Rhythm is just a click away, OSU!

Name: OSU!
Devoloper: Peppy
Year: 2007
Platform: PC
Genre: Music Game

Due to my new job, I did not game as much as I wanted to this week. Due to the job I don't have HOURS of spare time, and half an hour of one game isn't appealing at all. If I have a couple of free minutes, I spend them om games which don't require a lot of time. Music games like these are the way to go then. Out of the few music games I played, this is my favorite. It is called Osu!

The concept of Osu! is actually quite cheap, since it is copied of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! A music game for Nintendo DS, also known as Elite beat agents. Osu! is different in the aspect that you can download a lot of songs to play with, whilst Ouendan only has about 20 predetermined songs. Osu! also features multiplayer, although Elite Beat Agents also featured that with a maximum of 4 players, Osu! can support 8. If you don't desire multiplayer, you can just play alone, but your score will always be ranked. You can see in what place you would finish if it was multiplayer. Or just compare your overall score with the world. Finally, in Osu! you can change skins of the overall layout. This isn't possible in Ouendan!.

Osu! can be played with every pointer device you have. This being a tablet, a normal mouse or even a touch screen (which makes it really easy all of a sudden). The point of the game is to match your gameplay with the beat of the song. You do this in 3 ways

1. The Hit marker. A button appears with a ring surrounding it. The ring gets smaller over a short timespan. As soon as the ring touches the button, you are supposed to click it. If it is a good beatmap this will be at the time time as a beat in the song. This may sound easy, and it is easy... on easy. On hard the timespan between buttons gets real short, clicking several times in a second. And not all buttons are on the same place on the screen. Thus you need great accuracy to click and aim at the same time. Is on of these wrong, you will get less points or none at all!

2. The slider marker.It uses the same approach ring as the Hit marker. Yet once you clicked it you have to hold down the button. In the meantime you have to use the pointer to go trough the slide. This also requires timing in order to get full points.

3. The spinner. Once it appears you have to use the pointer to spin around the circle fast! The approach ring returns again, this time displaying how much time you have left to spin. In the time that you have to spin you need to fill up the gauge on both sides of the spinners. If you complete it before time runs out you gain bonus points for every spin.

The screen you see features more the the things you have to click or move. In the top left you have a life bar. Fail to hard and you... well ... fail! The top right displays your score, kinda obvious. Underneath that you see a pizza slice, slowly filling up as the song progresses. Here you can see ho far you are into the song. Right from that you see a %. This displays your accuracy. The lower left corner has a multiplier. Every hit gives you 1 more combo point. This means that if you don't miss, every marker you DO hit is worth more points.

The fun thing about Osu! is that you can play all the songs you like. No, of course not every song you ever heard has a beatmap. But I find it hard to imagine that in the great library of beatmaps there isn't a single song you like. You can find a great deal of old skool video game music, anime music or random pop music... and lots of touhou... and even more touhou. Not to mention the touhou music T_T (seriously, from every music track of touhou there are at least 15 approved beatmaps!) If you truly want a song to be playable, you can also create one yourself.

If you are a lazy DDR player or want to test your aim in a music game I can recommend Osu! to you. It can entertain you for hours or for a couple of minutes. About anything you want.

Also, this time I am not going to end this post with fun facts. Instead I want more views on my youtube account by linking some video's of my gameplay. Enjoy!

Ps, I should note that I play this with a regular pc mouse. Not with a tablet or anything.