.detuned by .theprodukkt

I'm certainly late on the bandwagon, but finally got around to trying out a couple of PSN titles. I saw .detuned listed and vaguely remembered it being mentioned here awhile back. I'd heard of .theprodukkt before, casually following the demo scene and having been amazed by the .debris demo's visuals done in only 180k as well as .kkrieger - a 96k first-person-shooter:



Yes, that's 96 kilobytes - not megs, or gigs - with graphics rivaling last gen in a filesize about 13% of the size of the original Wolfenstein 3D demo.

It was only $3 for something described as an interactive music experience, allowing users to "Create dynamic artwork in real-time to accompany your XMB music collection." Terms like, "Music visualizer," were thrown around and all of this led me to expect something very different from what I experienced. I figured you'd be able to tweak visuals on-the-fly but that there'd be an automatic visualizer that moves the figures to the music and possibly a record & playback feature allowing one to create a surreal music video that could be played back for friends.

$3 isn't much, but it's enough that these expectations seemed reasonable - particularly given the variety of visualizers available for free for various media players. Sadly, it fell depressingly short. I fired up the demo armed with a couple of tracks I'd happened to copy to my PS3. The available options gave me a choice of watching their pre-made demo or playing around on my own. I watched the demo all the way through and was impressed by how well the motions, morphs and visual effects synced up to the tempo and feel of the included track.



I eagerly jumped into the interactive mode. Since the included track wasn't selectable, I opted for the first track of Moon8 - the 8-bit remake of Dark Side of the Moon. A surreal track for a bizarre landscape. After fiddling with the controls and the application's help screen I unlocked all of the effects and practiced using them to accompany the music. I never managed to get my fingers working fast enough to make anything that looked like it went with the music. My only accomplishment in the end was in managing to creep myself out with surreal visuals and frighteningly distorted and slow versions of The Ataris songs.

If there had been recording options, or even a demo algorithm that vaguely corresponded the effects to your custom tracks it might've been worth the few dollars. As it is, it's useless for anything but a minute or two of amusement. I deleted it that evening and would still have even if I hadn't known I could re-download it. It's so disappointing that something so unique and promising could actually be released on the PSN, yet fail to deliver on any of its promises. At least it earns them an "E" for Effort.