TROMBONE CHAMP

Jody Macgregor, AU/ Weekend Editor: Folks get a kick out of watching Trombone Champ, the best and probably only trombone-based rhythm game we’ll ever need, but it’s even more fun to play yourself. Mousing up and down while pressing a single key is so straightforward you know every mistake you make was your own fault.

But where the sound of a guitar hitting a bum note is a distressing jangle, the farty parping of a clumsily played trombone is pure comic bliss. No offence to tromboners, but it’s a silly instrument. There’s a reason Monty Python picked a John Philip Sousa military march to be their theme music, all bombast and selfimportance, ruined by three trombones tooting away.

Mollie Taylor, News Writer: Trombone Champ managed to elicit such a guttural, delightfully awful cackle from me that hasn’t exited my body in years. It’s stupid fun and I love its liberal use of royaltyfree music, with the occasional dash of trap thrown in. It’s a game you can’t be mad at because you’re bad at it, because being bad makes the experience so wonderful.

Chris Livingston, Features Producer: The best games are the ones that don’t just teach you something when you fail, but make failing just as much fun as succeeding. And whether I’ve tooted well or horribly in Trombone Champ, I’ve never not had an absolute blast. It’s an easy game to dismiss as a joke, but it’s also a great music rhythm game.

And it’s not just the tooting to accompany songs that have no business being lightningpaced compositions like Take Me Out to the Ballgame, it’s the ridiculous cinematic assault of each song’s background scenes which try to force your eyeballs away from the speeding notes. Spiraling carousel horses, dancing violinists, scores of baboons (and occasionally a pug) appearing and vanishing in time with the music. The jokes and gags in the background come as fast and furious and funny as the songs themselves. Accomplishing an S-tier performance feels not just like you’re a musical prodigy, but a survival expert.