A game for the blind? Sounds good to me. http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=13297 Have you ever bragged to your friends about being so good at a game that you could beat them with your eyes closed? If so, have you actually tried it? Probably not. No matter how much audio feedback a game has, there's no replacing a good pair of eyes to see what's going on in the complex games of today.
Soundvoyager for the GBA is different. It's about as simple as you can get in gaming. The game looks like something out of the Atari 2600 era, with gameplay just as primitive. The main level has you collect items by shuffling to the left or right. The next level makes you dodge oncoming traffic, again only restricting you to sideways movement. A different level puts you in control of a dot that needs to catch chickens running around in a chicken coop represented by a large square. The game looks so boring, you'll want to play it with your eyes closed.
That's the point of Soundvoyager. You can play through the entire game with your eyes closed.
All of the action that takes part in the game is conveyed through the use of stereo sound. You can't see the traffic that's speeding toward you, but you can hear which lane it's in based on your position. Those chickens you need to catch? You can't see them, but you can hear them cackle on your left and right. The items you need to collect in the game's main level are actually parts of a music track you build as you shuffle closer to the sound by picking it up in the stereo field.
That type of game, called Sound Catcher, makes up the roots of a branching map that is the center of Soundvoyager. Completing a level will advance you a notch on the map. When you hit a junction, you decide which path you want to take by playing a game of Sound Catcher. After catching all the sounds and making another funky-fresh piece of music, you can go left or right on the map by finding the sound to your left or finding the sound to your right. You win if you can get to the end of a branch, but in this game, you've only truly beaten it if you've completed every level on the map.
The levels are varied as much as their simplicity allows. There are around 15 different games, each with three difficulty levels that you need to progress through to reach the next branch. However, a lot of them are very similar to each other. There are two different games where you must weave through traffic, only in one of them you need to catch up with a sound-emitting object. You just need to survive in the other. Then again, one that stands alone is Sound Cannon, where you need to shoot down incoming sounds before they hit you. Again, this is all done with stereo sound. If you look at your GBA screen, all you'll see is a blank field of dots or lines.
That's why I recommend that Soundvoyager be played with your eyes closed. Your eyes will be feeding your brain useless information, so it's best to just trust your ears and "see" things that way. This makes the game something completely different, since you will be relying on the sense of sound exclusively. Other games have incorporated audio quite well into their designs, but never before have I seen a game make you rely on audio exclusively. You could play the entire game without looking at it, if you wanted to. That means blind people can play this game, too. Isn't that something?
I think this is a game that you shouldn't hesitate to try out if you want something completely different, which is what Soundvoyager truly is. Currently, this game is only a Japanese import, though all in-game text is in English. Even so, Nintendo should bring this and the other bit Generations GBA games to other regions, because people should hear more about games like Soundvoyager.
Pros:
A truly unique and novel concept You really can play it with your eyes closed Cons: Lots of sounds happening at once can confuse you Stereo separation could have been stronger Graphics: 2.0 The graphics are so bad, you'll want to play with your eyes closed ... actually, you
should play with your eyes closed. Seeing nothing on the screen as you play will actually distract you from concentrating on the audio cues. The only thing the visuals are good for is to help you see a sound in a newly introduced game. Everything else is better represented through audio.
Sound: 9.0 You play the game using sound. How cool is that? Because of the heavy use of the stereo field, the game absolutely requires headphones to play—the stereo speakers on the DS won't be adequate enough. Even with headphones, the separation of left and right could have been a little stronger. As for what the game actually sounds like, the music you create in the different Sound Catcher levels can get pretty groovy, and the SFX are clear and concise.
Control: 7.0 Generally, all you do in the game is move to the left or right, sometimes pressing a button to go along with it. It works, but there isn't anything special beyond that point.
Gameplay: 6.0 If not for the novel concept, the games in Soundvoyager would be as engaging as dragging a stick in the dirt. The games are rudimentary in scope, but playing them using sound as the primary sense gives them an interesting twist.
Lastability: 7.0
You'll be playing this thing for more than a few days, that's for sure. The more of the game you beat, the more music you can use in a special “remix" version of Sound Catcher. Who knows what kind of music you can create with all the different sounds available?
Final: 7.0
Although Soundvoyager is simple, playing it with sound as your only guide gives it a uniqueness that makes it something worth checking out on that basis alone. That's really all that can be said about it, so if you have a good pair of headphones and an itch for more GBA software, here's a game you may want to import.
Topic: REVIEWS: Soundvoyager (Read 3071 times)
