Rhythm

Pistol Whip Year: 2019 Rating: T Time Played: 4+ hours While Beat Saber likely convinced many people to jump into owning a Virtual Reality (VR) headset, it should be noted that it is hardly the only music rhythm game out there. Now, imagine if you mashed the rhythm game portion of Beat Saber with the polygon-person shoot-'em-up action of SUPERHOT. The result is Pistol Whip, a full-body workout with great songs and visceral reactions to being shot (and shooting your enemies). With so much free content released for this game, you'd almost be stupid to not get it—even if you already own Beat Saber. Before some of the later updates, Pistol Whip had the same problem most VR music rhythm games have: boring or repetitive backgrounds. Each song would play, and you'd only focus on the beats you need to hit to progress to the end of the level. However, with the "western" and "sci-fi" updates, there's at least some variety in the scenery as...

Sayonara Wild Hearts Year: 2019 Rating: E10+ Time Played: 1+ hour Another game I picked up during an "indie game" sale on the Switch, Sayonara Wild Hearts looked interesting mostly on the strength of its visuals. When I actually sat down to play it, I found an experience I wasn't expecting. Sayonara Wild Hearts manages to be many different games, all covered by the low-poly style and catchy soundtrack that drives its action. At its base, Sayonara Wild Hearts is mostly a rhythm game. However, its multi-genre approach made it feel like a rail-shooter more often than not. Unlike the normal music-rhythm games out there (like Guitar Hero or Rock Band), Sayonara Wild Hearts allows for some mistakes but brings the action to a halt unless the player performs certain actions needed for quick-time events. Even if it's forgiving in allowing the player to eventually memorize what needs to happen, the result is that the player's ranking for the level suffers. That being said, I...

Tag: Rhythm

VIDEO GAME: Pistol Whip (2019)

VIDEO GAME: Sayonara Wild Hearts (2019)