[Game Review] Beat Hazard Ultra Beta: Asteroids on Music acid

Say hello to Beat Hazard Ultra. This is an arcade shooter where you control a spaceship and blast everything in your path — think Asteroids. Simple enough right? Well there is a bit of a twist to it just like everything else. That being, according to the game’s slogan “Gameplay powered by your music.” What this means is that you can use your own music on your SD card as the sound track to this game, and the game intensifies based on your music. For example if the song being played is slow-paced the enemies will be more passive, but if the song being played is fast and has various upbeats the enemies will be more aggressive and come out in bigger numbers. So as you can guess your screen can become quite chaotic, and whether it needs to be stated or not, this game is THOROUGHLY more enjoyable with a great set of earphones.

This game is still currently in BETA and the developer has had several open BETA tests already, so the app is well on its way to completion. I stumbled across the developer’s site a few days ago and was saddened to find out that all his testing was already ended, but luckily for me for some reason he decided to hold one more and I knew I had to get in on it. Since the game is still in BETA some features are locked away, and only quick play and normal play are open. However when the game is released I’m sure he will make other game modes available as he has done in his other games, my personal favorite being Chill mode.

  

You control your ship with one or two joysticks located on the screen. For ‘One Stick’ mode, the joystick is used to navigate while you autofire at the closest enemy. In ‘Two Stick’ mode, one is used to move the ship around and another to fire in whichever direction you choose. The joysticks can be reassigned so you choose which one you want to do what. The developer has also made it possible to increase and decrease their size as well as change where on the screen they are located. He has even made it possible for the screen to recognize your fingers and have the joysticks follow you wherever you place your thumbs.

Sometimes, as you may see in the screenshots below, the game get so insane that you barely even know where you are — this adds to the fun, trust me. Thankfully there are several power-ups and perks you can unlock and attach,  the primary ones being the Superbomb and extra lives (You’ll need it).

The developer has limited the BETA to only playing half of your song. But after each round the number of points you attain go towards ranking you up and as your rank goes up the more goodies you unlock. All in all this is a great game and while its still in BETA I haven’t found any bugs or errors. I can’t wait for it to be released on the Google Play Store. There is no word on pricing as yet though, but whatever the price I surely won’t mind paying it for what looks like to be a very promising game. TO check progress on the game watch the Beat Hazard Website.

Check out the gallery below:

 

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