Sound Shapes reviews burst out, hits the high notes

The first reviews for Sound Shapes are arriving online, giving the quirky PS Vita game nines across the board. Read reviews at ShoptoNet, Sixth Axis, GodisaGeek and PlayStation Universe. Further reviews are now out from EuroGamer.it and the first middling review from VideoGamer.

While this is unlikely to be the game that "saves" the Vita, if it gets in the hands of enough DJ and music types, imagine the word-of-mouth it will get on the net, and how many trance-heads will be snapping it up to play through their Dr. Dre Beats headphones (wonder if Sony is working on a bundle with them or another audio brand, perhaps even a decent Sony pair?) Or, it could give out discounted download codes to everyone of Beck's and Deadmau5's fans to tempt them into the Vita - of course this is Sony we're talking about so a couple of YouTube videos is probably the limit of their marketing genius.

A couple of highlights from the coverage:

SA:

It’s this diversity, even within the confines of a themed ‘album’, that Sound Shapes excels at. This isn’t a record box the size of DJ Shadow’s – there’s only a handful of albums included and each is more like an EP in size than a regular long-player: think 3, 4 and 5 tracks per album. That said, each level can last a good few minutes and when pieced together generally form a coherent package that begs to be replayed, especially given the leaderboard that sits at the end of each run and reports the time taken to complete and the number of notes collected.

PSU:

The highlight in Sound Shapes musical journey is a stage called Cities, with a synthesised soundtrack written by American singer-songwriter Beck. Cities is the only stage that features singing, which is also woven impressively into the gameplay. As the words “Move it, break it and Turn it” are sung, for example, suspended platforms react accordingly, shifting, disappearing and twisting, adding a new challenge to completing the level.

The game is out on PSN this week, so we'll all be trying its tuneful stylings soon enough. You can find the trophy list over here.