I've been a big fan of Harmonix pretty much since their inception, and now that they are stuck in the fortnite gulag I decided it was time to check out some of the things that they made that went right under my radar, with Fuser being one of those titles.
Harmonix games have always loved breaking music down to its individual stems, from frequency/amplitudes lane shifting to rock bands multiple instrument play. Fuser basically takes harmonix's fascination with stems to make an incredibly simple to use and fun mixing program. This is the REAL way to do "DJ hero". You get four tracks and can put any stem from up to 24 songs you select into them. They basically figured out a way to make a music sandbox game, which is insanely rad.
That being said, because of the open-ended freeform nature of the game, turning it into an actual game is insanely boring. The singleplayer campaign essentially forces you to check menial things off of a checklist within a given time, which kind of sucks the entire creative aspect of the game right out as you are forced to bend the mix to the games will and not necessarily your own. It also drags on far longer than I want, with the most generic cookie-cutter lookin mfers as NPCS. When I first showed my friends this game they thought it was fortnite, and ngl if that happens you know you've homogeonized your artstyle too far.
Despite the slog of a singleplayer, I've had way too much fun in freestyle mode to dislike this game. On PC, there's an entire treasure trove of custom music to install, and with mods this game becomes a 10/5 shitposting factory. I've spent so many nights DJing in VC with my friends as we all watch the mix flip-flop from the most rancid sounding trash to the freshest beats in the modern day and back again. The freestyle mode really is where the fun in the game lies, because there it's on YOU to determine how good you are mixing instead of the game. We've also made a decent song meta of what songs are universally OP in mashups, with jamiroqual's Canned Heat and the Black Eyed Peas' Let's Get It Started working no matter what whereas something like Bob-omb Battlefields' clown horns always bob-omb the entire vibe that the mix was going for. The doofy trumpets in Psy's new face are always fun to drop in when people least expect it, as is the iconic trash synth in Cbat (which surprisingly works more often than not).
It's absolutely something worth giving a try (if you know where to get it, the game has been delisted for a while), because there's really an endless amount of ways to mess around in this game, and everyone will mess around in a completely different way depending on their music tastes. Making stupid mashups has never been so streamlined and easy! Just don't touch the actual campaign with a 300 foot pole, download a complete save file or something if you want all the unlocks.
Harmonix games have always loved breaking music down to its individual stems, from frequency/amplitudes lane shifting to rock bands multiple instrument play. Fuser basically takes harmonix's fascination with stems to make an incredibly simple to use and fun mixing program. This is the REAL way to do "DJ hero". You get four tracks and can put any stem from up to 24 songs you select into them. They basically figured out a way to make a music sandbox game, which is insanely rad.
That being said, because of the open-ended freeform nature of the game, turning it into an actual game is insanely boring. The singleplayer campaign essentially forces you to check menial things off of a checklist within a given time, which kind of sucks the entire creative aspect of the game right out as you are forced to bend the mix to the games will and not necessarily your own. It also drags on far longer than I want, with the most generic cookie-cutter lookin mfers as NPCS. When I first showed my friends this game they thought it was fortnite, and ngl if that happens you know you've homogeonized your artstyle too far.
Despite the slog of a singleplayer, I've had way too much fun in freestyle mode to dislike this game. On PC, there's an entire treasure trove of custom music to install, and with mods this game becomes a 10/5 shitposting factory. I've spent so many nights DJing in VC with my friends as we all watch the mix flip-flop from the most rancid sounding trash to the freshest beats in the modern day and back again. The freestyle mode really is where the fun in the game lies, because there it's on YOU to determine how good you are mixing instead of the game. We've also made a decent song meta of what songs are universally OP in mashups, with jamiroqual's Canned Heat and the Black Eyed Peas' Let's Get It Started working no matter what whereas something like Bob-omb Battlefields' clown horns always bob-omb the entire vibe that the mix was going for. The doofy trumpets in Psy's new face are always fun to drop in when people least expect it, as is the iconic trash synth in Cbat (which surprisingly works more often than not).
It's absolutely something worth giving a try (if you know where to get it, the game has been delisted for a while), because there's really an endless amount of ways to mess around in this game, and everyone will mess around in a completely different way depending on their music tastes. Making stupid mashups has never been so streamlined and easy! Just don't touch the actual campaign with a 300 foot pole, download a complete save file or something if you want all the unlocks.
jtduckman
3 months ago