Synaesthete is an action-rhythm game created by four students at DigiPen. It was the winner of the Best Student Game award at the 2007 Independent Games Festival (IGF).

Synaesthete, at first glance, looks far more complicated to play than it actually is. It follows familiar principles that we have come to know in the mainstream rhythm games; watch for “notes” to descend to a certain point, typically denoted by a button, and then hit the corresponding button at the appropriate time. Missing a note in Guitar Hero, for example, will cause your music to skip and it won’t pick up again until you’ve gotten yourself back on track. In Synaesthete, however, missing a note does nothing to disrupt the flow of the music.

In Synaesthete you control an avatar called the Zaikman. The objective is to navigate the Zaikman through a series of rooms. Enemies spawn in these rooms, and Zaikman will be locked inside until he defeats the enemies. You help the Zaikman accomplish this by hitting “notes” successfully; this will fire energy beams at enemies based on his proximity to them. The Zaikman can be damaged and his health is indicated by a meter that is located just below your “note bar”. You don’t have to hit every note, but since the notes are your weapons, you don’t want to miss too many.
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From Xbox to Xbox 360, from there to the PC, Wii and DS, this week’s cheap game has made the rounds. Despite its rather pronounced presence, it’s still good, still cheap, and still worth a look.

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved was released originally as a mini-game within Project Gotham Racing 2 for the Xbox. Chances are good that you’ve played at least one iteration of GeoWars. However, you may not have known that it is available on the PC, and for less money than anywhere else.
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The game this week is a contribution to the puzzle genre by the name of Tripline. It was independently developed and distributed by one Joakim Sandberg. You may have seen him on the 1UP Show during a segment about his most recent game, Noitu Love 2. If you didn’t, you should probably go check that out; it’s a very nice interview and Noitu Love 2 looks incredible.

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Alright, here’s the lowdown on this recently released (April 16th) racing game from Nadeo. First things first, this game is FREE from Steam! So there aren’t a lot of reasons not to at least give it a try.

Gameplay-wise, it’s a hoot. Essentially you are racing against ghosts of three set times on each track (these are preset for each level). You beat the times for Bronze, Silver, or Gold and get the respective medal. [PK: A bonus set of medals are unlocked later based on the author’s best time.] There are a few different types of tracks which pose different approaches, and difficulties vary the gameplay further. Multiplayer is also available in which you can race your friends on even more tracks, some which are not available in solo play.
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Painkiller is a first-person shooter created by Polish developer People Can Fly (now a subsidiary of Epic Games), and released in 2004. In November of that same year, the Painkiller story continued when an expansion titled Battle Out of Hell was released; it would later be bundled and sold with the original game as Painkiller Gold Edition and Painkiller Black Edition.

Painkiller has all the qualities one would expect in a worthy successor to games like Doom and Quake: a constant sense of urgency driving the player forward; a powerful and satisfying arsenal including such mainstays as the shotgun and chain gun, as well as such exotic, proprietary creations as the Electrodriver and (my personal favorite) the Painkiller itself. With this adherence to tradition in mind, it’s only natural that Hell (and its denizens) would play a part in Painkiller’s narrative. The game opens with a cut scene showing the game’s protagonist, Daniel Garner, driving with his wife to her birthday dinner. It’s raining heavily, Daniel looks away for a moment, and they’re killed in a head-on collision. Although his wife was admitted to Heaven, Daniel has been relegated to Purgatory. After spending some time there, he is approached by a messenger and is given an opportunity for atonement, an opportunity to reunite with his wife. Here, the objective of the game is revealed: kill the four generals of Lucifer’s army, and on the way, “destroy everything that moves.”

Painkiller also has a strong multiplayer component that, for a while, was a pretty big deal in the competitive scene. Its popularity waned, however, so while sparsely populated servers can still be found, it can’t be counted on. Regardless, the singleplayer campaigns of Painkiller and its expansion are worth the $9.99 to Steam or Good Old Games.

Today’s game is again, not a freebie, but it pays for itself quickly via Awesome Express. The game is called “Eets: Hunger. It’s Emotional.”and it was developed by Klei Entertainment. Not to be confused with its counterpart that was released last year for XBOX Live Arcade, Eets: Chowdown, the 2006 version I’ll be covering here is for the PC.

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Prey is often maligned after it’s long development cycle left people disappointing themselves and their high expectations. The game can actually be quite enjoyable for fans of classic HL-era FPS (with some twists). The narrative appropriately sets the tone and drives the gameplay, like in the best of games. The protagonist is a Native American named Tommy who feels disconnected from his heritage, one that will end up being crucial to his survival. The action is a blast with many perspective shifts that keep it a unique experience. The weapons are enjoyable, thankfully, as that often tends to be crucial to my enjoyment of FPS games as a whole. They feel nice. That long development time surely wasn’t wasted here.

I think my only complaint was how you couldn’t lose. Similar to the chambers in Bioshock, but with added effort, you can revive yourself where you left off after you “die”. It runs on the Doom III engine (2004) to give you an idea of how well it will run on your system. It still looks great, as you can see in the screenshot.

Sokkratez and I have both played through the game and we both highly recommend it. You can probably find it for under $10, but it’s selling for $20 sold out on Steam as of this moment. (don’t ask me how) Luckily you can add any retail Prey cd-key to the Steam service.