GRIDbeat! Review

Before we begin playing GRIDbeat!, wired headphones are recommended for this game. You can calibrate your setup to make sure you have the optimal experience for your playtime. I played both on my TV with a soundbar and on the Steam Deck handheld, and found that I was more successful timing-wise with wired headphones. You can run the calibration at any time, along with changing the difficulty between Chilled, Hacker, and Boss Hacker. The lower the difficulty, the larger your beat window is.

Developer Ridiculous Games, along with publisher Acclaim, Inc., presents GRIDbeat!, a cyber-dungeon crawler where every move you make has to match the music, or the total system will shut down. You have just stolen a large amount of incredibly valuable data by hacking into the world's largest corporation’s network. Getting in was easy, but getting out is far more challenging.

The Directory is where you will find all the modes available to play. Main Game is the story mode, as you try to escape the mainframe; Challenges has you debug a selection of bonus levels that become available once you complete the story; and Featured contains bonus levels with special guest soundtracks. Like the other modes, you will need to complete the game first.

Before jumping in, you will edit your hacker’s appearance by selecting male, female, anon, or featured, and then choosing your hacker tag. I was torn between choosing LolCat or Mega Ran, a nerdcore rapper that I follow on social media. He is also one of the hackers in the Featured characters section.

We start by playing the client’s training programme. Our hacker has a digital assistant that gives advice, telling you exactly what you need to do when you encounter different obstacles in your path. You also prove to the mysterious person you are working for that you have the skills to successfully complete the assignment you are being paid for. There are three stages to play through, and then you are ready to move on to your main mission. You cannot move around freely; instead, you need to stay in time with the beat.

I am playing using a controller or the buttons on the Steam Deck. To move around the stage, you can use the D-pad or the face buttons, whichever feels better for you. When you move, time it to the beat of the music. To prevent data loss, you will need to stay in sync with the beat. Too many bad moves and you will drop out of sync; when this happens, the audio starts to sound distorted, and your mistakes will cost you data. All is not lost if this occurs; there is a chance to get back in time with the music. Move around the spaces near you and time your actions with the beat to refill the sync meter. Once filled, the music becomes louder and returns to normal.

You will explore the stage by following one of the available paths. There are multiple things you can encounter, such as Data Vaults, which restore some of your data and may grant bonuses, or Firewalls that you will need to hack to disable. Once you reach the exit port, you will move on to the next level, that is, if you can time your movements correctly to get through the Logic Gates. These are blocks where the opening shifts with each beat around the diamond-shaped space. Time it right to get in, and then be patient when exiting.

Collecting all the bits in a level will give you a bonus. There are also three large Mega Bits to find that will give you extra points. There are multiple routes within a level; the I/O Tower will let you access another grid once the binary switches are activated. This is done by moving around the space with the power symbol, and once you hit every point, it will activate.

You will encounter some spaces with a pink glowing outline; these are Firewalls. To remove them, you will need to perform hacking sequences by running your Hackware programme and completing all required steps. There are also Advanced Firewalls that block your path. These are much harder to disable and require precise timing. It took me a few attempts to figure out the exact timing needed, but it becomes easier with practice.

As you progress, you will face Turret Programmes. They will shoot at you, but their frame rate is slow, so as long as you keep moving, they will struggle to hit you. There are also corruption spaces that disable your programmes and deal damage, along with deadly Firewalls known as Black Ice.

GRIDbeat! has a great ’80s vibe, with simplistic visuals, branching grid paths, and glowing neon colours. I almost felt like I was inside a Tron arcade game. Each stage features different music to keep in time with while you attempt to disable security systems and find your way out of the mainframe. The most important thing is to move with the beat.

GRIDbeat! is a super fun rhythm game that is both challenging and incredibly addictive. It can become frustrating when you cannot quite nail the timing, especially when trying to disarm Firewalls and other hazards. I would recommend using wired headphones and a controller to avoid latency issues that can occur with wireless setups. If you are a fan of music-based games that reward a strong sense of rhythm and feature an upbeat soundtrack, this is definitely one to try for yourself.