BeatRider
by Jeff Effendi on Wednesday 17th Jun 2009

Probably the only music-oriented game you need on your iDevice.

We know, it’s a pity that there just isn’t enough instruments that you usually tap to play in this world. But since the conception of Tapulous’ Tap Tap Revenge, we’ve discovered that mashing your mobile phone or MP3 player with your fingers to recreate mainstream music is probably a lot better than playing Piano Hero while keeping in time with Scott Joplin’s ragtime classic The Entertainer. Nonetheless, Tap Tap did have its flaws and with such an expansive music collection inside everyone's iDevice just waiting to be utilized for rhythm mashing goodness, it was only right that The Music Co. released an app fit to play your own personalised collection whilst still retaining the effective mechanism employed in Tapulous’ franchise. With a solid enough offering, The Music Co. may have just enough rhythm and pace to oust its reigning competitor.

Visually, the game does well to bring the seemingly electrifying feel of tapping a screen that sparks notes onto your silverback system. The effects aren’t as minimal as the first Tap Tap, but it isn’t as over-exaggerated as its sequel. Simply put, BeatRider never distracts you and your fingers as you combo your way through the song. There aren’t many explosions all over the screen, nor a distracting enough visualizer in the background to crowd the screen from which nodes you’ll have to tap. There are 5 colour-coded nodes for you to tap to sync your music to, all distinctly different. The playing field is designed well; with a Terminator Salvation theme and feel to the overall layout of things. In addition, the game also tells you how well you’ve tapped to the beat of the song through its use of Guitar Hero-like “good” or “great” commentary. This was missing in Tap Tap, so players were never sure if their taps were immaculate enough to earn them a combo or not. BeatRider excels in this area, where combos can be seen clearly above all the note-hitting foray while at the same time streamlined comments appear on how precise you’ve hit the nodes. On the other hand, the menus aren’t as well presented, with little polish being evident. Despite all this, they are still clear enough for you to browse through and the game does a solid job in bringing all the stats, rankings and music under one sometimes attractive roof.

For a game that’s based on music, there better be some decent sounding music and effects. Well in short, there is, albeit the quirky and unnecessary sparse sounding effects when you actually hit the nodes. Your music is presented in all its MP3 glory, and there isn’t any noticeable loss of sound quality after you upload the songs onto your iDevice. On the other hand, there’s a questionable feature which the developers have decided to include when you tap the nodes. Sparse, empty sound effects are heard as you plough through your songs which either makes it extremely awkward if you’re tapping to softer, mellow tracks or decent if you’re playing alongside noisier, rock-packed musicals. Fortunately, the developers did include an option to turn off the sound effects completely for those who aren’t accustomed to it. Some may feel that it gives greater satisfaction to hear the notes hit with the music, but often they don’t synchronise well making it an uncomfortable tapping experience altogether.

BeatRider’s gameplay is solid, there’s enough here to keep Tap Tap fans interested and those waiting for an pseudo-Guitar Hero iteration happy. The package offers combos, extended notes to press and hold onto and different rhythms for you to slide your fingers across the different nodes. Surprisingly, sliding your finger from one node to the other works intuitively well as it feels natural. BeatRider detects the accuracy and timing of the given inputs and recognizes them with near-perfect precision. Alongside the staple requirements for a rhythm game, BeatRider has included 2x multipliers as you rack up the numbers on the combos as well, distinguishing it from its App Store competition. Perhaps the most intriguing and certainly the selling point of this game is the game’s ability to let you use your own music. It only takes a few minutes to sign up to www.mybeatrider.com and upload your songs from there. As it finishes uploading, all you have to do is refresh your playlist on BeatRider and sync it from there. Despite many who’ve labelled it as a gimmick, the detection of rhythm and underlying instruments tinkering in the songs are impressive. BeatRider will analyse your songs and turn them into one hell of a tapping experience. Make sure you increase the difficulty though, as anything below Medium may not give you the most accurate representation of your songs. Meaning it won’t be as fun to play, as notes come far and few in between. With that said, there are tons of difficulty levels for you to choose from Very Easy to Crazy, so even the clumsiest tappers can feel like a bit of a rockstar when the going gets tough.

Disregard any previous reviews which have mentioned BeatRider’s incompetence as a rhythm game, or that it’s a difficult title to play. There are many options to switch and tinker with, as it offers a feature never before provided by any App Store game you’ve played previously. It’s not a visually mindblowing experience, but games such as these need not be. It feels polished, complete, and above all provides intense, visceral satisfaction as you mindlessly tap the nodes to an Eminem, U2 or Taylor Swift track right before your eyes. Who needs Tap Tap Lady GaGa or Tap Tap Coldplay when you can upload every song known to mankind within a few minutes? Despite its 20-song limit which we’d like to see expanded, there will be enough fun to be had with BeatRider as your favourite tracks transform into one giant ball of a tapfest. Buy the game, upload your songs, tap away and we’ll see you on the leaderboards. This is a game you’d want to tap, get it?