As addictive as FreQuency, and twice as beautiful!

It's a shame that some of the greatest titles are often overlooked. I could probably count on one hand the number of people that have even heard of FreQuency, let alone actually played it. Yet, mention "PaRappa the Rapper", and people will chime in from across the room. Having played both games, I can honestly say that PaRappa can't hold a beat to FreQuency (har. har.) when it comes to ingenious, immersive "follow my lead" gameplay. FreQuency was such a tightly designed game, in fact, I'm amazed that the developers actually managed to improve on it with Amplitude. The concept is identical: press a button in time with the rhythm of a music track. The execution is slightly different, however. While, in FreQuency, player movement was restricted to a "tunnel-esque" path (think N2O), Amplitude unrolls this tunnel into a horizontal series of tracks that resemble a multi-lane highway. There are pros and cons to this approach, however. The obvious pro is that this exposes more space in the background, which is rife with pulsating streaks of color and imbedded music video clips that seem to stretch on forever. On the downside, tracks do not "roll over" from far left to far right (and vice-versa), which often requires the player to traverse six tracks to get from one side to the other. In a game where time is a precious resource, this can be an aggravating nuisance once a player is "in the zone." Aside from this minor complaint, Amplitude is a visceral "follow-on" to FreQuency. Why a "follow-on?" The graphics may have improved, the playlist may have grown, and a few more bells and whistles may have been added, but the mechanics are identical to FreQuency - making the game feel a bit stale. This results in a kind of "Wow! Purty. Eh... Done it before." feeling. Still...Highly recommended. PhatPat