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The iPod Game That Lets You Play Your Music -- Literally

by Tom Samiljan on August 7, 2007 at 01:02 PM

Where, Oh Where, has Masaya Matsuura, the creator of the original music game, 1998's 'PaRappa the Rapper' for the original PlayStation, been? 'PaRappa the Rapper' just came out for the handheld Sony PSP, but Matsuura himself has been busy working on 'Musika,' a new music game-cum-visualizer for your iPod that launched today on iTunes.

The game is a slight, iPod-optimized twist on typical music game action: Browse through your iPod's music library, choose a song, then start the game, which asks you to press the center button on your device every time a letter that's in the title of the song you're listening to comes up on the screen. The sooner you press that button, the more points you get. Since letters appear in all kinds of visualizer-style, graphically-animated ways (flag-flapping-style, pseudo-pixelated, sideways), the optical-illusion-filled task of identifying the right letter is like the hard part of an eye exam at times.

Of course, you can also just use the game as a visualizer that will do its animated onscreen magic with the letters of the song you're playing, or with custom messages you create (just remember that this is a way to run down you batter faster than if you were just listening to music). You get more sophisticated visualizations as you rack up more points.

We played around with 'Musika' and were pleasantly amused -- we found that playing Pink Floyd 's "Breathe (Speak to Me)" was a cinch on Easy ("Casual") mode, but found the game to be quite a challenge when sped up to Advanced mode (in which the letters come at you a lot faster). It also helps if you know the title of the song.

At $4.99 a pop, 'Musika' is well worth it for music-lovers who need even more reasons to check out of reality. And, if you can't decide whether to play a game or listen to music on your iPod next time you're on a long commute or trip, you might find Musika the perfect way to have your cake and eat it, too.

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Tags: Masaya Matsuura, MasayaMatsuura, Music Games, MusicGames, Parappa the Rapper, ParappaTheRapper, PSP

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