Have you ever tried to convince a friend to go on some giant fast dangerous-looking ride with you
Maybe you've been the friend who can't be convinced either way at some point in the conversation. You'll run into the critical question
Why would anyone want to go on that thing when I've been asked I find it kind of hard to articulate my reasoning
Ultimately, I think it comes down to an almost
Out-of-body experience the ride is just so fast with so many cork screws are loose or low tunnels that my brain can't consciously
Keep up. It forces me out of my own head and at the end of the ride, I usually find myself laughing almost
Maniacally, it's like all of the feelings in my body were put on hold and then all those endorphins flood back right at the same
time I
Have felt this way with games before but it's rare a few instances and thumper
Maybe the Chronos fight God of War three some of those final stages of bosses and fury
Unfortunately, I tend to get a tolerance for those experiences pretty quickly
I can fight Chronos three times in a row
But there's no way the second or the third time will be as breathless as the first
But then this year I found the game bang. It's that feeling it gets it just right
It demands that I get out of my head and live in the moment and it manages to deliver the most frenetic exhilarating experiences
I've ever felt while playing a game. Why am I trying to build suspense here? You've seen the title, you know, what's coming?
It's beat save it Sabre is the most fun game I've ever played
I
Was lucky enough to write for Game Informer this summer
I was an intern and kind of given free rein to mess around with everything
They had there as long as I finished my fortnight news and listicles for the week, and I had never really tried VR
So I went to their prescribed VR room and just started messing around. I played budget cuts. It was cool
I played super hot. It was great. I played Res I teared up and in the middle of that
I played beat saber and it was, it was neat. It was really neat
it was nice and responsive and seemed like they really accomplished what they were going for and
Then I gotta let it be for a while. And then I saw something interesting pop up in my youtube suggestion box
so I downloaded that mod and
Holy
The game is kind of like Guitar Hero mixed with fruit
Ninja notes are coming at you down a track and you slice them at time with the music
You've got a lightsaber in each hand and the sword color corresponds with the notes you slice with that hand
Sometimes you've got to dodge colored walls that come down the track
And
That's it. It's insanely simple the official tutorial for this game takes literally 30 seconds
my mom was able to figure it out and
When it was initially released the developers of the game went for a really specific musical style
And it's a choice that makes sense
beat saber is all about slashing notes with the beat and so attracts that they make that beat as easy to follow as possible and
They did that by using pretty much exclusively EDM and and I get that I want to stress this
I support that choice these handful of tracks really show off
The fundamentals of the game and the songs are catchy ish. And I understand why they made that decision
But beat saber is a game about music and music
It's not something that ends with you just understanding it
But we develop the visceral connections with certain songs for a reason. You gotta feel it
and that's the reason that I finished playing a hundred dollar bills, one of the songs initially included with the game and I thought
That was really cool. But then I downloaded mr. Blue sky and when I finished I practically screamed. Oh my god
Oh my god, did I just do that?
Holy shit!
Mr. Blue sky is one of thousands of tracks mapped by members of the community
completely for free
And they can all be accessed via an in-game browser
also made by the community also for free and there are thousands of songs being released every day and
This phenomenon this user created content
this is where the game gets really interesting on an actual gameplay level because if a qualtiy is a
Fascinating thing when it comes to beat Sabre
I've never felt ad at the game
I think that's one of the things that hooked me
Even on easier normal slashing notes in time with the music just feels good and it's because they're coming in time
It feels appropriate and ever feels dumbed down for you
And then as you're playing you start to get better, you can't help it
You only do one thing in the entire game, you're gonna improve at it. I
Loved Red Dead - and I played it for some ungodly amount of time
But there are so many skills involved in playing that game
I rode horses and I shot people and I played blackjack and probably improved at all of those things
God please
Again 16. Imma try that again
But I never really felt like I was getting better because there were always other things. I was learning at the same time and
Because there's so many things. I don't think Red Dead ever really pushes you on any of them
It's about progression through a lovely and meaningful story
So it doesn't really need to but it's also not like it's a walking simulator and I'm gonna have skill based gameplay
I want the chance to like
strengthen those skills
But heat saber
It's just this man and so every act of playing gets you better for every future time you play
But what's even cooler is the actual things you're improving?
Years ago, I begged my parents for a Nintendo Wii. It's based on movement. I said it'll get me fit I live
Now in 2018, I'm finally not lying about working out with a video game
When I first played this track, I literally couldn't move fast enough to hit the notes
But I've been on a beat saver regiment for the past six months now and it's not just the muscle memory. It's actual muscle
I have gotten better and
Different songs demand different things from YouTube
Rasputin is a super popular one for good reason the positions of the notes make you do the rest butan dance
Whipping your arms from one side to another these feel totally different from the circles and reverse circles
You're pulling off an intergalactic and the aptly named
500 squats Matt is
well
What I found even more interesting about beat sabers difficulty is how my brain has adapted to the movements by fully
Automating incredibly complex sequences of notes. I have no idea what I'm doing here
If you asked me to recreate the hand motions now, I totally couldn't do it
In fact, if I start thinking about what I'm doing while I'm playing the song I mess myself up
It's like I'm learning chord progressions. I started unconsciously chunking sequences of nodes together, and it's not just on songs
I played dozens of times before this will happen the first time I play something
Of course, I get better through knowledge of individual songs as well
But I've started to learn the common language that links all these maps together
and that's
wild because as I mentioned before it
These maps are all made by different people and there's no official rulebook on how to make a food saver map
So people go about it really differently
One of the early standouts was Benny the beast a mapper with a real knack for making danceable tracks
His work on can't stop the feeling and midnight City and uptown funk are
legendary within the community
It seems like Benny was one of the first people to realize potential outside of just creating more Maps like the ones that were already
Included you can tell when you're playing a Benny track that he's thought about where and how your body is gonna be notes
Don't come as fast as some mappers, but their positions force you to start bouncing and moving despite yourself
Another early standout was great user and he is my personal favorite that mr. Blue sky track from the beginning
that was him and he has continued to just make
Exceptionally high quality maps from all sorts of musical styles. The song is from the mask likes
Okay
that the mask and it's so
Unbelievably upbeat and jazzy and cool or this one with a song by Parov Stelar
In a yeas your map everything feels just in the right place
There are never notes that feel cheap or unexpected. They might be complex
Sure
but you get a hold on mondays or songs you feel like you could do it with your eyes closed and
There's so many others
there the
Blistering rap maps from Tools VR maps that are surprisingly doable so long as you don't drop the beat not even for a second
There's ruckus who demonstrates a command of incredible range of challenge from the pleasantly difficult
To the good lord and
So I kind of know what I'm in for with each of these mappers
It's like they're all painters in the same abstract school, but they each have managed to maintain an identifiable style
I could differentiate a Benny matte from a jewels map. No problem a playing one gives me the skills
I may have been lacking in another so they actually build on each other instead of competing for the spotlight
each Sabre consistently delivers that best of all video game feelings the thing where you absolutely
Could not beat something no matter how hard you tried and then you come back a little while later and just nail it
There have been so many times that I thought I'd reached my skill ceiling within the game first here then
Here then this one then every time I've managed to come out on top, but they always happened almost by accident
I think wow it's been a long time since I tried that song and then I'd do it and I'd somehow pass with flying colors
Now I'm confident. There's basically no skill ceiling sure
There are some songs have been stuck on for a while
But that's never stopped me before and from the look of things on YouTube
I'm far from the top of the beat saber food-chain. This guy's doing it like the Darth Maul. Are you kidding me?
If beat saber was originally released as a game this community of people have made it into something more
It's a musical instrument
Or maybe it's a form of dance or maybe it's just a celebration of the songs that have meant something to us over the years
but whatever it is Pete saber is just
exploding with content and passion
There's so much more I could say about the game along with songs
the community makes mods that change the swords the lighting the
Platforms you stand on I can play with the two swords from Metal Gear Rising revengeance, which is the greatest gift
Anyone has given me this year. I
Prefer to play with the skybox
Standing far above the clouds
As well as saving my FPS and let me tell you I need every last one of them
It makes me feel like some ancient master on a mountaintop temple
I usually have a fan pointed at me while I'm playing so that just adds verisimilitude to this
demonstrable ridiculous experience
There's the fact that someone made the entire movie of Shrek into a map earlier this year
Every line of dialogue every sound effect every hit that keeps coming and doesn't stop coming
I actually got to write about that at Game Informer
I finally wore them down after asking to write about beat Sabre every day for months and
The best thing I can say about the game is I just don't want to play it every day
I played it every day at Game Informer
And then when I finished there I did a crazy list deal in a parking lot to buy my own
Oculus and I relentlessly cleared a square in my house to make a room to flail around and it was worth it
I've had trouble finishing this video because every time I start talking about it, I want to go play it again
Beat Sabre is an exercise that I can get better at it's a dance club where I'm confident. I'm actually doing the right moves
It's that roller coaster that I'm hyping myself up to get on and somehow even the thousandth time around. I still get that breathless feeling
It feels kind of silly to say that beat Sabre is one of my favorite games ever one of the other titles on that list
are contemplatively
Shadow of the Colossus and the beginner's guide what it is. It is a simple idea
Executed perfectly with room for millions of variations. Each Sabre is a VRS Tetris and I think
Hope it'll be a formula that sticks around for a long long time
You
You
