FREQUENCY (PS2)

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We take a look at Sony's beat em' up

By ANDREW BROWN

It had been a long and tiresome Friday and I arrived home at about 11pm with the intention to go straight to sleep since I had to be up early the next day.

All was proceeding to plan; I was lying there in my comfy, comfy bed and all that remained was to turn off my lamp and close my eyes. Foolishly, I looked across at my shelf.

There sat Frequency. Staring at me.

I tried to block my ears but I could still hear its eerie voice in my head.

"Just five minutes," it whispered. And so I got out of bed to grant Mr. Frequency his simple request. From there on, all I remembered was a blur of pretty colours and funky beats that magically turned my mere 5 minutes into a full 3 hours.

Mr. Frequency had tricked me good.

Frequency can be easily summed up in two words - damn addictive. Players find themselves travelling down a cyber music tunnel of sorts that contains the major parts of a song (You've got the vocals, bass, drums, guitar etc.) and playing the corresponding track by tapping onscreen prompts as the little indicator passes them.

Successfully play a whole portion of that track and the computer will take over for you, meanwhile allowing you to move onto another instrument track in the song to "activate".

When you're all done, the song will enter 'Freestyle Mode' where you can still tinker with individual tracks but now also have access to the insanely cool scratching track and axe synth, which is smoothly controlled by the left analogue stick.

The music you'll be button tappin' to is supplied by some all star groups, namely:

• Paul Oakenfold
  
• Orbital
  
• The Crystal Method
  
• DJ QBert
  
• BT
  
• Dub Pistols
  
• Lo Fidelity Allstars
  
• Ethan Eves
  
• Freezepop
  
• No Doubt
  
• Fear Factory
  
• Orbit
  
• Akrobatik
  
• Powerman 5000
  
• Curve
  
• Roni Size & Reprazent
  
• Meat Beat Manifesto
  
• Funkstar De Luke
  
• Juno Reactor
  
• Jungle Brothers
  
• The Symbion Project
  
• Toni Trippi
  
• DJ HMX
  
• Komput Kontroller

You can even pop the game disc into your average CD player and have a listen. With so many names spanning so many genres, there's bound to be something in this game for everybody.

Even if there's a song you hate with a passion, you can take it into the remix mode and edit it to your own perfection. Truly brilliant stuff: prepare to lose some weeks messing around with it.

Finally ,there's the graphics, which may best be described as Tron on steroids. Sharp, clean and computery angular lines with sickeningly bright colours and warpy animated textures that pound (along with your Dual Shock 2) to each beat make up the visuals.

Heed the manual's advice - no longer will you wonder why epileptics shouldn't play video games...

Sure, Frequency doesn't have guns, car chases, explosions or all those other things the average gamer demands, but it certainly is one of the most unique, immersive and addictive games out there. Perhaps not for everyone, you definitely won't play it just once - that I promise.

ORIGINALITY 80%
SOUND/GRAPHICS 95%
PLAYABILITY 85%
ADDICTION 90%
ENJOYMENT 90%