AVICII Invector (Xbox One) Review

This sequel overhauls the futuristic style graphics by adding in some extra colour and also adds the name, AVICII, into the title, perhaps to make it much more apparent who this is dedicated to. It is interesting that modern rhythm games take the direction of flying along a highway of notes with some sort of space vehicle. It may not be original, but Hello Games has also decided to stick with what gamers are familiar with as notes present themselves along a fixed track, similar to how things were in the Guitar Hero series in which the player has to time a button press with the matching button on-screen. There are three levels of difficulty, with the easiest level only including a combination of two face buttons and one shoulder button. The number of face buttons that the player needs to press increases in the harder difficulty settings, eventually racking up to an intense button mashing bonanza that can be tough to master.

At the end of each track, the player is awarded with a letter-based grade and a percentage of the notes that have been hit, which is then translated into points that are featured on an online leaderboard. The key to getting a high score is to be able to master consecutive, well-timed button presses to rack up a multiplier on the running tally, which can get as high as a x4. Maintaining this is the hard part! To spice things up, the note highway has a few other added layers of difficulty for players to contend with, such as using the right trigger to boost, sending the spaceship into hyperdrive and quickening the pace to uncomfortably high speeds.

Sections of the note highway are also removed, forcing the spaceship to fly around in an on-rails 3D space, making sure that those in control navigate the ship through placed rings. Finally, there are large chunks of the note highway that feature a rotating prism and, with a flick of the joystick, the ship will rotate to one of the corresponding sides. All of these elements add in a diverse, meandering skill spectacle that is a thrill to play and a joy to behold.

Oddly enough, there is a story-driven narrative tied to the game, centred round punk-rock-looking space traveller, Stella. Her adventure sees her go from world to world in her spaceship with a few cut-scenes put in to help drive the plot. It seems somewhat random and disconnected from the rest of the title, and while it doesn't affect AVICCI Invector negatively, it also doesn't really add anything to the core action, other than filling in the reason for the aesthetic design.

Other rhythm games have also based their track-list on a single band or artist, such as Guitar Hero's efforts with Aerosmith, Van Halen, and Metallica or Rock Band's release of The Beatles. AVICII's back catalogue has somewhat of an advantage over these releases in that his music spans a wider genre of music from slow, meaningful blues-esque tracks, to a mix of folk-infused tunes, with electronic dance beats. This diverse list of styles means that there is a wide range of song types to play through with friends. That's fortunate as there is an option for split-screen local multiplayer but no real option for online play, which is a shame.