It’s Time to Your Freq On!

For all intents and purposes, alot of people forget that Sony, at the very least, popularized the music genre, if not outright invent the genre with PaRappa the Rapper. From PaRappa, Konami came by with Dance Dance Revolution, Bemani, and Drum Drum Mania. Sega entered the fray with Samba de Amigo, and Space Channel 5, and hell even enix entered the genre with Bust a Move (aka Bust a Groove in the US). So Sony has entered the arena once again with Frequency, one of the best music games to come out in a while.

Goin’ with the Flow

Frequency’s unique in that it’s very difficult to explain but relatively simple to play. Basically you create a song by activating tracks, drum track, synth track, vocal track, in each section of a song. To activate a track you have to successfully capture 2 bars of notes by hitting the corresponding button when a note passes by the activator. Once you active all tracks in a section, then you open a freestyle track, which allows you to scratch or axe to your hearts content, while getting points at the same time. There are 2 power ups in the game: auto capture and multiplier. Use auto catcher to catch 2 bars and unlock the track in that section. Use multiplier to boost the score and use it well in combinations. Like I said, hard to explain but easy to play once you get started.  In fact the in game tutorial will help immensely in this respect.

Frequency is set up so that you’ll get better songs the more you play. The game is split into 27 songs divvied up across 3 difficulty levels and 5 stages. Starting off, you have only 4 songs unlocked. By beating those four songs, you unlock another stage with another 4 songs and so on. Furthermore, topping the stage score unlocks the bonus song for that stage. So each stage has 5 songs total to unlock.  However, due to the way Frequency is set up, it’ll take a good while to unlock all 27 cuts, since the easy mode ends at stage 3, the sinister normal mode adds a 4th stage bringing your song count to 20. If you have the balls, staging expert mode unlocks a 5th stage. If you can top stage 5’s score, you get not one, not even two, but three bonus songs. So you may be tempted in started at expert mode and going from there, but I’m here to tell you, that’s a most excellent way to have your FreQ’s ego crushed hard.  See, going up in difficulty causes more notes to be added to the sections, meaning the songs get that much harder. At expert mode you have to play every single beat, word and effect by hand. Furthermore with the fastest songs in the game (175 beats per minute), you’ll have to find the perfect control setup and make sure your hands are fully coordinated.

Speaking of setups, Frequency plays well with the default setup, L1 and O activates left notes, R1 and triangle, grabs middle notes and R2 and square hits right notes. The trick is to find the right combinations of buttons that allows all of your fingers to be able to hit a note, without cramping your hands. For me, L1, triangle, and R2 are one of the best setups around.

But wait! I spent this whole review talking about the technical aspects, but how’s the music?  One of the best soundtracks, period. Assuming, electronica’s your thing.  The soundtrack consists of trance, techno, hip-hop, drums and beats, rock’n’roll and industrial rock, from artists like Orbital, Jungle Brothers, Paul Oakenford, and Powerman 5000 to name a few. Even though I’m more partial to techno and trance, even the rock’n’roll songs, because of the way the game is setup, even become musical highlights in this game. In effect, there’s really no dog tracks in the game, because you get set the song up anyway you like. Case in point, I like the synth portions of Orbital’s Funny Break, so I might fill those parts in after the drum track is laid, for the next section, I may start with the vocals and work the drums in, then fill in the synth portions. Next time I may start that same section with the drum track, hit the bass track and then fill the synth track, you may do it differently. And that my friends, is the beauty of Frequency, your in total control of how you want the music to sound. 

However, for even further sound customization try out the remix mode. In this mode any song you unlock is yours for rearranging. You lay down notes how you want them, transform the songs into something different. In theory, it’s suppose to be like a level editor, but in practice, it turns the game into a MTV music generator lite.  Furthermore, remixed cuts can be listened to in the jukebox mode or played in the regular game. And to get you started, the about 10 or so factory remixes for you to use as a starting point.

Multiplayer sessions in Frequency are similar to the single player sessions, with the exception of added powerups, now you can disable you opponents activator, create  a freestyle track, and in general use everything you get your hands to disable the opposition and give yourself the upper hand.

So how does the game stand graphically?  Well, It’s OK, but nothing special. The tunnels can be outfitted with a background that contributes nothing functionally to the game. There are some effects, like the blur that precedes the start of each song and the game has areas in the background the alternate between a video of the song playing and your FreQ pulsating to the beat. A nice touch is the line that draws the path across the notes in an active track. For some of the songs, this line is a real saver and eases down the confusion of hitting the lines of the track. Not much to really talk about, since you’ll be too focused on the game, in fact in some cases you may opt for using no arenas, so the backgrounds won’t distract you.

So what is it about Frequency that makes it so compelling? Well on a basic level, Frequency shows and rewards you for improving. As you get better with a song, not only does the song sound better, but scores provide feedback, you are getting better, that you seeing the smaller intricacies of the combo system. Secondly, for a music game, this game is as intense as any shooter. It’s hard to describe, but when you play, suddenly you’re not thinking left right middle-left-right-right, you’re thinking note note note-note-note-note. This game has placed me so far in the zone at times, and not to seem cliched here, suddenly its hard to see where the game ends and you begins.

If there is a downside to Frequency, it’s that the game gets mad insane hard. By the time you reach the stage 3 of normal, the game takes a sinister difficulty turn, with intense practice sessions being the only way to perservere. That’s actually unfortunate, since stages 4 and 5 have the best songs and most people may be content to simply have just 15 songs to play around with.

So is Frequency for everyone? No, it’s not. Yet it makes the ultimate party game for those that get it. Rather than be unnecessarily complicated, Frequency boils everything down to an nice balance. Remix mode alone is brilliant in party environments, allowing everyone to be the DJ and the inevitable “duels” that can happen when someone starts talking smack. So who won’t get it? Those people who favor more acoustical elements in their music (i.e. jazz, country), probably. However, everyone else should at least give the game a try. This game can attract non gamers because it just looks “cool”.