Review: Symphony for PC ? Video Games Reviews, Cheats | Geek ...

You?ve probably heard the song dozens of times. You know all the cues, all the tempo changes ? so you know when they?re coming. In Symphony, a malevolent intelligence is corrupting your music and sending its minions against you. As you vaporize one after another, you?ll notice something bizarre; it?s all happening perfectly in time with the music.

Symphony is a game that takes your music, and morphs it into a 2D shooter with wonderful visuals and a really engaging upgrade system. This is a new independent title that was just added to the catalog on Good Old Games, Desura, Impulse, Origin, and Steam. Can it stand up to the big name developers?

Gameplay

Symphony allows you to filter your music by artist or album. The selected track will be analyzed, which only takes a few seconds, then you have to choose a difficulty level. The easier difficulty levels are all you get at first, but they?re still fairly challenging.

At its most basic, Symphony is a top-down shooter. There is a glowing equalizer at the top of the screen that reflects the music you?ve chosen. The enemies flow in from all sides, sometimes moving quickly back out of play, and other times diving right at you. You can really get a feel for when the enemy craft will appear from the tempo and beat of the song. A faster tempo means the enemy will be maneuvering faster, and a faster beat means there will be more of them. There are plenty of games that tailor the experience to a song, but Symphony does it better than any that I?ve ever seen.

Your ship is controlled with mouse movements, which is just like dragging a cursor. Weapons are fired by holding the left or right mouse buttons (depending on your settings). Some enemy units are more powerful than others, and you?ll quickly figure out which are the greatest threats so you can concentrate your fire. As you blow them out of the sky, each vanquished foe will drop a glowing yellow music note. These notes will raise your ?inspiration? score.

Symphony is very clever in how it makes use of the inspiration pick ups. The notes are dropped all over the screen, and in addition to giving you points, they repair your ship. When a baddie collides with you, or hits you with a projectile, your ship is damaged. Your weapons will begin to go offline as you take damage, so you have to be aggressive about moving around and getting those notes if you want to stay in the game.

Each time you are killed, it takes about five seconds to come back. While there is no limit to the number of lives, each failure means you miss out on inspiration points and you take an additional point penalty. Enemies also drop firepower upgrades on occasion, and death erases those. You just won?t be able to hit your goals if you die too often. I like this approach because you can actually play the whole song even if you stink. Presumably it?s a song you like, so why not hear the whole thing?

You gain access to the higher difficulties by defeating ?Demons.? Every few songs, the glowing eyes of the mysterious evil will make an appearance to taunt you before unleashing a mini-boss Demon. The Demons are apparently the enslaved souls of composers, and defeating them completes part of the ?Symphony of Souls.? This is the only part of the game that I feel deserves a little bit of an eye roll. It?s basically a glorified progress meter.

Upgrades and unlockables

So, the gameplay is good. It?s a fun shooter, but it would get old like so many other games were it not for the weapon and upgrade system. When you complete a song, you get the opportunity to unlock a new weapon. Some are going to be mediocre, but some others are rare and incredibly powerful. Each item requires both inspiration and the kudos obtained by reaching inspiration goals.

Your ship has four weapon mounting points, and you can attach whichever ones you like. Most are controlled by either right or left mouse clicks, but some fire automatically based on the music. For example, the subwoofer weapon fires a powerful blast each time the bass goes off. This is another example of Symphony?s fabulous integration with your music.

The weapons you unlock can be upgraded with additional points, and you?re going to need to do that as you tackle the higher difficulty levels. This upgrade system lets you play the game however you want. Just blast everything with a barrage of gunfire, or map groups of weapons to different mouse buttons and be precise. It?s up to you.

Graphics

The way Symphony works is great, but the graphics are the cherry on top. All the objects in Symphony are made from glowing polygons, and the lighting effects are amazing. The ships that fly into frame are luminous little wedges of death, spewing bright energy projectiles at you. Some of the bigger craft are impressively detailed, too.

The game is a little busy, but that?s part of the appeal. You feel like you?re really doing battle with your music as you peer through shimmering explosions to avoid return fire. The overall color scheme of the game will shift based on the tempo of the music. Blue is for the slower parts, but the color heats up as the action does. When you hit those fast choruses, the backdrop will be red and the enemy ships will be coming on fast.

Symphony is a wonderful game that?s part Galaga and part Guitar Hero. The controls are simple, the gameplay is intense, and the graphics are beautiful. If you have a big music library, this game is the gateway to accessible fun in large quantities. Symphony runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.?You can pick it up for just $10 at Good Old Games or any of the alternative outlets ? and you should.

Source: http://www.geek.com/articles/games/review-symphony-20120813/

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