Amplitude is a cult-classic PS2 title that followed the already ambitious Frequency, which allowed players to play along with and sort of remix popular songs from bands like No Doubt, P.O.D., Papa Roach, and Garbage. Since then, Harmonix built up their popularity thanks to the Guitar Hero franchise, and then with the Rock Band franchise. Last year, Harmonix took to Kickstarter to gauge interest in a possible Amplitude reboot. And what do you know, people loved the idea, and now here we are.
Amplitude once again tasks players with pressing corresponding buttons across multiple lanes that correspond with various instruments such as drums, synths, and even vocals. Once you complete two musical bars without missing a note, that track will disappear, allowing you to build a combo on the next track, until you make your way back to the first.
I'm not going to get into too much nitty gritty regarding the gameplay and various modes, because I'd like to save some of that for our official (unscored) review, but I do want to share my thoughts on what I played through thus far.
The game has a campaign mode which, surprisingly has a narrative tied to it. But don't worry, it's not at the forefront of the game, as you only hear a bit of story dialogue right in the beginning of each level. Through this campaign, you unlock a bulk of the game's soundtrack though, so I highly recommend new players going through that first. The campaign itself is split up into three parts, with four songs each (I believe, as I only beat the first two modes which were comprised of four).
First and foremost, the game is absolutely gorgeous, with its neon-lit tracks and beat blasters as everything seemingly pulsates with the music. Even the backgrounds are all brilliantly colorful. Also, don't let the video above fool you, since it was captured using the PS4's Share feature, the game runs at a silky smooth 60fps.
Speaking of the music, I've played through 8 out of the 15 included tracks, and while they're not licensed, they're all pretty amazing. Handled both internally and with guests like Jim Guthrie, C418 and even Insomniac Games. Though, if you're not particularly a fan of EDM, then Amplitude probably isn't the rhythm game for you.
I will admit, I had some trouble getting back into the game after over a decade of not playing it, but after a few songs, I got the hang of it. The trick lies in chaining your notes throughout each of the tracks. That means as soon as you complete a track's two bars and it disappears, you have to then immediately chain into a note without missing it on another track. This certainly took some foresight, as you have to look a bit ahead so you know what note to anticipate pressing. The game does a good job at highlighting it though so you always get a good idea of where it is. I also jumped right into Advanced, and was reminded quickly that I should perhaps take a step back. Intermediate definitely seemed like a great jump off point for me, being a rhythm game player.
There are also power-ups in the game that you acquire by chaining together combos of notes with special characters on them. To me, though, these power-ups actually serve more as a hindrance. As you can see in my gameplay video above, midway through the song, I used one of the power-ups that gets rid of all tracks for a certain time but continues to chain my streak. As soon as the notes came back, I felt so disoriented from using that power-up, that I immediately lost my combo after that. I found that ignoring the combos and just playing the song normally makes it a much easier experience, at least for me. Though for the purposes of the video, I used one so you could see what they look like.
Amplitude comes out on January 5th, which isn't too much of a wait for PS4 owners, with the PS3 version coming a bit later. Kickstarter backers can start enjoying the game today!
