I am a samurai

Valentine's Day went very... not as expected. I didn't get home till after 8pm, and had absolutely no appetite for sugar. But on the plus side I sent off a couple of Valentine's care packages to family members which was fun, and watched one of my favorite movies. Then I woke up Friday morning totally sick. Yay. I also received some mysteeee-rious roses, which deserve mentioning just because of how full and pretty they are. I'm curious as to where the mystery personage purchased them.

Media Mo-..Saturday?

My brother has been collecting free online video games for a while now and has a pretty good collection. When he was here last week from Idaho, he spent a few minutes on my computer while I showed my mom around the apartment. Next time I checked my computer I found a new bookmark called "Kim download this!!!!!!!!"

Synaesthete is one of the more bizzare rhythm games I've ever played, though it's not completely original in format. As a psychedelic trip into the collective unconscious accompanied by trance music, this is basically a freeware Rez. But Synaesthete approaches the idea of a rhythm/shooter from a completely different angle - rather than Rez's approach of combat creating the music, in Synaesthete the music creates the combat. It's subtle, but makes for a very different type of gameplay.

Unlike Rez's basic point and shoot, Synaesthete has you following the standard rhythm game "press button at the correct moment" format - while simultaneously navigating a 3-d playing field and dodging enemies. This might be pretty foreign and difficult at first, but it doesn't take long to figure out how to manage. What's really novel about this is the "optional" nature of the rhythm part. Unlike Guitar Hero or DDR, the three colored bars that fall from the top of the screen aren't meant to connect to each other. Each follows a separate beat - playing all of them at once with only one hand would be impossible for most of the game. You're left to sound out the beats and pick one to follow, or to find patterns and rhythms between two or more beats. The more beats you play and the higher your combo the better, but there's no penalty for skipping beats or taking a break (other than being less able to defend against enemies).

As you would expect, the composition of the songs are set (for the most part), which lacks Rez's novelty of every play though being slightly different. But since Rez has to allow beats and melodies to have varying amounts of time between them, and because there is a high level of repetition, the music itself would usually sound somewhat amateurish if it was completely on its own. So while Rez gives the player more creative power, Synaesthete gives you more structure to work with. That's the trade-off.

The Synaesthete soundtrack - very solid and enjoyable if you're into trance - is composed by William Towns, the technical director of the project. The entire soundtrack is available (also for free) on the Synaesthete website. My absolute favorite song from the soundtrack is Tryptonaut, followed by Shore.

Overall this is a fun and impressive game, especially considering it's the side project of a couple of college kids. If you like rhythm games, trance music, or free video games, I highly recommend checking it out. Because, you know, it's FREE.