Beat Planet Music (PlayStation)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 1.5 stars Poor
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 3.9 (1.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Christian Nutt
• Reviewed on: 03/24/2000
• Updated on: 04/28/2000
• Released on: 01/20/2000
• Originally published on GameSpot: Beat Planet Music (PlayStation) Review

Sony's music games are legendary. From the talents of Masaya Matsuura and his team Nana-On Sha we received the groundbreaking Parappa and Lammy, as well as the instant cult-classic vib-ribbon. The standard has been raised again and again, and, unfortunately, Beat Planet Music is a tired exercise in shallow gameplay, with more style than substance. A music game-cum-music editor, this non-Nana product fails to deliver in a variety of respects.

At first, BPM seems very promising - the opening is a bit corny, but the style is there, and the interface and graphics are hot. Design work on this game is provided by Me Company, the graphic designers responsible for the amazing artwork featured on Bjork's album covers. Unfortunately, while style abounds, just about nothing else does. The game tries to go in two directions at once, and its viability is hampered by its abysmal failure to come up with a reasonable gameplay model to complement the decent music-editing.

The core of the game portion of BPM rests on the uncreative analogy of traveling down a network cable from one glamorous international city to the next. What you control is essentially a cursor, hurtling ever forward through the blackness. The track you travel down has six parallel channels; moving left or right moves over a section. Where pulsating green arrows point, you must move into and hit the circle button as flowerlike packets appear on the screen. If you hit the packet exactly as you pass into it, it will dissolve into a green octagonal burst. The point of the game is to go as green as possible, without missing packets. The packets represent notes and appear on beats of the songs. The velocity you stream through the data tube depends on the BPM - beats per minute - of the song being played.

Continue reading

Compare prices for Beat Planet Music

This product is currently not in stock at any of our online merchants.

Email me when this product is available