Frequency and Amplitude
That next level was Frequency, made in 2001 for the Sony Playstation 2, still considered by some to be the purest and best example of the rhythm genre.
It took the basic principles of Bemani games and wove them across a delirious musical landscape of quirky techno, esoteric rock and relentless drum’n’bass, strewing individual notes across a light-latticed neon tunnel that represents the constituent parts of a song.
In Frequency, you aren’t an accessory to the music, you’re part of it, unleashing overlapping waves of sound by switching between its different instrument tracks until the entire arrangement pulses in unison.
Commercial Failure
Frequency famously sold barely any copies, and its equally accomplished sequel Amplitude, made in 2003 for the Sony Playstation 2, couldn’t do much to build upon its limited success.
“Frequency and Amplitude were both really fun games to play – for people who bothered to give them a try,” Rigopulos laments.
He blames the following reasons for its lack of commercial success:
-An unfamiliar and forbidding visual interface to the uninitiated
-No easy narrative metaphor for people to grasp on to
-Club music-heavy soundtrack which had little mainstream appeal
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