A Bank Holiday Bargain: Audiosurf

If you're American, you may not understand the curious institution we Britishers call bank holidays. Because of a general agreement that UK weather is so hideous that it's not worth going outside except during the third week of June, instead families and friends choose to holiday inside their favourite bank for a long weekend. Lloyds TSB is famed for its indoor beaches, while Halifax really does excel at pony trekking tours of the vaults. In the evenings, we all drink tea and discuss the decline of the gold standard.

Also we go shopping. There's an awful lot of discounted barbecue sets to be had this weekend. Fortunately the internet seems to have caught on. Of course, Audiosurf being reduced to just $5 (about £2.50, Britishians!) this weekend has absolutely nothing to do with it being a bank holiday here, but it's nice to pretend our weird customs have some some tiny relevance in Americaland.

Audiosurf was one of our more adored indie games of last year, even sparking an intense and bitter war between Kieron and myself over who could get the highest score at Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. RPS readers soon joined the fight, and put us both to shame, so we retreated to a private battle over Billy Bragg songs instead.

Many have nitpicked at this MP3 player/racer/match-3 hybrid, but I still feel it realises its central concept - turning your music collection into a game - beautifully. If you don't already own it, shame on you. If you don't pick it up at this astonishingly low price (it's practically free!) before Monday, double-shame with extra scorn for you, bucko. The offer ends Monday though, so get a wriggle on, eh?

Oh, if you are still unsure about the game itself, bear in mind it comes with a free MP3 copy of The Orange Box soundtrack. So if nothing else, it's an album of splendid videogame music for mini-money.

I would also heartily advocate you folks starting up some new challenges, if anyone fancies thinking up a suitably awesome/hilarious track a bunch of us could high score-war over in this post's comments.

Thanks to Amy Whittington for the nudge about this one.