Review: Wave - Against Every Beat
Score:
77%
There are some games that you play because you think you can beat them. Others you play because being a Lego Han Solo has to be one of the coolest things on the planet (and it's just fun)! There are games you play because you really need to score more than your Dad (it's called Knot in 3D). And then there are games that just draw you in, hypnotically and additively. Wave - Against Every Beat is in the latter group.
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It's not clear from the Ovi Store description what the game it about. The first big bullet point is "Levels and enemies are generated by musical beats. Feel the music, fight the enemies!" So let's set down what's on offer. It's just a 2D, vertically scrolling arcade shooter.
No hold on, strike that, reverse, and drop the "just", because Wave is incredibly impressive and immersive. Almost all the elements are brought to the table that are needed for a "twitch shooter". You have an almost impossible number of enemies to shoot down (but not quite enough to make it feel impossible, just very very hard); you start with a tiny gun that needs very careful use to make any headway, headway which includes getting power ups and much larger guns on your spaceship, which has a very nice line in decorative wings; the enemies are going to throw bullets back at you in a mix with the power ups and bonus stars you need to collect, leading to pixel perfect pick-ups because one brush against anything that's "not you" means death and the loss of one of a limited number of lives.
So far so as expected. What does Wave bring to the gaming screen that makes me smile as wide as those delicate wings on the craft? Neon and music. The look of the enemy cubes (as they are called here) is all hard glowing edges - on various polyhedrons as they dart around the screen. Pay close attention as you need to knock out the little groups of them (can they be called mini-squadrons?) to have a star appear. Collect enough stars and you'll build up your special weapon meter that clears the screen. Larger stars will sometimes show up, and these provide the power-up for your weaponry.
But the big addition is the techno music track. Once you add the thumping and driving electro-beats on top of the neon graphics dancing in front of you, and your entire brain focussed on this small visual area, you really do get pulled into the game and want to keep on playing - death, taxes and power-ups forgotten. It's all about playing... the score is immaterial, the options are put aside.
It's a game because it's a game. You want to play it because that's what you do with a game. And it captivates you because that's what you're meant to do when you play a game.
I know this reads a bit lyrical about the experience of the game, but the entire point is to shoot everything on the screen, or to shoot everything on the screen to collect stars. The point is that there is not much more to the game, it's reactions, it's graphics, it's atmosphere. Strategy, planning, mental decisions, making trees... if you're looking for those then head somewhere else. This is a return to the golden age of arcade games, with the added bonus of the thumping soundtrack not coming from a Phillips twin deck ghetto blaster, but the game itself.
-- Ewan Spence, June 2011.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at