Welcome to the Platinum Life: The Intial Review

The road to music superstardom isn’t paved with gold. It’s full of  hard work, drama, and shows…lots of shows. It’s the grind baby, and it’s not for the lazy or faint of heart. But if you’ve got the drive, gear, and talent you have a shot at making it to the top. Think you got what it takes to live the Platinum Life? Good, because you’re going to have your chance soon enough.

Heatwave Interactive has just launched the beta version of its social networking game called Platinum Life on Facebook. And you might be shaking your head thinking, “not another social networking game,” but please hold your judgment until you play it. Instead of being down home on the farm or joining up with a shady mob, Platinum Life lets players step into the role of an artist trying to make it in the music world. Players start on the path to fame, fortune, and notoriety by choosing their class. Whether you choose a Rapper, DJ, or Vocalist, the game is proving to be a very entertaining and engaging experience.

Right now, I’m playing as a rapper named Triumph. I’m hoping that in some small way my femcee can redeem the sorry state of women in Hip-Hop. So lets start at the top. After you choose your class, players have the chance to customize their avatar’s appearance. You can tweak gender, clothing, region, even their hair style with every choice, excluding gender having an effect on the amount of performance points you start out with. This is important because the more performance points you have, the easier it will be to get the crowd under your sway. I had fun building Triumph and I couldn’t wait to play.

If you’ve played any social networking game you know you start at the bottom of the barrel at level one. In Platinum Life, you start off as unsigned, not unsigned hype, you have to build that yourself. You build you career doing shows, which add to your fame level. Fill up your fame gauge and you move to the next level. Gameplay is fun. You start off with the small time gigs, open mics and high school parties with your first goal dangling like a proverbial carrot — reach level five and make your first mixtape. I’m at level seven right now and let me tell you, making that mixtape tasted sweet.

To keep things interesting, some drama might enter the scene. As in real life, it can be in the form of a heckler or a noise complaint. You have three options to deal with drama — break out, turn it up, or diss the fool. So far I’ve been a ‘diss the fool’ type of girl. And it’s been working for me, but that might always be the case so don’t get to comfortable with handling drama the same way every time it rears its ugly head.

After you’ve performed a few shows, you might receive a few prompts that are hinting that your shows aren’t hitting and that  you need to re-up on your gear to remedy the problem. No worries, you can go to the store and buy clothes, equipment, and even property like pool halls and television broadcast stations when you get to the proper level. The clothing choices are pretty varied, but I hope that the developers will continue to add pieces to the collection. Aside from the aesthetic, certain pieces of gear give you performance points, so while you might want to have a scantily clad artist, it pays to cloth your avatar. There are currently pieces of clothing that give your artist a 90 point boost, I can’t wait to get my hands on them.

The attention to detail in this game is incredible, from the clothing to the equipment, the developers took their time to craft a game that wouldn’t be a fly by night affair. The animation is beautiful, I love the game’s title song, and the beat playing in the background is something you can nod your head to. In addition to the core gameplay, there’s also a trivia section that will definitely test your music knowledge. There is also a battle arena where players can put up an ante for another player to take — provided they have the skills. Similar to battles in Mafia Wars, depending on your level and performance points the battles are yours to win or lose.

I’m usually not a fan of social networking games, but the more I play Platinum Life, I’m discovering I’m thinking strategy in the same way I do when I’m playing Final Fantasy XIII or Metal Gear Solid. I’m working towards getting my first record deal so I’ll keep you posted on when I reached the signed level of the game. I’m enjoying the time I’m spending with the game. It has that same engrossing characteristic that keeps me playing for hours on end and not minding one bit that I might have missed a meeting (just kidding). It’s a must play.