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  Amplitude 2015 is the long-awaited revival of the Frequency series (Frequency (2001), and Amplitude (2003)) of rhythm games, developed by Harmonix, who you might know slightly better as the guys who did Rock Band. The game was crowd funded using Kickstarter in 2015, and released in December of that year. At a certain level, backers could get an early release date, and other assorted goodies. Following in its brothers' footsteps, you follow tracks of instruments, matching buttons to beats to clear the track, which will then autonomously play until the track becomes available again. The game is simple, but exceedingly fun to play. Where this version of Amplitude differs from the previous installments in the series is in the tracklists. Since this was a crowd funded venture, Harmonix wasn't able to (or perhaps didn't want to) secure licenses for big name music. Instead, this version uses a 15-song campaign of mostly-experimental songs, all made in-house, as well as 15 bonus songs unlocked through gameplay, ranging from indie games, Kickstarter backers, and various big names from game soundtracks.  This LP is being handled a bit different from my usual faire. There will be two sets of videos per update: one set will be played on Intermediate, the game's 'normal' difficulty mode, with subtitles explaining the game, and various other things. The second set will focus on the Expert difficulty, sans subtitles, but with the added bonus of a handcam, which may not look impressive to start, but as the tracklist goes, things will become harder and my grip on the controller will look tenuous at best. The second set will be played on freeplay mode, which excludes the pre-song dialogues present in the campaign, and some of the challenges we'll see in later songs. Since this is a rhythm game, this thread is a complete black-bar-free territory. If you've played the game, you can talk about your favorite tracks here, including the bonus songs.  Song 1: Perfect Brain Intermediate || Expert Song 2: Wetware Intermediate || Expert Song 3: Dreamer Intermediate || Expert Song 4: Recession Intermediate || Expert Pythonicus fucked around with this message at 05:57 on May 2, 2016 |
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Apr 5, 2016 02:58
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Song 1: Perfect Brain Intermediate || Expert Perfect Brain is our starting song in the campaign. As such, it starts us off fairly slow as far as songs in this game go. Nothing is particularly difficult, even on Expert, but you still have to be careful of some pitfalls, like swapping tracks before you complete the one you're on. I accidentally showcase this in the Expert video, mostly caused by anticipation of what is probably the most difficult section of the song. What I believe is the hardest part about the game is keeping streaks alive, because oftentimes when you swap tracks, there'll be a beat almost immediately, and if you're not paying attention, you could just completely miss it. Also, due to the horizontal nature of the tracks, it can be hard sometimes to tell which button to press if you're going from one side of the line to the opposite. As for the song, I think it begins the game on a good note, no pun intended. The only downside of it for me are the vocals. The lyrics in the game most often don't make sense, but this one kinda takes the cake. Just a listen to the line "we can change how you think/just don't think it through, my love" is enough to turn me off for this song. However, I do enjoy the song overall, and especially the breakdown about halfway through. Pythonicus fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Apr 5, 2016 |
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Apr 5, 2016 02:58
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How long will it be before we get to the Bark At The Moons of this game where you get no pause for breath and you have to keep tapping through the cramps?
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Apr 5, 2016 04:43
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Wulfolme posted:How long will it be before we get to the Bark At The Moons of this game where you get no pause for breath and you have to keep tapping through the cramps? I think there's only one or two songs here that actually has a lot of tough sequences back-to-back-to-back, which we'll be seeing by the second third of the campaign. Everything is generally decently well paced and has quite a few 'rest' sequences in between the tougher ones.
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Apr 5, 2016 19:43
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Song 2: Wetware Intermediate || Expert Wetware isn't my favorite song in the game, and I explain a lot about why in the Intermediate video. The biggest thing I have against it is that it's just straight up boring to play through, and even more so to listen to. The refrain is kinda dumb, "calm your nervous system" bugs me, and overall the best thing the song has going for it is that it precedes a couple of the best songs on the campaign soundtrack. It's also a little groovy when not in the middle of the refrain, but still repetitive. edit2: Expert video's fixed. Apologies for that! Pythonicus fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 8, 2016 23:44
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I'm hot garbage at rhythm games but all these colours sure tickle my lizard brain the right way. Keep up the good work, man! Looking forward to saving myself some hand cramps.
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Apr 14, 2016 05:30
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Song 3: Dreamer Intermediate || Expert Dreamer, as stated before, begins one of my favorite blocks of songs in the campaign. The song itself is groovy as hell and is a blast to play on Expert. From here on out, the Expert videos become a bit more interesting, as the game has officially taken the kid gloves off and expects you to hold your own through tracks. Pythonicus fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Apr 19, 2016 |
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Apr 19, 2016 00:29
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Wow, that drum line is not loving around.
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Apr 20, 2016 00:39
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bbcisdabomb posted:Wow, that drum line is not loving around. Funny you should say that  Song 4: Recession Intermediate || Expert Recession, in my opinion, is a drat good song, but we've got another coming up that I feel trumps it. Regardless, Recession is fantastic because of a couple of reasons: on Expert, the beginning drum track can catch you off guard if you're not paying attention, but if you can get into the pattern, it feels great to play. I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again, but the bassline is also a highlight for me. I enjoy heavy bass, and I also enjoy electronic bass, and this song has both in good measure. In the terms of the campaign, this is the first song to include streak barriers, which actively penalize you for missing streaks, especially before the barriers. It also inadvertently allows you to 'remix' the song a bit before, since they make all the tracks available, and since all the tracks become available again, they stop playing the music attached. Therefore, you can pick and choose a pair of tracks and just hear those two play until the barrier; just something nifty that I like about playing in the campaign. You also may have noticed that we've been accruing bars with our performance in each song in the campaign. These aren't just performance indicators; they also serve to unlock a bonus song in each segment of the campaign. You need 10 bars in order to unlock it, and you have four songs to do it in, which means to unlock the bonus songs, you need to 3-bar at least two songs in the segment. This proves interesting if you're looking to unlock the bonus difficulty, Super. To unlock Super, you need to play through the entire campaign on Expert, which includes all the bonus songs. And let me tell you, the later Expert songs DO NOT screw around.
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May 2, 2016 05:56
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