City of Beats

City of Beats is a shoot'em up with elements taken from roguelikes and rhythm games. The game was developed by Torched Hill, an independent studio, and at the time of its release it was the team's most ambitious project.

Plot

In City of Beats, the storyline plays a secondary role. The game takes us on a journey to a cyberpunk city and lets us assume the role of a shooter, who during subsequent expeditions eliminates hordes of hoodlums lurking on the roofs of skyscrapers. It's all in order to face your arch-enemy - a rogue AI called The Zeitgeber.

Mechanics

In City of Beats the action is presented in isometric view. During the game we explore the city, choosing on a procedurally generated map the targets of our next escapades. In this way, step by step we get closer to the boss waiting for us at the end of each path. As each location offers slightly different challenges and rewards, the key to success is to plan your crossing in such a way as to maintain a balance between the difficulty of the former and the quality of the latter.

After choosing the target we move to the roof of a skyscraper, which is the arena of battle with various criminals. Clashes are dynamic, and during them we have to show off not only agility, reflexes and accuracy, but also good hearing. The enemies make all their moves to the rhythm of the music - it applies both to avoiding our fire and launching attacks. By listening to the music, we can predict their actions, which in turn allows us to become a real killing machine.

As we progress, we gain access to new character classes or more powerful weapons and gadgets, as well as learn new useful skills.

Technical aspects

The graphic design of City of Beats is not very detailed, but thanks to the cyberpunk style (which was achieved mainly by bathing the city in darkness and clouds and illuminating the locations with neon lights) it looks pleasant. The game takes place to the accompaniment of catchy electronic music.