'Beat Hazard Ultra' iOS Review

The music genre has never really stood in the limelight in video game history (even with the success of Guitar Hero and Rockband) making it the perfect genre for Indie developers to work with. In 2008, Indie developer Dylan Fitterer saw the appeal of the music genre and probably thought, “Hey, why not make a music game where users can play to whatever music they want and the gameplay will change with it?” And thus Audiosurf was born.

Only two years later, Cold Beam Games wanted in on the music game action too and created Beat Hazard. Now not only could someone play a game to their music, but players had an larger objective, challenging gameplay, and a visual experience unlike any other. Then in 2011 Beat Hazard received the “Ultra” DLC on PC adding a boss rush mode, co-op and more. And now in 2012 iOS gamers can finally play Beat Hazard wherever they want.

Beat Hazard Ultra is a top-down twin-stick shooter where you’ll be flying around a rectangular playing field fighting off endless waves of enemies. All enemy ships and asteroids are mathematically generated based off of whatever music track you decide to play to. Essentially, it seems that Beat Hazard was meant for handheld music players in the first place. I hadn’t played Beat Hazard for some time, but as usual my main concern was how well a twin-stick shooter would work on the iPhone with my big thumbs.

There are multiple modes in Beat Hazard Ultra including Quick Play, Standard, Boss Rush, Survival, and Chill Out. Quick-play and Standard are essentially the same thing. You can pick from one song via your own music library, or from the included tracks and play a quick 3 to 5 minute game (length is dependent on how long the song is). Boss Rush is a great way to rank up quickly and get some easy points to unlock upgrades. Survival is self-explanatory, and adds the option to play along to an internet radio station (Boss Rush and Chill Out have this feature as well). And finally Chill Out is just the Standard mode, but without a life counter.