So Amplitude has long been on the list of my favorite games of all time, but it’s been about 3 years since I’ve played it and I was recently wondering if it still deserved to be on that list.
I popped it into my PS2 yesterday, and lo and behold, yes it is still absolutely fucking amazing. While Harmonix’s Rock Band and Guitar Hero are definitely better social experiences, the core “spinning plates” dynamic of Amplitude is just brilliant and makes for a much better game experience than its more famous counterparts.
Also, I like the song selection way better in Amplitude than in GH. Although Rock Band comes close to beating it.
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I found Frequency a few nights back in a $10 game case at a Walmart here. I was excited to have found a game like that still being sold somewhere, although it is a bit sad that it was in what was almost akin to a bargain bin.
In any case, it’s nice having it back (sold it long ago with a bunch of PS2 stuff when I needed money, and it was missed.)
Its indeed very strange to play now, having been playing the Guitar Heroes all this time, with the spinning element and all. I like it, but I could tell that people watching me play just couldn’t figure it out, despite being Guitar Hero fans. Ah well.
I broke out frequency recently, and really loved it still. I had anticipated Amplitude's release, but when i played it, I was disappointed… in frequency you had a circular loop of tracks to choose from, and in Amplitude, you had a ribbon.
The problem being carrying your multiplier from one phrase to the next. Frequency might be limited to 8 tracks, and I'm guessing amplitude used more. In frequency, you could keep rotating indefinitely, your worst forced jump, in between bars was 4 tracks. But in Amplitude, you'd run into an edge and your worst case scenario was the entire span of tracks.
I'd be interested in finding out what an Amplitude player that hasn't played Frequency thinks about it.
I played Amplitude before I played Frequency, and I found the note detection in Freq to be inconsistent and I didn't like the circular track. It made me kind of seasick.
I prefer the "highway" to the "tunnel" design because you have to think more strategically about the order in which you hit the tracks.
I'll give Frequency this much: I prefer its soundtrack to Amplitude's, mostly because it's more focused on electronic music and there are fewer weirdly out-of-place rock songs on there.
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