Pollywogs!

Audiosurf is an amazing fucking video game. I’m partial to involved, deep video games which require a substantial investment of time and effort. Audiosurf is a casual game. Why do I suddenly love it so much out of nowhere? It combines two of my favorite things in a single, slick package: music and twitch reflexes. It is hard to explain in words, combining music and twitch reflexes into a challenging puzzle game, but basically it takes any song on your computer (or it has a radio station if you don’t have much music) and crafts a track from the music. Then, after scoring your performance, you are placed on the leaderboards (if you’ve done well enough). I placed myself on the top of a couple global ‘easy mode’ boards for a few Pearl Jam songs last night. It is intense, challenging, and fun, and yet still casual and easily picked up by anyone.
Oh, and it scrobbles tracks that you play to your last.fm account. This is gaming done right!

This was recorded on the highest skill level, so it is pretty hardcore and difficult. Actually, strike that. This is mono mode, where every block is the same color. Let’s just say that the game can be as challenging as you are up for when it is moving a thousand mile per hour and you’re trying to play tetris…

I’ve only played handful of games on the highest setting (and only on mono mode), mostly I’ve been playing on the casual setting (and dominating that shit, uun). The actual gameplay is much smoother, since the computer was both playing the game and recording, it ended up getting a little choppy. But, you get the idea. It is a fucking blast. You can pick it up on Steam for $10, and I highly recommend you do so. It has reasonably low system requirements (1.6Ghz processor, Geforce2-class graphics card), so nearly anyone enjoy it.

If you do get a copy, I recommend starting playing Mono (casual) on the studio version of Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter. It is a very easy, straightforward track, very good for starting out on.

Hell, any game you get these days, I recommend you buy on either Steam or Direct2Drive. Both places, no need to fool around with physical CDs, and your purchase is always your purchase, you can download what you own at any time. I recommend Steam a little higher, it is a little easier to use since everything is integrated into the one free program (the actual Steam client). Stay away from EA and other cock-gobbling places which want you to pay extra if you need to download the program you paid good money for a few months down the road.