The Tap Tap Revenge games, if you’re not familiar, are a series of music games that “put your rhythmic skills to the test in all new ways.” And Katy Perry Revenge, launching in conjunction with her new album, is the newest addition. KPR works the way the name sounds. While one of 10 Perry hits plays, pink bubbles called “Tappers” spill down your screen. Your goal is to tap them to the beat of the song.
There are other rules that you can learn by reading the app’s tutorial, or just by playing. An arrow means you’re to shake your whole device in the direction the arrow is pointing when it reaches the target zone. When you see trails (Tappers that kind of lengthen), you’re supposed to tap and hold until the end of the trail. And most importantly, when you reach a streak of 50 in a row, shake your device to enter Revenge mode. It might seem like a cinch at first, but once you’ve passed the easy round, you’ve still got medium, hard and extreme to go.
In addition to getting to listen to Katy’s songs while tapping away to the beat, you can view pictures of her (some cute and some kind of weirdly childish, like Katy looking like a pink bunny and Katy dressed as a sexy Girl Scout, but whatever). Plus, you can chat with other Perry fans, and access Facebook Connect to easily sync game results and updates with your Facebook account.
There is this strange sense of epic that only mainstream pop stars seem to have the ability to create with their music, either through the sweeping lyrical generalizations (“You’re wrong when it’s right/It’s black and it’s white”), the catchy choruses, or both. And Perry, with her tap-able beats and favorites like “Hot N Cold” and “Teenage Dream,” delivers in this pop star way.
