Many moons ago, or more specifically eight years ago in February of 2012, indie developer Cold Beam Games released a mobile port of their popular console and desktop shooter Beat Hazard. The idea behind Beat Hazard is that it’s a frantic top-down space shooter that utilizes the tracks in your music library to create unique levels and pulse to the beat of each song you play. Unlike nearly all the other mobile games that claim to use your music library to create custom tailored gameplay experiences, Beat Hazard actually pulls it off perfectly, and we loved the game in our original review from back in 2012. I was borderline obsessed with the game myself, and playing Beat Hazard on my iOS device became my preferred way to listen to music in general. This past fall, Cold Beam released the sequel Beat Hazard 2 on Steam which came equipped with additional features and an even more seizure-inducing visual spectacle, and now that game is making its way to mobile.
Some of the new features in Beat Hazard 2 compared to the original are the ability to generate a custom player ship from different music tracks. These ships can range from tiny “Mosquito" ships to gigantic “Brute" battle ships, and the results are consistent so that if you find a particular track that makes an especially cool ship you can let other players know about it so they can try out that same ship too. Track data is also used to create procedurally generated boss ships, and the mobile version will support both touch controls and physical controllers. As with the first game, Beat Hazard 2 on mobile will utilize the music tracks stored locally on your device, with support for Mp3, WMA, FLAC, OGG, AAC, m4a, and WAV formats as well as streaming stations through SHOUTcast.
Unfortunately the “Open Mic" feature of the desktop version that allowed players to use streaming platforms like Apple Music and Spotify to play the game won’t be able to be included in the mobile version of Beat Hazard 2. As a dinosaur who never got into the whole streaming music thing, this doesn’t bother me at all, but it has been a major request from mobile players over the years so it’s bound to disappoint some. If you’d like to get in on the mobile version of Beat Hazard 2 and you’re an Android device owner, you can grab it in Early Access on the Google Play Store right now at a 50% discount from its regular price, and us iOS users will just have to sit back and be patient as that version is currently in the works as well.
