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  • Nintendo DSi Has "Figured Me Out," Literally!

    They've finally done it. Nintendo has finally made me want to upgrade my old white DS Lite for a new DSi (haven't decided on color yet, but I'm leaning towards the electric blue).

    I've resisted for months. I already have two DSes, I don't need one with two 0.3 megapixel cameras, that's just stupid. I don't care if my DS can play AAC audio files, that's what I have an iPod for. And no GBA slot? Yeah, I hardly ever use it, but come on! I should have known Nintendo had an ace up their sleeve when it was revealed a few weeks back that Beyoncé would be doing their advertisements for Rhythm Heaven, a game that I want to encourage everyone in the world to buy and play incessantly. I'm not really a fan of Beyoncé (I could go for a little more "Bugaboo" and a whole lot less "Single Ladies") but I certainly don't hate her and this ad campaign is clearly effective (just look at Professor Layton's sales numbers since the Lisa Kudrow ads started airing...a full calendar year after the game was released!). Having read that the ad campaign was supposed to start this week, I flipped over to the Nintendo Channel on my Wii for a peek. Imagine my surprise when I see not one, not two, but three videos with the coolest, most soulful white boy in the world, Jamie Lidell!

    Behold, his DSi-inspired-and-powered remix of "Figured Me Out" after the jump.

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  • Ghostface & DOOM Bring The Ruckus To Chinatown

    Arguably the biggest game released this week was Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the DS. It's an impressively deep, true-to-the-series, handcramp-inducing marvel, but when it comes to a series like Grand Theft Auto it's not about the game, it's about the street cred. Many were worried about a loss in credibility by putting such a controversial series on the family-favorite DS. Well, contemporary music snobs and hoodrats alike, take note, as Chinatown Wars gets a heaping helping of respect in its theme song.

    Oh yes, villains, it's the legendary killer bee Ghostface Killah and the man in the mask DOOM (formerly MF Doom) in this sick cut produced by Oh No.

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  • Bringing Sexy Back: Rebecca Mayes's Musical Game Reviews

    Game People is a blog that has been amusing me for a little while now, playing to the idea that there are many different types of gamers out there (there are) and that they deserve to have their opinions on games heard (they do) because they're interesting and insightful (they are!). They've got a sports gamer and a teen gamer and a family gamer and even a haiku gamer who reviews games with haikus and origami. It seems the contributor drawing the most attention, though, is Rebecca Mayes, Game People's "audio gamer".



    Like so many people we know and love, Rebecca is new to the world of video games. She does not have a pedigree in Metroid, Rebecca is just diving into a mysterious pool of beautifully uncertain water and hoping she'll float. She does this by doing what comes naturally to her, writing and recording quaint little pop songs about whatever she's playing. If ever a genre was formed of "twee gaming," I think Rebecca and I would be right there in the same boat of uneasy wonder, she plucking her guitar strings and me thumbing my kalimba. What? Sorry, I seem to have drifted off there for a moment...

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  • FMV Hell: Moses and Me

    Last week, a member of the Gamespite forums put together a Let's Play for Link: The Faces of Evil. I can only guess he's tired of life. I suppose living has lost its lustre for me as well, as I followed his progress throughout the weekend.

    The CD-i's Zelda atrocities are heckled at every opportunity, and with good reason. The controls are intolerable, the characters are abominable, and the cut scenes are indescribable. But I was shocked to learn through this particular Let's Play that the CD-i slopped its userbase with worse material through its “career”.

    See, the CD-i's Zelda library could at least legitimately be called games. Not good games or even functional games, but games nonetheless. There were items to collect, a goal to reach, terrain to navigate. Moses: The Exodus on the CD-i, on the other hand, didn't offer any gameplay aside from “Sing along to songs that are too bland for Sunday School.” Admittedly, that was a clever way to skirt around the controller issues that plagued Faces of Evil.

    The Angry Video Game Nerd already made a passing mention (rather, a passing rant) about the dreary song collection, but its champion, “Moses and Me” is worth another look. The song is about a school kid who's pressured into whispering test answers to his lazy-ass classmates. The choice is clear: do as they ask, or “end up all alone.”

    Much as I hate to admit it, “Moses and Me” tackles a conundrum that every kid finds himself in sometimes, particularly shy, brainy kids desperate for friends. Unsurprisingly, the song pitches forward and lands flat on its face with its proposed resolution: believe hard enough in Moses and he will somehow come down from Mount Sinai to protect you from bullies like a shiny Gyrados.

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  • Space Invaders vs. Röyksopp

    If you're like me, you remember the early part of this decade as crowding around the fastest internet connection one of your friends had and watching music videos on Yahoo, especially the haunting "Poor Leno" and the informationriffic diagramtastic "Remind Me", both from Röyksopp. If not, you've probably found yourself inadvertantly humming along with "Remind Me" in that Geico commerical. There was some mixed reception for their 2005 sophomore album, but anticipation is high for the Norwegian duo's third disc, Junior, next month.

    Right, so why am I talking about Röyksopp on a video game blog? Because they just released the video for Junior's first single, "Happy Up Here", and it pays a glorious homage to Space Invaders. Check it out below:

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  • Left 4 Dead's Francis Hates Everything

     

    Even Ayn Rand.

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  • Video Game Music that "Brings You Back"

    Because I've been playing video games since I started retaining memories (roughly age 3), a disturbing amount of my personal history can be linked to my lifelong hobby. The past, for me, is not defined by important world events, but rather, what I happened to be playing at that moment in time. Case in point: September 11th was the first day I was able to get my hands on the original Advance Wars. Coincidence? I really hope so.

    That being said, going back to Mario Kart 64 (which has aged pretty terribly) recently reminded me how much of my goddamned mid-to-late teenage years were spent playing this game. Let me point out that A.) I didn't own an N64 until said teenage years had passed and B.) I never even owned Mario Kart 64. But just upon hearing one specific song from the game's soundtrack, I'm immediately brought back to my days of teenage nerd solidarity replete with endless pizzas, soda, and other body-destroying substances we used to shield ourselves from the outside world. The funny thing is, back when there were only two Mario Karts in the world, I preferred the SNES one by a pretty big margin. Yet I still distinctly remember accompanying one of my friends to Toys R Us to buy the game nearly 12 years ago, as well as the pizza that was consumed afterwards. I'm honestly surprised that I didn't grow up to be a 400-pound shut-in.

    So what song from Mario Kart 64 whisks me away to the wonderful and awkward world of puberty?

    The answer lies after the cut.

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  • Whatcha Listening To?: Ebben Flow Soundtrack

     

    Behold, the Spinal Tap of JRPG music! Ebben Flow is a nonexistent Japanese role playing game that serves to provide a conceptual backdrop for the music of one Michael Chadwick. Here's a synopsis of the game, which I repeat, doesn't actually exist:

    Join Olos, Claire, and Senegal as they try to make sense of a world now mostly underwater, save for a few dry patches of land known as The New United Islands which they each call home. Vast cityscapes loom in the murky depths and hidden treasures pocket the sea floor which has now become dangerously low to visitors.

    Each of the characters you will meet and control have their own agenda in the land of Ebben Flow. Their paths may cross and diverge at will, leading to exciting new tangents and side stories. Several factions desire to rule their local and remote islands, as well as the depths below, and they're not above treachery or chaos to achieve it.

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  • WTFriday: The Splash Woman Rap

    Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.

    "Sometimes it's hard to be Splash Woman..."
    - Tammy Wynette, "Stand By Your Mega Man"

    Thanks to the kind folks at Game Music 4 All, I've become obsessed with some of the more creative video game remixes out there, like the Mother mashup I posted about yesterday. The weekly WTFriday falls on something just as awesome, but far more bizarre: an original Mega Man 9 music video featuring a completely-original rap set to Splash Woman's stage music. The lyrics to said rap shine a little more light on the obvious sexual tension between Mega Man and Splash Woman, and also give us a disturbing look into an alternate universe where Sonic Team somehow became responsible for creating Mega Man's music. But rest assured that Knuckles' rapping abilities fall short when compared to this fan-made project.

    Video after the cut.

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  • The Best of Wintry Video Game Music

    When you live in something called "the snow belt," your tolerance for inclement weather wholly determines your sanity. We've gotten so much of the fluffy white stuff recently that traveling anywhere in my town now involves following a carved-out snow trench to its logical end, all while hoping you don't end up in another state or the fabled Canadas. But even with nature trying to snuff me out under a thick pillow of precipitation, I've gone through most of my life without hating this time of the year; in fact, winter-themed video game levels have always been a favorite of mine, despite their irritating qualities. And for some reason, they always seem to have great music--which I'd like to share with you today.

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  • Bad Games With Good Music: Tales of Legendia

    No one really expected Tales of Legendia to have any redeeming qualities; from the beginning, it was clear this game was going to be a low budget exercise in filling Namco-Bandai's money vault until the next real Tales of game could be released. And Legendia certainly did revel in its lack of budget; not only was the first part of game roughly 25 hours, this installment in the beloved series also featured a second quest that involved replaying most of the game in a new context just to learn more about the characters--who were far from compelling. Even the battle system, the one saving grace of the Tales series, was marred by the constant "Hoo! Hah! Take that!" of the main character, which persisted even after turning off character voices. But even with all of these problems, Legendia can't be completely written off--and its amazing soundtrack by composer Go Shiina is more than proof of that.

    You may be familiar with Shiina's work on the amazing Mr. Driller Drill Land soundtrack, which is undoubtedly the best music ever produced for a puzzle game. His work on Legendia is a little more "RPGish," but Shiina carries a sense of eclecticism to the music that's distinctly his. And once you listen to a few samples, you'll agree that his name really needs to be up there with Mitsuda and Uematsu in the Video Game Composers Hall of Fame that someone has yet to build.

    Kickin' tunes after the cut.

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  • Confessions of the Young and Stupid: I Almost Bought a Genesis For Moonwalker

    When the Sega Genesis came on the scene, there were specific game advertisements or previews that made kids look at their 8-bit Nintendo with new doubt. Some children started paying attention to the Genesis when Altered Beast wose from its gwave. Others started pulling on their mom's arm for Sonic the Hedgehog.

    The first game that gave me “console envy” was Michael Jackson's Moonwalker.

    If you're nodding with me right now, you're around my age and you understand me. If you're snickering, you're a young punk and gerroff my lawn.

    When I was a kid, the name “Michael Jackson” made kids' eyes light up. Promises of special trips to Neverland Ranch and all the candy we could eat weren't necessary; Michael was just that cool. Everyone wanted to be Michael. He could dance, he could perform and damn it all, he put together Thriller.

    Moonwalker was cool, too. At the time, it made perfect sense to me that Michael's demigod essence could not be contained by the dinky Nintendo; no, it would take nothing less than a 16-bit temple. The in-game playlist was enough to stop a kid's heart: Bad, Billie Jean and Thriller to name a few (though we did get stiffed pretty bad Thriller-wise, since the music didn't show up where you'd expect it to—hello, graveyard? Zombies?).

    But once you stripped (!!!) the suave suit and hat from Moonwalker, it wasn't much beyond a mediocre platformer with a big name and Bubbles face-sitting action.

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  • WTFriday: The Soothing Sounds of Yoshi

    Giving Mario's dinosaur pal Yoshi a human-like voice is quite possibly one of the worst ideas in the history of video games. Okay, okay; what Yoshi sounds like now isn't quite as brain-melting as the voice he had in the *shudder* Super Mario World cartoon, but almost everyone will agree that Yoshi's old, synthesized cry (one that's impossible to transform into onomatopoeia) is preferable to his newish status of sounding like a constipated toddler who shouts his own name like a Pokemon wannabe. Unfortunately, some people actually seem to enjoy the infant babblings of Mario's once dignified friend; specifically, people like YouTube user DJchedda727, who somehow thought it would be an awesome idea to transform the entire vocabulary of Yoshi into the illest of beats. The result is strangely catchy--but keep in mind that if you play the Yoshi Mix while driving, you may get shot at. By cops.

    Video after the cut.

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  • Music About Video Games Friday: Dr. Robotnik (Eggman)

    Two months ago, a consortium named Intercontinental Music Lab released their album Superheroes of Science, 12 songs about historical scientists and their works...and one song about a fictional scientist and his foibles.What fictional character was deemed a brilliant enough scientist to have their song stand alongside the likes of Wilhlem Conrad Rontgen, Galileo Galilei, and Wilhelm Reich? Why, Sonic the Hedgehog's arch-nemesis Dr. Robotnik, of course! (as if the picture at right didn't give that away)

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  • My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Rock Band 2

    It's the end of another year, and that can only mean one thing: it's list season. Inevitably, you're going to see top ten lists by the thousands; and, as an official member of the enthusiast press, I'm afraid I can't violate my directive. But, to make things a little more interesting, I've decided to assemble my 10 favorite games of this year in non-hierarchical form because--let's face facts--it's hard to pick a favorite. And unlike other top 10 lists, this one will be doled out to you in piecemeal for only one more excruciating day! Please enjoy.



    I used to refer to games like Guitar Hero as the video game equivalent of going on a car ride with your dad. And for the most part, this was true; when your most hated of music genres is overplayed classic rock, the proposition of picking up a plastic axe and thrashing away to the soundtrack of the worst radio stations on earth was not exactly an enticing one.  So, being the curmudgeon that I was (and am), I ignored the modern music game based on my prejudices alone--and the fact that I never wanted to hear Lynard Skynard or Journey again for the rest of my life.  Little did I know that the fine folks at Harmonix were hard at work on a music game that could appeal to people beyond the demographic of classic rock jockeys. But after doing some research of my own, and getting astoundingly drunk, I was finally able to realize the wonders of Rock Band 2.  And now I can never go back.

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  • My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Audiosurf

    It's the end of another year, and that can only mean one thing: it's list season. Inevitably, you're going to see top ten lists by the thousands; and, as an official member of the enthusiast press, I'm afraid I can't violate my directive. But, to make things a little more interesting, I've decided to assemble my 10 favorite games of this year in non-hierarchical form because--let's face facts--it's hard to pick a favorite.  And unlike other top 10 lists, this one will be doled out to you in piecemeal over the next ten excruciating days!  Please enjoy.



    So, what is there to say about Audiosurf? Unfortunately, I already wrote extensively about the game for a former blogging gig, and since part of my bridge-burning policy involves insulting all of my former employers, I'm going to go ahead and call that website awful. But, as an entertainment writer, it's my job to be repetitive. My job. My Job. Repetitiveness is my job. So I must solider on by informing you of how amazing Audiosurf is--as if you didn't know.

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  • OST: The Great Mitsuda Music Heist

    Charles Caleb Colton once said "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," but it's important to remember that he coined this aphorism far before the invention of modern copyright laws and Japanese RPGs.  That being said, Breath of Fire III composers Akari Kaida and Yoshino Aoki must've had Chrono Trigger composer Yasunori Mistuda dead in the sights of their flattery gun (it shoots flattery, you see) while composing at least one of the tracks of Capcom's long-running RPG franchise; the similarity between the piece in question and one of Mitsuda's own is unmistakable.

    If you're wondering why I've kept this news to myself for over a decade, here are some answers: A.) Chrono Trigger DS is out, so this is semi-relevant, and B.) The existence of YouTube means it's finally easy for the lazy (i.e., me) to easily provide such a comparison.  Square-Enix, when the lawsuit is over, I'll gladly take a generous "legal consultant fee."

    Anyway, here are the songs in question:

    "Secret of the Forest," composed in 1995:


    "Forest Theme," composed in 1997:


    Shocking, I know.

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  • Japanese Musicocracy: Capcom's Numerous Tributes to Axl Rose

    I don't know how many years Axl Rose spent working on his latest album, Chinese Democracy, but I seem to remember still playing with dollies when the project was first announced. I'd say I was about 13 years of age. Don't judge me.

    Axl's hibernation was long, but he had the courtesy to surface every few years and eat a former band member so we wouldn't forget him. Forget him we did not, though perhaps the Japanese deserve the most credit for keeping Guns N' Roses alive through video games.

    Capcom in particular was good about reminding us that Axl Rose was more than a scary story parents told their children when they formed an obsession with hair bandanas. GnR's influence flavours the streets of Metro City in Final Fight, haunts X in Mega Man X's Maverick uprisings, and, in Street Fighter III, gives us a glimpse of what Axl might look like if he drank two steroid smoothies every day.

    You might have missed Axl and Slash in Final Fight; they were mere droplets in the tsunami of thugs that crashed over Cody, Haggar and Guy. It was an unspectacular appearence anyway. Slash didn't try to hit anyone with a concrete Gibson and Axl didn't have an attack involving a heroin syringe. I'm sorry, I'll show myself out the door.

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  • Rock Band: My Anti-Music

    Last Friday, Joe blogged about the curmudgeonly Nickelback and their outrage over how music games like Guitar Hero are supposedly preventing people from actually picking up real instruments and starting bands. As I said in the comments section of that post, if the world needs anything, it's fewer local bands; the town I come from is so lousy with them, you can't leave your car parked anywhere for more than ten minutes without your entire windshield getting plastered with an inch-thick layer of fliers.  So I don't think we need to worry about rock and roll going anywhere anytime soon--and if anything, Nickelback is only contributing to the death of the genre, what with their general shittyness and all.

    For me, though, Rock Band is my only real musical outlet. You see, between the ages of 16 and 17, I had about a year-and-a-half of guitar lessons--and while it didn't give me much of a musical foundation, I still picked up some fundamental skills that manifested into a sort of prototype Guitar Hero.  I'd put on a song, try to play along with it to the best of my ability, and think "Damn, this would be pretty sweet as a video game."  Of course, I'm not exactly claiming I had the idea first; everyone knows that GuitarFreaks predated Guitar Hero by a good seven years--I think my imagination was mainly stoked by my obsession with Um Jammer Lammy and the guitar controllers found on the Japan-only arcade release of the game.

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  • Devildom String Orchestra: Music, Masks, and Madness

    The hardcore American video game fan has been known embark on some pretty wild and awesome projects, even if some of them do happen to be complete fakes.  But there's just something about the industriousness of the Japanese hardcore that puts all of us to shame; just take a look at any Japanese-created levels of LittleBigPlanet, and you'll realize their devotion eclipses ours by a pretty large margin.  So what, exactly, am I getting at here?  Well, in researching Friday's post about the music of Mother, I stumbled upon a collection of YouTube videos that were too cool to keep to myself.

    The Devildom String Orchestra (at least, that's what I think the entire group calls itself) is a collection of Japanese musicians that arrange video game and anime music into real, live instrumentations. And they do all of this while wearing extremely creepy masks.  The most disturbing thing about this group, though, is that their videos really aren't getting the attention that they should.  You can access all of them by going to Tuengxx's YouTube page, but I've highlighted a few of the better ones below for your convenience.


    A very nice Chrono Trigger medley.

    More tunes after the cut.

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  • Meme of the Moment: Bike Hero

    The "Most Creative Use of Free Time" award goes to YouTube user madflux for the following video--and perhaps, for all time. Combining biking, Guitar Hero, an extraordinary amount of planning, and what must have been dozens of takes (he ain't telling), madflux shows us that he takes his fake instrument playing very seriously. And we all benefit from it:



    The most astounding part about all of this--to me, anyway--is how the bike rider is able to keep up a consistent tempo (in this case, speed) for all of this to work out.  I'll also be astounded if, by the end of the week, Bike Hero isn't turned into a t-shirt, referenced in 1000 lame webcomics, or made the focus of a new reality show on VH-1.  Ah, the time before a meme becomes obnoxious.  Savor it.

    Related Links:

    A++ Parents Let Their Teen Quit School To Become a Guitar Hero

    Praise His Name With Guitar Praise--Or Go to Hell
    Everyone Will be Able to Rock

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  • Gaming Impulse Buys

    Gaming is an expensive hobby, and freelance writing is not exactly a lucrative career (no offense to my kind, handsome bosses). So, when it comes to buckling down and buying a game, I tend to split my time between fretting and doing online research for hours on end.  But with certain games, something just snaps and shuts down the reason center of my brain--which tends to operate even when I'm drunk.  I've fallen victim to the siren song of music games so much that I really should have started to notice a pattern in my life by now.  Let me break it down for you:

    - 2000: I walk into my nearest Funcoland (coincidentally, the worst name for a business ever), see a new copy of Samba de Amigo and the maracas, and promptly hand over $120 + tax. I had no idea why I was even in the store in the first place.

    - 2001: I see an official Konami Dance Dance Revolution bundle featuring the game plus a dance pad. Inexplicably, I find myself buying it. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

    - 2005: What's this? Taiko Drum Master? At this point, it had been marked down to twenty bucks, so it's probably my least impulsive impulse buy.

    - Today: I get a fat freelancing check in the mail, and my paycheck was just depositedin my bank account last night.  I immediately drive to target and purchase Rock Band 2 against my will.  IT IS HAPPENING AGAIN

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  • Praise His Name With Guitar Praise--Or Go to Hell

    If your worship of Jesus Christ permeates every level of your life to the point where you must include Him in your fictional guitar playing, your worries can now cease; Guitar Praise, a PC Guitar Hero clone, exists to remove all of the fun from music games forever.  Okay, Okay; I know I'm being kind of harsh.  To be honest, when it comes to Christian Rock, I'm of the same mind set as King of the Hill's Hank Hill: "You're not making Christianity better, you're just making rock and roll worse."  It's totally cool to worship however you want, though Flanders-ized products like this always seem a little disingenuous to me; I'm sure God has better things to do than fret over you playing "My Name Is Jonas" on expert.  Still, if you must have this product, it exists.  One question, though: just what are you doing on the secular Internet?

    If you're wondering just how Praise Hero plays, Wired's Eliot Van Buskirk has written a hands-on report that's obviously not as hateful (or fueled by Catholic school experience) as my own take on the game. One thing I thought was funny, though, was his mention of Guitar Praise's use of gentle encouragement for those who totally suck on toast:

    Digital Praise's Guitar Praise - Solid Rock adopts the same concept of "playing" rock tunes on an increasingly difficult level. But it inhabits a gentler world where a bad performance gets you mild clapping and gentle suggestions instead of the raucous boos and catcalls that accompany failure in Guitar Hero.

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  • Watcha Listening To: Into the Score

    I'm a podcast fiend, and if my ears aren't necessary for a task, then they're probably busy listening to something nerdy. So it should come as no surprise that Into the Score is one of the dozen-or-so podcasts I download as soon as a new episode is available.  As far as gaming podcasts go, it's completely unique; Into the Score is the only one devoted to the academic study of video game music--but don't let the word "academic" throw you off.  A musical layman--like me, for instance--can safely go into an episode of Into the Score and actually learn something.  Scary, I know.

    Even though I lack the vocabulary to talk about video game music, I've always been obsessed with it. All you need to do is take a look at my iTunes library (though I never let anyone do this) or travel back in time to 1994 when i was making my own Final Fantasy III soundtrack by holding a crummy casette recorder up to my TV's speakers.  So, needless to say, I'm consistently amused and educated by every episode of Into the Score.  Host Kenley Kristofferson uses each episode to explore a different soundtrack while tying in a discussion about the prevalent musical concept(s) used within said soundtrack. I daresay it's given me greater respect for soundtracks I like, and has even shown me the greatness of soundtracks I wasn't aware of.

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  • WTFriday: The Mario Paint Music Showcase

    Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.

    With all the hardcore furor over the recently-released Wii Music, I think it's important to put things into perspective. Luckily for me, someone has already done this: namely, 1UP scribe Jeremy Parish, who made a remarkable amount of sense with a recent blog post.  And, on his personal site, he also made a great comparison that I'm going to monopolize for the remainder of my own post:

    Have self-proclaimed hardcore gamers always been this hysterical about "non-game" software? I feel like Wii Music is the latest in a long line of toys and apps that Nintendo has been churning out for years; nothing new in the least. Maybe it's because I wasn't lurking in the proper corners of USENET back then, but I really don't remember Mario Paint eliciting so much FUD back in the day; on the contrary, people seemed to love it, and it's still regarded fondly.

    Seems sensible enough. But where would we be on WTFriday without something strange and disconcerting? This, my friends, is where Mario Paint comes in. I goofed around with this "game" quite a bit as a child, but little did I know that people were still actively using Mario Paint's composer for both good and evil.  There's even a free program, aptly titled Mario Paint Composer, that emulates the game's basic music-making functions while adding a few new features that weren't exactly in demand back in 1992.  After all, I doubt Nintendo anticipated an eight year-old reproducing anything like Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames:"



    More serious music discussion after the cut.

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  • You Can't UNhear It: Time's Scar

    It's true; the Chrono Cross soundtrack is one of the most ass-kickingest collections of music to ever exist in our unworthy world. And the pinnacle of said soundtrack--at least, in my opinion--is the opening song, "Time's Scar;" Yasunori Mitsuda's stirring mix of wistfulness with a sense of urgency may be the highest point of his career. That's being said, I've probably heard the song hundreds of times in my life; and because I'm such a big fan of Time's Scar--and anything Mitsuda--something very minor about the recording of the song makes me cringe every time I hear it.

    Crank up your speakers to 11 and wait for the sound at 00:16.



    Did you hear that tiny little thump? It has haunted my dreams for the past decade.

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  • The Economist Weighs in On Music Games

     


    A few weeks ago I called out music industry bigwigs who were pushing record companies to charge Activision and Harmonix more money to feature songs by bands on their rosters. I argued that this is stupid, and these execs should view music featured in Guitar Hero and Rock Band as free advertising. 

    Welp, the Economist agrees.

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  • Little Big Planet Meets FFX

    I'll admit that I'm not very hyped about Little Big Planet; it could be the curmudgeon in me, or just the fact that I'll have no goddamned time to create anything cool with the game on my busy schedule. The silver lining to all of this is that I won't need to plunk down the cash for both a PS3 and a copy of the game to be entertained--all I need to experience LBP's user-created content is the entirely-free YouTube. Expect the majority online streaming video services to be completely loaded with content from Little Big Planet for the next year or so.

    A good example of this trend of this already in action is the following video, which takes the best part of Final Fantasy X--the music--and transplants it into a baroque music player created through hours and hours of hard work and block placement in Little Big Planet. Sure, I can hear the same thing by looking this song up on iTunes, but I gotta give credit to all of the makeshift music box crafters out there:

    Now, if someone out there would somehow turn Little Big Planet into a rhythm game using the same technology, I'd be motivated to smash in the window of my local GameStop and steal a brand-new PS3.

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  • The One Thing I Know How To Say: "Thank You Mario..."

    John Darnielle is already a friend of Hooksexup, and now we know that he is a friend of gamers as well. John's musical project The Mountain Goats just released their new single "Thank You Mario, But Our Princess Is In Another Castle," a hauntingly delicate ballad from the perspective of an imprisoned Toad in Super Mario Bros. featuring Kaki King on drum, glockenspiel and backup vocals. Beautiful.

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  • Rockman Lucky Star

    Ewww, who stunk up the blog with religion and serious crap?...Oh, it was me. Sorry guys. Friday is not for thinking. Friday is for sillies, especially Fridays that herald the looong weekend. I'm gonna drink a beer and get so drunk.

    And by "a beer" I mean fifty.

    I don't think I'd want to live in a world without silly anime dances. I don't know how many of you are fans of Lucky Star (I personally haven't seen it yet), but the adorable Mega Man parody of the opening can be appreciated no matter your alignment. There's some impressive sprite work to be had. Bonus footage of Gravity Man flipping Roll and Kalinka upside-down.

    It's not quite what you think. Sorry. Lord, the whole thing is very innocent.

    I wish you the best long weekend ever.

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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


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