Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
ADDICTION, THY NAME IS FREQ., October 31, 2001
By A Customer
It was my pleasure to participate in a couple of focus group tests of Frequency. Whenever a test was over, I would threaten to show up the next day at the developer's office uninvited, just to play some more. It's that good. To appreciate how great Frequency is, you really have to play it. Like SSX, Frequency adds innovative new play mechanics to a stale and stagnant genre, in this case, rhythm/music games, and creates an altogether transcendent experience. Unlike other music games, memorizing and repeating button presses is not the crux of the gameplay. Here, instead of mimicking a song, you actually create a song, using timing and reflexes to lay down beats, bass, and guitars, building each song from a metronome to an all-out jam. For example, if the player can successfully lay down a certain number of beats on the drum track, the drums are "locked in", and the player can then start working on the bass while the drum loop continues. "Lock in" the bass and you can move on to guitar, vocals, etc. However, as the song progresses, if a change in the drums or bass or whatever is required, the player must scroll back to that instrument and lay down the new beats. This is all achieved through a gorgeous 3-D graphic interface that looks like a trippy, hi-tech version of Tempest. The overall gameplay effect is a lot like a plate-spinning act. Power-ups and point multipliers spice up the fun, and a multiplayer mode is included where up to 4 players try to "capture" as many parts of the song as possible. And online play will be possible when Sony gets the network up and running. Also of note is the "remix" mode where you can take the awesome music in the game, and remix it freestyle, beat by beat. Although not as versatile as MTV Music Generator, it's a lot more intuitive, and a hell of a lot more fun. All the music included in the game by the likes of Chemical Brothers, Dub pistols, Paul Okenfield, No Doubt, and others is top-shelf stuff.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great fun with great music, November 22, 2002
This great PS2 game combines great music with finger-tapping fun. It might seem easy at first, but soon you're caught up in the musical action!There are other games out there that make you 'dance to the beat' or hit buttons in rhythm. Frequency takes this to a new level by breaking up real songs into their components - guitar, drum, synth, etc - and letting you play along with ANY of the parts. Get strings of hits done properly to gain points, and tag special sequences to get multipliers or other bonusses. Advance through levels to unlock secrets, and increase the difficulty level on any song to challenge yourself further. These aren't 'generic beats' you're playing along with. You get to choose from No Doubt, Fear Factory, Orbital, Paul Oakenfold, Curve, The Crystal Method, and many more. So not only is the gameplay great, but the music you get to listen to is great, too! Design your own mixes of the songs, or even better, play the game with friends! The game truly shines when you take it into multiplayer. You can do that with extra controllers, or the best way to play is on line with the PS2 Online setup. Get three other players from around the globe to join you, and together you can really get a song to shine. It's amazingly fun to go from your own simple bassline and to hear the other players chime in with their parts. It's an on line jam session! Highly recommended for any music fan, and even those not heavily into music but who enjoy games like tetris and bubbles will find it quite addicting.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beatmania for the US, April 18, 2002
Frequency is a lot like Konami's Beatmania series. As markers drop toward the bottom of the screen, you hit a series of buttons to play the samples associated with each of the markers. In Frequency, the major difference is that each song is divided into 8 tracks, each of which occupies the inner face of a 3-D octagonal tunnel. As you complete two measures of a given track, it "locks" the track for the remainder of that segment of the song.This gives Frequency a lot more "Game" value than something like Beatmania - you need to know which tracks will maximize your points, and in complex levels, which tracks will simply get you through that segment. Add in bonus items like score multipliers, auto-complete powerups, and there's a lot of depth added above and beyond the basic Beatmaniaesque gameplay. The crux of a music game like Frequency is the music, and it definitely doesn't disappoint. The tracks range from casual hiphop, to almost '80sesque synth-pop. While there's something for everyone, the quality is uniformly high, and even songs not in one's favorite genre will be appreciated, simply because they're all catchy, interesting tunes. The multiplayer's fun, but lacks the chaoticness of the single player, since unless you hit an "autocatcher", the tracks never "lock". As a result, while the gameplay remains as fast and frenetic as the single player game (moreso, due to additional powerups, and ways to mess with your opponent), the audio component never reaches the sheer sonic density of the single player game. Overall, however, Frequency is a fantastic "remix" of the Beatmania concept. The simple yet enthralling visuals, and the additional gameplay elements create an experience that's both deeper and more interesting as Konami's DJ game, and just as fun to play.
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