully chilled pumpkin pie, savoring the flavors skipping playfully over my tastebuds and finally being rolled away by singing Oompa Loompas, needing to be juiced after turning into a giant pumpkin. That's when reality hit and I realized that aside from the barest hint of rotten squash and a pale aftertaste of--well, I want to say it was armpit, but I know it was simply nutmeg saturated with alcohol--I was drinking a carbon copy of any of those bottom-shelf malt liquors that I've choked down in recent weeks.

The drink was watery enough to drink quickly, and that's where I ran into the first of many post-imbibe problems. The drink isn't very fizzy, and really, doesn't have much substance while passing through the mouth. What it lacks in fizz though, it makes up for in the lower intestine.

Shortly after drinking three or so bottles, I felt a tint of aggression come over my senses. This tint only became more saturated as time wore on until I found that I was generally angry at absolutely nothing. I really don't like feeling angry, which made me even angrier. It never manifested itself outside of my own thoughts, it just boiled my brain in a hate broth. The beer then struck its final blow. Some time after I had capped off the last beer I was willing to subject myself to and finished playing, my bowels sent an urgent telegram to my brain. The telegram read, and I quote:

"ABANDON SHIP!!!!!"

With this valuable new information now in hand, I made a mad dash for the commode, whereupon I produced the most vile, unacceptable, concentrated form of evil since the final scene in Time Bandits ("Don't touch that! It's pure evil!!"). Even after I had completed my own little private David Warner, my stomach felt acutely uneasy for quite some time after, and it took a large glass of milk and an uneasy nap to snap out of my seasonal-beer-induced funk.

So yeah, for future reference, pumpkin beer: bad.

The Matchup
One of these products is seasonal and something I shall vow never to buy again, I'll etch it backwards in my forehead as a reminder if I have to. The other is timeless and addictive, and I would buy it twice over on general principal. The good thing is that the game is so fantastic, that even the absolute trainwreck that was the beer couldn't lessen the greatness of zipping along a music-fueled rollercoaster. I'm sure with something worth imbibing, this game would reach a rarefied zenith many aspire to, yet few achieve. The beer? Use it to drive away unwanted houseguests this Hallow's Eve. It isn't good for much else.

Cheers/Game on.