I didn't think this would be interesting for long but this 'game' sucks me in every time I start it up. Before I know it 2 hours have gone by while I'm experimenting with loops, effects and different sequences.
This is not a game in the traditional sense, it's a true sandbox experience with music. You can play with either 1 or 2 move controllers. Each song has 4 tracks to control, each with 4 loops that you can alternate at will by grabbing them from the corners while holding T. You switch tracks with the face buttons which changes the color of the bulb. The face buttons are also used to on/off or temporarily isolate tracks. You can fade them in while releasing T slowly after dragging a track from a corner.
Each track also has 4 sound effects that you can add in at any time by hitting the move up. down, left or right. By holding T down you can record these and create your own sequence which you can keep adding too as much as you want. The duration of the new loop is determined by how long you keep the T down when starting the new loop. (It snaps to the beat so it doesn't become a mess) Double click T to reset.
Last by not least you can change the timbre, reverb, etc. for each track by holding the move button down and moving the controller up, down, left, right or forward and back. This forms a 3D sound space that lets you create unique sounds. You can also add a cut-off filter by twisting the move while pressing the move button. All the effects can be combined and you can record them in a loop by holding the T button down, same as adding sound effects.
When you use 2 move controllers you can temporarily create distortion effects by bringing the 2 move controllers together.
Plenty of options to keep you experimenting for a long time. And if you get bored of one song you can switch to another with the select button and start adding or replacing tracks and sound effects from that song.
Everytime you play you automatically broadcast live to other pixeljunk 4am users. The game occasionally lets you know how many people are listening to your music. You can select a stream to listen too yourself or it will select a random stream for you when you leave it at the main title screen. So far I've seen people playing from Australia, Germany, Japan, UK, USA, and Denmark. After you've been playing for a while you'll start recognizing what they're doing and will want to try to recreate some of the cooler effects and transitions.
Or you can listen to your own music while enjoying the visualizer effects.
A great use for the move controller and I'm very happy Pixeljunk took a chance with this with what must be a very small target audience.
It won't do much for you if you don't like Baiyon's style of trance music. Plus you need ps move and somehow have heard of this game. With only 1 review on metacritic by playstation lifestyle it seems the main stream media is ignoring this so far.
For me this is easily a 9.5/10 experience. The only thing I wouldn't mind extra is the option to place sounds around you with the move controller. The music is mostly stereo with some surround effects.
Hopefully enough people will buy it to justify some DLC. For now I've not unlocked or tried all the different sets yet after 7 hours of play. Just got to find the time without life interfering.
