Audiosurf is an extremely ambitious game, as it attempts a feature that music game aficionados have been clamoring for since the advent of the genre: the ability to import your own music. It's an ambitious undertaking to be sure, but accepting it also means that almost the entirety of the game relies upon the feature working as advertised; in other words, if it works then Audiosurf is a milestone in the music game genre, and if it doesn't, then all the trippy visuals in the world won't help it.

Fortunately, Audiosurf pulls off the music-importing feature almost flawlessly. Importing your music is made easy via an in-game file browser, while the software can import and play almost any file type; MP3, M4A (iTunes), WMA, OGG and FLAC files, along with plain old CDs are all fair game. The conversion is carried out in a matter of seconds and the load times are surprisingly short, especially when replaying a song you've previously loaded into the game.

The visual style of Audiosurf is reminiscent of a Harmonix title (of Guitar Hero and Rock Band fame), with a likeness especially akin to their earlier titles, Frequency and Amplitude; you are given control of a Wipeout-style ship that cruises down a winding track, with bright colors constantly flashing in the background. The feeling of playing each song is unique and the look of the game is clean. Best of all, the requirements to run the game are pretty minimal; if you have a machine that was manufactured in the last few years, or a decent gaming machine from a little further back than that even, then Audiosurf should run just fine after a couple of tweaks. If you have a nicer machine though, the game can be cranked up and loaded with effects, making an already visually fascinating game that much more so.

Once you have imported a song, Audiosurf places nodes along the track (more on the use of these later) according to the song, as well as twisting the track so that it bobs and weaves to the beat of your selected song, with the track elevating during slow sections of the song and plummeting during faster ones, which is where the game's immense replay value comes in; you'll be sifting through your hard drive for quite some time, looking for songs that will translate well into the gameplay. Each song has a unique feel to it; David Bowie's Space Oddity plays very differently from the Foo Fighter's The Pretender for example, which in turn has a different feel altogether from The Chemical Brothers' Galvanize.

While most tracks are translated near perfectly, there were some that seemed to have the nodes placed off-beat, as well as having a cluster right off the hop, which makes avoiding unwanted nodes nearly impossible. Another thing of note is that the game uses the beat to create the tracks, so almost all tracks are drum-centric, meaning that if a song has quick drums, a lot of synth or a very fast beat, you should be prepared for a flood of notes to head your way on anything except the easy difficulty level.

When the game is in motion, it can be quite a sight to see; the track bobs and weaves every which way according to the song while your ship changes color and pulses with the music and fireworks explode in the background as nodes are hit. It's a game that can be both visceral and relaxing - sometimes in the course of a single song! At times the track set-up can get a little too wild though, throwing very steep banks left or right, making it nearly impossible to see the nodes coming your way, which can easily ruin a combo. This is frustrating and should probably have been toned down just a little, but it's a small price to pay for having such dynamic tracks and for being able to pick any tune you can think of to play the game to.

The gameplay in Audiosurf is deceptively simple. You choose a vehicle from the difficulty you want, with each higher level having ships with more advanced powers, such as jumping over unwanted nodes or the ability to erase a certain color of nodes from the grid. Depending on the vehicle you choose, the game throws you into one of two modes. The first of these is the standard mode, where you collect different colored nodes and try to match three or more of the same color together on a 3x7 grid, with each color being worth a different amount; red nodes are the most valuable, followed by yellow, green, blue and violet, and the more valuable the node, the rarer it is. Along the way you can collect a few of the power-ups, such as one that changes all the nodes on the grid a certain color, one that rearranges the grid to the optimal setup and one that multiplies your score while its active. This mode, while seemingly simple and a bit playing like a musical version of Columns, can get surprisingly hectic depending on the song and difficulty you choose (think level 15 of Tetris). Matching up nodes and avoiding unwanted ones that may break your chain during a fast song, with your ship bobbing up and down to the beat the whole time, can be quite the challenge.

If that mode seems too busy for you then the second mode, named Mono, offers a slightly more relaxing experience. You travel down the same track as before, except most of the nodes are turned gray and your ship must avoid them while trying to collect the few non-gray nodes, all of which are worth the same amount. The more of these nodes you collect without hitting a gray node, the more each consecutive one is worth. This, along with clearing clumps of three nodes or more, makes up the majority of your point total.

Once you've completed a song in either mode, you are treated to score percentage bonuses for completing certain tasks, such as avoiding all gray nodes, collecting all the power-ups and ending the song with a clear grid. When the final score is tallied, you're automatically placed on three different scoreboards tailored for each song: a global scoreboard, a nearby scoreboard and a friends scoreboard. Keeping up with friends or, if you're really good, the global leaders, can be very addicting, on top of simply trying to top your own personal best score.

If you find that you're looking for more competition than the songs on your hard drive can offer, the game provides a way of searching which songs are played the most, both globally and by your friends. You can even use this function to search out your favorite artist to see if anyone else if playing their songs! If that's not enough of a way to find some competition then the game also includes some pre-packaged music that almost everyone plays eventually. Oh, and that free music? It's the entirety of Valve's Orange Box soundtrack, which includes two versions of Jonathan Coulton's masterpiece "Still Alive" from the end credits of Portal; at Audiosurf's asking price of $9.99 on Valve's Steam service, this soundtrack itself is worth the price of admission alone. If that's still not enough then the game offers "Audiosurf Radio", which lets you download new Indie songs to the game on a frequent basis; while these songs most likely won't be by anyone you've heard of, they're a nice addition and some of them are pretty catchy. It's a great way to expand your horizons and track down some new music to enjoy. If Achievements are your thing then you'll be glad to know that Audiosurf is another game coming from Steam that includes achievements. While not worth any "points", they still give you something to shoot for other than your leaderboard ranking, and are a welcome addition.

Audiosurf is quite simply a fantastic package that combines the ability to customize your gaming experience with your own songs, solid gameplay mechanics, addicting leaderboards and interesting and very scalable visuals into a sublime gameplay experience. While the song conversions may not always be perfect, the experience that Audiosurf provides cannot be found anywhere else. Considering the immense replayability and the inclusion of the Orange Box soundtrack, it's a steal at $9.99, so you owe it to yourself to pick it up now, regardless of your usual gaming tastes.

Reviewed by Jordan Wasilka for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).