March 3, 2007 - Parents rejoice! Finally a video game that you can give to your kids with no immediate hesitation or eventual regrets. The results of long hours spent in front of the game aren't just honed reflexes and hand-to-eye coordination, but the gift of fluency in the most beautiful and timeless language of all...music.
Anything that can turn the repetition of practise into an entertaining activity is a winner in our books - and Piano Wizard has done exactly that. While it's all very bright and kid-safe, there's nothing from stopping people of any age from getting in on the action. The game operates much like the Beatmania's and Guitar Hero's that you've probably seen by now - notes fly vertically toward a horizontal bar, the moment they intersect being the musically-correct time to play the note. The difference with Piano Wizard is that the controller is a standard keyboard, so you're learning to play a real instrument, not a watered-down arcade approximation.
Piano Wizard also ventures where no other music games do - with advancing modes of play taking you from a beginner, all the way to fluently reading the musical scores that previously seemed like heiroglyphics.
Any song available in MIDI format (read: all of them) can be imported into the game, and incorporated into the lessons, so you can learn to play piano to your favorite song - significantly more appealing to adults than hacking away at Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and adding limitless lastability to the game.
Piano Wizard is available now.
