osu! is a rhythm / music game from
peppy. Like its predecessors,
O2Jam,
Dance Dance Revolution and
Guitar Hero, it makes use of beat indicators which a player needs to activate in time with some playing audio. In osu!, the player makes use of mouse or screen controls, like clicking/tapping and dragging/sliding to gain and score points.
To play osu!, register for free at
http://osu.ppy.sh/, download the client, then install it. After that, start downloading tracks like crazy!
osu! has been around for almost 5 years, and thus, now boasts a wide collection of tracks. Aside from downloading the available tracks on their site, players can also create their own tracks. In fact, majority of the downloadable content on osu!’s site is fan-made.
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Graphics: 4/5 |
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Street Fighter IV Theme
osu!’s visuals can range from boring to stunning to annoying. Having downloadable skins to change the interface, players have control over what they can see. Or so it seems. Downloadable tracks with videos and customized storyboards override a player’s preferred settings. An interface with this much freedom sometimes ain’t fun.
It must also be said that this game can cause seizure attacks with all the colors it is sporting.
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Audio: 4/5 |
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Now Playing: Touhou’s Bad Apple
Of course, in a rhythm game, music would always be the selling factor. Getting to play one’s favorite song would leave one euphoric. There is a vast number of songs to choose from and surely there would be one to a player’s taste.
Sadly, osu! has some default sound cymbal and chime effects that tend to get annoying when repetitively heard. Thankfully, the said sounds can also be customized.
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Fun Factor: 5/5 |
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The many modes you can play on osu!
The available tracks have varying levels of difficulty, ranging from easy to insane. Aside from this, handicaps and challenges can be activated to customize the gaming experience. Also, there exist special modes known as Taiko and Catch the Beat which provide an alternate feel to the game. It doesn’t stop there as osu! can be played both offline and online.
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Replayability: 5/5 |
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A wide list of songs to choose from
Hahaha! Literally
The driving factor that pushes players to play this game over and over would be the ever growing archive of songs. Usually, whenever a hit song is released, there would be plenty of downloadable tracks for that one song on the osu! site. peppy and co. devised a ranking system for the uploaded tracks so that players may be able to download quality tracks, instead of having to check whether the track is crappy or not.
Furthermore, the online leaderboard and the offline score record serve as both a challenge and incentive to play the game repeatedly. osu! leaves people’s fingers tingling after a leaderboard oust.
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Overall: 5/5 |
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osu!’s a very addicting game in its own right. Not much games have achieved such customizability and flexibility in the music rhythm genre. It is always fun to have a game where you can relax or hype up to music you like in an interactive way.
osu! stream
osu! can now also be played on mobile touch devices. osu! stream, a port of the game, showcases new features which take advantage of multitouch functionality of the said devices. It also features “stream” mode, which is a mode that dynamically adjusts the difficulty of a playing track depending on how good a player’s performance is. The sad thing about osu! stream is that it doesn’t make use of osu!’s already big library of songs. You might get stuck with the very few tracks that come with it.
