Very entertaining shoot'em up, plays like the classic arcade game Asteroids, but your weapons and the kind of enemy targets are based on your own sound and music files of your choice. Classical music is tough because of the longer pauses, metal and other high octane sounds give you greater weapons. A neat game, well done.

The only thing is that if you are prone to siezures, you need to avoid this game. Seriously. There is a toned down mode, but even that could effect persons sensitive to light.

is that anything better than choose music from your own library and shoot anything that cross your way in the space? Well, that's exactly what this game does. First you can choose any song from your music library and you have to survive till the songs ends. The gameplay is simple: you controll a spaceship and shoot without stopping. the great thing is that your chosen music beat controls the pace of the game - slow tempo music = slow paced game. Fast music = nightmare :D lol

Recommended for Heavy Metal fans - the best genre to play this game :)

Definitely a great game to let off some steam. Listen to your collection of music while trying to blow up other ships, asteroids and the occasional boss. Since all the action is tied to the music, any song with quiet parts gets to be a really fun challenge. Try playing Flash Gordon on survival mode... yikes!

Beat Hazard is, at its heart, a simple game. It gives you control of a small ship whose goal is to continually dodge between and around various enemies, homing projectiles, and asteroids. In fact, it's very much like an updated version of the classic game, Asteroids, with your goal being to destroy as much as you can and accrue the maximum number of points possible without dying and seeing the game over screen. There are three major differences to set this game apart from its spritual predecessor, though, and really breathe new life into the old concept.

For one, your ship begins with a tiny cannon incapable of scratching the paint off most vessels, large or small, a situation quickly remedied by the collection of Power orbs which, if you collect enough of them, turn your plinger into an incredibly effective dealer of death. Also strewn about are Volume orbs, which serve the purpose of raising the volume of the game's music, which originally is quite muted, to a level that's satisfyingly loud, which unlocks other gameplay options as a result, and the visuals become more intense.

The second feature is the rank system which keeps you intrigued as you play through song after song. Starting as a lowly private, you eventually make your way, by collecting enough points, to the level of elite, and every rank you gain up to the final levels has a perk associated with it. Some rankings will keep you from losing volume and other powerups on death, others provide bonus powerups at the start of every level to give you an edge, and others unlock new difficulty levels.

Finally, the game's tagline is that it's "powered by your music," and the results are spectacular. Nothing gets you into Beat Hazard's colorful, explosive astral shootouts more than hearing your favorite songs playing in the background as your ship deals psychadelic death in all directions. To start, you direct the game to your music folder and select any song therein to begin. As soon as the music starts, the game, from the stars in the background to the nebulas all around, will begin to pulse in wild combinations of color. This depends on the track you selected, of course; the louder and more varied the track, the more interesting starbursts of color you will see on screen. Enemies will begin appearing in waves, but their configuration is usually methodic and structured and entirely controlled by the flow of the music. Slow points in the song will result in fewer enemies - the calm before the storm – but in the world of music, slow points usually precede fast, hectic ones. Just before the soft portion of the song ends, you receive a jarring warning on the screen and your ship takes off at lightspeed straight into a chaotic boss battle, with gunfire and explosions going off everywhere. Even the projectiles change color with the music, and your ship's cannons will sometimes fire in tight beams or wide, destructive rays depending on what the music is doing in the background. The game will also keep track of your performance on certain songs, reminding you how well you did and what difficulty you played at, or even if you failed a song and want to retry it to make it to 100% completion, which plays into the game's expansive list of achievements.

About the only thing wrong with Beat Hazard is that's it's a bit too simplistic, which becomes apparent after a short while. There are few enemy variations, from homing missile and torpedo launching ships to their countless unarmed counterparts which serve only to get in your path and cause a destructive explosion when you accidentally smash into them. Asteroids do appear, and once destroyed they shatter into dozens of smaller asteroids, which adds a layer of strategy when dodging them and your enemies at the same time. The boss battles are intense and invigorating, but there could have been more types of bosses to add variety and even a little mystery to the game's progression.

Despite this, the game's various difficulty levels, the reward system, and the fact your favorite songs make excellent combat music comprise a brilliant and refreshing side-scrolling / survival shooter, and I recommend it highly. It may not be the kind of game you would sit glued to for hours based on its content alone, but it will certainly keep you coming back for a song or two on a regular basis. I sometimes play it when I want to do a little more than just listen to my music, and it truly invokes the one-more-song mentality to keep you riveted because what Beat Hazard does, it does very well. The game is polished and plays like a charm, and the only thing I can compare it to is a constant battle amidst a 4th of July fireworks show, in space, to your most favorite songs. It's superbly excellent.

A very good music game! It has a very unique and innovative gameplay. It's a space shooter set in the universe of your music collection, with each playthrough unique for each player, depending on what they have on their music library.

Beat Hazard is what you get when you combine music based rhythm games and twin-stick shooters. You select a track from your music collection and the game generates a level from it, where you must survive against hordes of enemies for the length of the song. Classic Shooter rules apply, 1 hit and you are dead, enemies can take a beating, powerups include screen clearing bombs, score multiplyers etc etc.

Beat Hazard has its good sides and its bad sides. On the good side, graphically it is neat and crisp without being too taxing on meeker systems, controls are sharp (provided you have an xbox 360 controller, otherwise, eh, keyboard and mouse are okay but not great.) and (provided you have a large music collection) the replayability is near endless(!)

Having said that, although I just mentioned replayability, the only songs that work well in Beat Hazard are fast paced and/or loud. Slower tracks are nothing more than a novelty to see how boring it can be to pass five minutes.

The enemies in this game are...lacking. They are all grey blobs, which when juxtaposed with the kaleidoscope of colour elsewhere on the screen, is rather bland.

Also, I should give this warning, at the time of writing, the game is unable to play music purchased through iTunes. If your music library has been bought largely via iTunes, then do not buy this game, you will have very little fun with it. Support for iTunes is supposed to be coming, but to my knowledge it has not arrived.

Overall, I would recommend this game, a very creative spin on the idea of rhythm games, far more creative than any mainstream studio would take a gamble on developing.

The game is really great, you can ride your own music.

From Alternative to Techno.

Aside from the fact that the levels are influenced by your music, the arcade-shooter part of the game is great.

In addition the included music is very nice.

In my opinion it´s a must-have.

This is indeed an innovation in gaming! The replayability of these type of game is surely high, I hope to see more of this type of game soon.

The game itself is very great, of course we'd want to see more enemies, more stuff but of course for the price we paid for it, I can't ask too much. I just hope they release some sort of sequel to this title with more feature.

Overall, I really enjoyed Beat Hazard.

As a shooter alone this would be fairly uninteresting. The concept is basically similar to Asteroids with the odd boss battle and a heavily restricted range of enemies.

However, what makes it interesting is the tie in with the music, which governs virtually everything from the amount of flash in the background to the number and type of enemies on screen.

Even though every track follows the same basic pattern of rock shooting - enemy ships - more rocks the pacing is set by the music, making every playthrough feel different. You'll learn to hate those songs with a quiet mid section as they dump you into a battle against two giant boss ships and your weapon suddenly becomes as effective as a pea shooter; or see the screen slowly fill with hundreds of enemies only for that cool instrumental to kick in a provide you with the firepower boost you need to clear house.

The game offers two basic modes, one where you select a track and play through until the end, or survival mode where you pick a starting track and simply try and survive as long as possible, with the game selecting a new track each time the current one ends. There's also a bunch of achievements, and your performance grants you new ranks which unlocks starting bonuses.

The interface can be a bit unwieldy when choosing a track, and if your music directory is large it can take a little too long to list the files. The pulsating of the background and general luminosity can also make it difficult to see precisely what's going on at times too, but this is a minor niggle.

In terms of music it handles most genre's fairly well. There are several difficulty levels for each track, however these simply control how many enemies spawn at a time, the actual difficulty tends to come from the music you're listening to. As mentioned, a slow section or rapid beat change can through you into an incredibly difficult situation in the game, but then finding these is all part of the fun.

This game is basically a trippy asteroids. Everything in the game is based on the music you pick, when enemies come, how strong your weapons come, etc. There is a simple rank up system which rewards you the more you play, giving you power ups at the beginning. I usually play it when I want to kill a few minutes. The replay value is high, and I especially recommend it for metal fans.

4/5

An excellent little game which succeeds at its goal of turning your music collection into a top-down shooter experience. The synchronisation of enemies, laser fire and background effects is noticeably distinct depending on the tempo and genre of track chosen, with slow sonorous tracks creating a plethora of space debris, while flamenco guitar turns your ship into a prismatic catherine wheel of destruction.

Importantly, each track feels different and there appears to be little dead air, as occasionally occurs in comparable games like Audiosurf.

The game might perhaps benefit from better weapon and destruction sound effects and more variety in enemies, but, for the price, this is a minor niggle.

You remember the old classic game when you were an arrow in outer space shooting stuff? This is like that! But with great graphics and great musical experience! The levels are all different because of the songs you play. I give it 5 of 5 because of all the songs you can play!

This game is simple, addicting, and fun! While the variety of enemies isn't all that huge, the variety of levels available solely depends on the variety of your music selection. If you're like me, and listen to a bit of mainstream, a bit of metal, a bit of electro, a bit of alternative and so on, you'll have much fun exploring what different music plays like. You can really use ANY MP3 track on your hard disc, though the game does get its fair bit of problems from very full folders... the menu, all in all, can be handled but is somewhat clumsy. Your tracks should have a good bitrate, otherwise you won't really see the music affecting the game. Of course it works best with metal music of any kind, or with techno of appropriate volume and speed. But you can really play anything. I've played a few pop songs, metal songs, electro songs, a gregorian chant edition of "Fade to Grey" and even a track from the live album of a German political comedian. You got a difficulty setting, that affects much (and it affects your score greatly), but apart from that each track may be easier or more difficult than any other, regardless of setting. There are two kinds of difficulty with that, though: The difficulty of too many enemies, too much going on (loud, rich tracks) and the difficulty of too little firepower on your side (slow-paced, low-volume songs). The latter can be MUCH harder, but will generally grant very little score. I have not found any track to be utterly unplayable up to now. The game comes with an appropriate soundtrack, but basically every MP3-album you've got is an expansion for this game. Greatest downside: Apart from sound volume settings there are no options or settings readily available.

I didn't know what to expect from this game when I bought it. There are not many games out there that turn your own music collection into a gaming experience, which is a shame as far as I'm concerned.

When I saw that it was a feature of this game that was enough to have me clicking the buy button.

And I'll tell you what I am not disappointed. It's essentially a top down arcade shooter. Dodge the enemy and their bullets while shooting back and collecting power ups that they drop. It's a tried and tested gaming trope and these simple mechanics are not messed with. What makes the game shine is the syncing of your music to the experience and when you have some hi-octane music going the game becomes exciting edge of your seat stuff.

While the particle effects are pretty and eyecatching the games weakness is the uninteresting enemy sprites. They are won't exactly capture your imagination. Still it doesn't detract hugely from the overall experience.

Raid your music collection for the most intense music you have, load it up and have a blast, recommended