Gregarious Diffusion

Satan's Sudoku

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:26:00 +0000

The things people say tend to be either profound, idiotic, conversational, entertaining or derogatory. If the person is of high skill with worditude, sometimes the two can be blended together like an artist mixes paint. Most of time, though, things are rather monochrome. You know when someone tries to go for one effect and ends up hitting a different one altogether? Yeah. Like that.

If you're a fellow nerd like me and read Kotaku on a daily basis, you may have found this gem among the slew of near-daily accounts of some pundit claiming Videogames as something derogatory. It's this interesting criminal watch that seems almost as obscure as terrorism. According to the media, not only are Videogames responsible for the death of school kids, but also the cause of obesity (thanks, McDonalds president), mental wonkiness such as ADD, child aggression towards parents, and now this as claimed by The Times writer Janice Turner:

Once, such kids would be the playground outcasts, but no longer. Mine are. Because, unlike the TV-hating parents, I refuse to buy them portable gaming consoles, Xboxes, GameCubes, PS2s. These are Satan's Sudoku, crack cocaine of the brain. Even the crappiest cartoon or lamest soap teaches a child about character, plot, drama, humour, life. Playing videogames, children are mentally imprisoned, wired into their evil creators' brains. And they play them - beepety-beep - on journeys, over family meals, any minute in which they find themselves unamused. And their parents never seem to say, hey, this is the bit where you pick up a book. Or game over, kids: get an inner life.

Oh burn. Wait, no. Let's take a closer examination of some of these phrases. Because these are golden! Brilliant writing, even!

These are Satan's Sudoku, crack cocaine of the brain.

I can already hear the beat start to flow. This is un-tapped potential! Keep goin'!

And they play them - beepety-beep

Oh how I wish there were audio clips of this person reciting such a vocal, rhythmic and outspoken article. I would sample it to no end. Unfortunately for her credibility, there are certain aspects of the article that are downright incorrect, and it would be an injustice for me to not point them out liberally.

Once, such kids would be the playground outcasts, but no longer. Mine are.

So essentially what she's saying is that in some far-off time ago, children who play videogames would be playground outcasts. Yet, this is no longer the case! Because they're so popular, and are therefore cool! Sorry big momma, the kids who play games at recess are still kicked in the junk or ignored. They still band together and form little elitist circles. Times haven't changed all too much. And of course, at the end, she contradicts herself by stating that her kids are in fact playground outcasts. Way to stand up for your defense. Way to totally downplay your entire argument by saying that, despite your best intentions, your kids are still social failures. Guess it was inevitable. Guess you should give 'em their games. But wait, what's this?

I refuse to buy them portable gaming consoles, Xboxes, GameCubes, PS2s.

There's the problem! No wonder her kids were playground outcasts, they must've looked like the coolest kids on the block with those Xboxes strapped to their back plugged into VR glasses. Of course I'm sure her intention was to include portable games in the same category as those she listed by name, but the poor writing really gives the wrong impression.

Even the crappiest cartoon or lamest soap teaches a child about character, plot, drama, humour, life.

A bold statement! Let's investigate.

Crappy Cartoon: Garfield and Friends
Source:imdb
Evidence

Character: "The star of the series was Garfield, a lazy feline whose only desires in life were lasagna, catnaps and kicking his hapless canine companion, Odie, off the table. The show also starred Garfield's hopelessly-single owner, Jon Arbuckle."

Plot: "Each Garfield adventure featured Garfield's adventures..."

Drama: "Garfield: Arbuckle! Remember the a la mode!"

Humour: "Mr. Sprocket: Kids don't want to see a cartoon about a cat. Garfield: They're culturally deprived."

Life: "Garfield: Microwave lasagna. Possibly nature's most perfect food."

Playing videogames, children are mentally imprisoned, wired into their evil creators' brains.

Now this, this is golden. It's a thing of beauty, taking metaphor into the wild realm of sci-fi realism where my mental image of this supposed occurrence goes wild.

Picture, if you will, a helpless nine-year-old. Cue low-frequency hum as the kid spots a Wii sitting across the room, its blue light pulsing slowly... As if in a trance, the child inches toward the device. Close-up of a chubby little hand as it grasps the Wii Remote. Flash! The kid's eyes go wild as the Wii's disc light blazes crimson and the infernal device powers on. The kid tries to scream, but no sounds emerge from his lips as he intently watches the screen before him. Rapid eye movement takes over and the child is now walking through an industrial office. People around him speak rapidly and in a foreign tongue. As he approaches a door on his left, the small rectangular pane of glass reveals that he is Shigeru Miyamoto. The door opens slowly, revealing a hooded man sitting alone in the room, his back to the entourage of Japanese business men. A brief glint of light flashes across the dagger Miyamoto now raises. It's too much for the kid to handle. He blacks out and falls, obesely, to the ground.

Top Fives of Another Breed - Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 23:53:00 +0000

This is not to say that my lists contain dogs or the like, but rather a curious assortment of music shout-outs I thought ought to be shouted. Of course, this list is entirely subjective being that it's an opinion from my limited perspective. There were a lot of games released this year. Consequently, there were many game soundtracks released as well. Either officially or unofficially. Sadly, often times a good soundtrack does not a good game make. Or rather, not one of wide acclaim. I aim to point out some sleeper hits in the music department as well as other top accolades of the oh-seven annual. As a note, I'm not placing these in any specific order. It's just an arbitrary assortment grouped into fives. Today, I'll cover game soundtracks. Part II will contain the other music CDs I've enjoyed in the year.

Game Soundtracks

Ar Tonelico II

The folks at Gust love 2D. Turn-based RPG-style 2D. And alchemy. They also used to love MIDI. However, it seems that with moving away from the Atelier Iris series and into the Ar Tonelico world, more sophisticated renderings came with. I've always enjoyed Gust soundtracks, but this one really nailed it for me as far as re-kindling the old emotional attachment to strong themes and beautifully written melodic work. The two arranged CDs released only top things off, bringing arrangements for multiple female vocals to many of the game's tunes along with their complex and weaving lines. I was afraid that the heyday of Japanese RPG soundtracks had ended with Mitsuda and Uematsu all but leaving the scene, but Gust's audio team keeps proving me wrong.

Wild Arms the Vth Vanguard

Wild Arms has a legacy of great music paired with mediocre games, and it seems the same holds true here. While the original game's composer is not present this time around, her spirit lives on in the tunes written by the two composers for this title in a multitude of styles. The main style of the game seems to be some sort of bizarre hybrid of spaghetti western whistling, disco beats + strings, and flamenco guitar. Whatever it is, it works, and the main themes and battles have some of the most memorable melodies written this year. When not in western mode, the music ventures into a precious category that I can't explain the details of but instantly evokes memories of one of my favorite RPGs: Skies of Arcadia. Though the composers are different in entirety, there must have been some influence from one to the other as the similarities are remarkable.

Blue Dragon

It took me a long time to appreciate the music in Blue Dragon. You see, I have a bit of beef with Nobuo Uematsu. I tend to have a selective memory when it comes to certain musical elements, and Uematsu is one composer that I really have to listen to the right stuff at the right time to remember why I love what he writes.

There are three things that I can't stand about his compositions: First and foremost, he has only ever written two villain themes in his life. Kefka's theme, and everyone else's theme. (One-Winged Angel doesn't count, as it's different from Sephiroth's theme, and it's been so over-played it makes me want to vomit.) I'm sure you're familiar with the latter. It's in nearly every Final Fantasy game. I'd hum it here if I weren't writing text. And even after finally separating himself from the fantasy, moving on to new ventures as his own business with Smile Please, he constantly makes me frown with the usage of that same fucking theme yet again in Blue Dragon. The second thing? Ridiculously sappy vocal themes. As much as Uematsu is a great instrumental writer, he is not a good songwriter and never has been. The only time that a good vocal theme has come from him is when lyrics are put to his existing instrumental themes. (See: Roaming Sheep from FFIII) Apologies to those who wept in sympathy for Squall then 'Eyes on Me' started playing in the spaceship Ragnarok. It's a terrible song. Sure, the instrumental versions of it are lovely, but engrish vocals sung by poppity pop stars just doesn't work for me. The third peeve is more of a recent one, and has to do with his increasing reliance on orchestrations and his rock band The Black Mages. One of the main reasons Uematsu has been hailed as a genius in his compositions for games is due to the sheer variety of textures and experimentation in instrument groupings. To suddenly utilize a singular sound seems to go against all that I thought his music stood for.

However, as the case may be, I eventually realized I was wrong about Blue Dragon. It's not just a "git er dun" soundtrack by Uematsu. I've yet to actually play the game that it accompanies, but the music here tells a strong, albeit youthful, story filled with all sorts of the same wonderful quirky nuances that I'd come to love from Uematsu's music. Yes, the villain theme is the exact same as it's always been. Yes, there's not only one but four increasingly ridiculous vocal themes. Yes, there's a lot of live players... However, it took me a while to realize that while the live players were there it was still strongly comprised of Uematsu's style and pairings regardless. And I still loved listening to it.

Persona 3

While Ar Tonelico II and Wild Arms 5 explore expanded sounds of yesterday and Blue Dragon explores an elaborated voice of an experienced composer... Persona 3 takes game music into a totally new realm in a wonderful way. Granted, it's not an entirely unique perspective. The same composer has been around for years, writing music for the Shin Megami Tensei series. However, P3 is probably the most approachable of all SMT games and also the most mature when it comes to the skill of writing. The music is not only topical to the game, but as a soundtrack it is very listenable on its own as a sort of dark hip-hop album. Like Ar Tonelico II, it also has a great arranged soundtrack that accompanies it as a great way to listen to the music on the go in a non-looping fashion.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Yes, I do enjoy non-Japanese game soundtracks! Also on my list this year would have been Heavenly Sword, but due to the fusion of the experience and music I decided to give Uncharted the edge. Part of it may have to do with my infatuation with the TV show Firefly. When I found out that composer Greg Edmonson was to be the composer working on Uncharted, I nearly fell out of my chair in excitement. The man's a very talented composer, and his first foray into the world of interactive music left me extremely optimistic for the future of his music. While I do love my gamey games, as is evident by the first four soundtracks mentioned, Edmonson's music takes the game of Uncharted and creates the atmosphere of a high-budget serial TV show. I won't say movie, because it doesn't quite feel like one and for good reason. The game is more of the style of the afternoon serials that the Indiana Jones movies were fashioned after. All the evidence is there: A tight, wildly entertaining ensemble cast. A mysterious island with a secret. A twist towards the climax that propels you to the end. It was almost like watching a season of Lost that fucking made sense at the end. That said, the music kept me in that atmosphere. If it had been any other score, I would've been making game associations and the like. None of which bad, but Edmonson gave the game its own wonderful flavor with strong character-driven themes and some excellent action tunes to boot.

Improvements for the New Year

Just briefly, at the end here, I wanted to touch on some of my disappointments with this year's soundtracks and how things might improve by composers moving into the new year.

Focus yourself, Sakimoto

Hitoshi Sakimoto's newly founded independent studio put out an amazing number of soundtracks this year, and unfortunately it shows in the individual quality of each. A grand total of seven scores were vomited out: FFXII Revenant Wings, Grim Grimoire, Odin Sphere, Deltora Quest, ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat, Final Fantasy Tactics A2. Not only that, but Sakimoto also scored the anime series Romeo x Juliet. How did he do it? Simple: Write the main themes and a few battle themes and let your company's fellow composers finish the rest. Or, in Revenant Wings and FFTA2's cases... just recycle music from previous games. I'm sorry, but that's just fucked up. Sakimoto in general pissed me off this year. He wrote a brilliant soundtrack to one of 2006's best RPGs, Final Fantasy XII... And as a result, he gets extremely popular and everyone wants to hire him. Instead of being choosey and selecting his projects carefully, he takes on every single one of them and does a piss poor job at it recycling themes even when it's not for the same franchise. Pre-2007 Sakimoto had a distinctive style yet still remained unique to the game he worked on. Now, I don't know what to think as it almost sounds as if he's ripping himself off constantly. Final Fantasy Tactics A2's soundtrack in particular is a joke. It's one thing to remix tracks from the original FFTA, but to include the exact same pieces used in both FFXII and Revenant Wings in yet another game? That's the laziest excuse for soundtrack writing I've ever come across. You're better than this.

Where did you go, Mitsuda?

Meanwhile, Yasunori Mitsuda's independent studio keeps getting more and more obscure as the years go by. Instead of gaining popularity, Mitsuda seems to be constantly losing it. The last good soundtrack to come from Mitsuda and his company was the CD Hako no Niwa, the score to Magic Pengal 2, back in 2004. Since then, he's released a compilation soundtrack with Miki Higashino that didn't really gain much attention. In 2005, he released a beautiful CD called KiRite. Then finally, this year, he released the soundtrack to a game called Armodyne that was so under-the-radar that no one has ever heard of it outside of Japan. The music isn't even good at all, sounding like a pale shade of Xenogears with all the life sucked out of it. One thing is clear for 2008: Yasunori Mitsuda needs to make a major comeback.

Will US developers continue to defect to other media?

It's hard to get a job writing music for games. It's even harder to do it in the US. 2007 made this brutally clear. Greg Edmonson scoring Uncharted. A famous British composer scoring Heavenly Sword. A Hollywood composer scoring Lair. In-house composers at major companies continuing to write for their respective games, no matter the quality of the music. The fact is that there is a dangerously popular trend going on in the US game development houses where established composers in other media are being given trump card against new and upcoming artists. Yes, they have experience, but this is an insular way of thinking. I suppose it's just wishful thinking on my part that the concept of "new and exciting" will sometime strike a chord in the minds of these game creators wishing to not only expand the vocabulary of games, but to expand the definition of "game soundtrack" beyond those containing the words "cinematic" and "dramatic".

That's all from me. I'll write more on non-gamey themes later!

Someone Spiked the Kool-Aid

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 22:23:00 +0000

As a general disclaimer, I don't really have any strong feelings toward award shows or industry acclaims other than mine and my friends'. There's a good bit of difference between general exclamation and private acceptance. Whether a game is the "best thing ever" otherwise known as "GotY" or just a drop in the puddle, it all boils down to personal preference and the like. So when I tear into these award nominations, that's where I'm coming from.

So here we go: the Spike Videogame Awards. With so many online publications and blogs disclaiming their own listing of these nominations with "okay so the awards were terrible in the past, but now that we're on the judging panel the people's voice is heard!", I expected much more. Or rather, I expected more obscure games that the general public may have not heard about to be represented. That said, let's jump straight into Game of the Year. I'm skipping the "Most Addictive Game Fueled by Dew" because I hate the stuff and it's an arbitrary award anyway.

Game of the Year

BioShock
Halo 3
Mass Effect
The Orange Box

This won't be the first time I point out the obvious bias in the selection here. Could these awards be any more heavily sponsored by Microsoft? I'm not saying that the games mentioned here aren't good. In fact, they're all great games. However, there's a serious lack of anything not on a MS platform.

Should have been nominated: Super Mario Galaxy. Where is it? The "not released yet" card can't be played with anything nominated considering that Mass Effect has yet to be released or even played through in full. Another addition I would have liked to see is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Judging from the demo alone, it's going to be one of the most engrossing adventures in quite some time.

What will win: BioShock. The reception from both fans and press alike is pointing favorably to this game taking the gold. It's hard to argue with it, though depending on the crowd involved in the voting process Halo 3 could take it simply because it's Halo and people like to orgasm over it.

What should win: The Orange Box, for Portal alone. As I mentioned earlier on this blog, Portal is one of the games that's changed my perspective on gaming. For that reason alone, I'd give it the highest award of the year. Additionally, the Half Life franchise is wonderful and continues to deliver. And then the added bonus of my 2nd favorite multi-player experiences this year in TF2. It's one hell of a package that, if not entirely new, blew me away.

Best Shooter

BioShock
Halo 3
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
The Orange Box

Amusingly enough, I only had to change one of the entries there from the "GotY" award. Yeah that's right, America loves FPS games. I don't. That's where my bias comes into play, especially when considering the "best of" awards. However, due to the title of this award "best shooter", I think there's going to be a different outcome.

What will win: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The game really is good enough to win it, and I think the fact that it's very much a straight-ahead shooter will give it the edge over the competition in this award. BioShock, while amazing in its own right, is more of a Metroid Prime style adventure-with-shooting type of game. The Orange Box's Portal is more of a puzzle game, TF2 falls more into the "multi-player" category, and Episode 2 isn't substantial enough to be considered for the award.

What should win: Orange Box's Portal, because I'm bias. I don't know actually. Given my reasons above, I'd be willing to say CoD4 as well. There's lots of shooting, even if I don't personally agree with the morality behind it all.

Best Action Game

Assassin's Creed
God of War 2
Super Mario Galaxy
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

Alas, gone are the days of the sub-genres "action-adventure" and "platformer". With such a heavy focus perspective these days, the two major categories might as well be divided into two: "First Person Action" and "Third Person Action". Which then brings to mind a curious experimentation: "Second Person Action". I'd love to see someone try it! It's totally possible. But I digress.

What will/should win: If all is good and well with the world, Mario Galaxy. Ratchet is an amazing game, but it pales in the shadow of Mario's superiority of the platforming genre. Assassin's Creed and God of War 2 are in much different genres, in my honest opinion, but they do deserve a solid nod from the nomination squad. If pitted against each other in a battle royale, I'd likely give the bonus cookie to Assassin's Creed for being so different and starring a male character that isn't fueled solely on adrenaline.

Best Rhythm Game

Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80s
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Jam Sessions
Rock Band

It's amusing that this genre isn't called "Best Music Game", because if so I'd imagine the Singstar titles might stand a better chance to get nominated. Either way, this award is really a competition between Guitar Hero and Rock Band. GH Encore is just an expansion pack, and Jam Sessions has nothing to do with rhythm. Seriously, you just stroke chords to suggested lead sheets. So, established franchise or a worthy step in a new direction.

What will/should win: Rock Band. Guitar Hero is a great franchise. It established the US interest in peripheral-based rhythm games. However, GHIII is really just a riff off of what made it great in the past. Rock Band is the true new evolution and it shows it off with its rocker customization, full band playability, a career mode in the vein of an EA Sports title, and a promising downloadable content plan that combines the accessibility of iTunes with a total music experience.

Best RPG

Eternal Sonata
Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions
Mass Effect
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3

Ah, the first evidence of Japanese games (other than Mario)! 2007 may have been a great year for gaming, but it certainly was lacking in quantity for quality RPGs. It seems to always happen with the beginning of new generations of console releases, so 2008 and beyond will most likely look more solid. There are some curious omissions here, however.

Should have been nominated: Jeanne d'Arc. While I love the hell out of Final Fantasy Tactics, it remains that the game is 10 years old rather than the rest of the titles here. Jeanne, on the other hand, is an awesome new SRPG that does some new things for the genre while maintaining the integrity of what has come before it. Also receiving the snub is Folklore, a game I am enjoying far more than most reviewers seem to have. Yes, it's an RPG. You level up. It's also very fresh and new. Plus, where is Blue Dragon? Did reviewers get so turned off by the boss battle music and art direction to totally put it off in favor of the stereotypical trash that encompasses most of Eternal Sonata? Sorry, that's a harsh word. However, I think regardless Blue Dragon would have been a more worthy nomination.

What will win: Mass Effect. The unfortunate truth is that, when given a light-hearted and fun RPG (Persona 3) versus a hardened and epic RPG (Mass Effect), the epic one will come out on top. Who's to say which is better? I'd be pretty torn if I were on the voting committee. Cinematic and operatic. Quirky and Japanese. Both solid games. I'd give it a tie.

Best Driving Game

Colin McRae: DiRT
Forza Motorsport 2
Need for Speed ProStreet
Project Gotham Racing 4

Not my thing, really. I have no idea what will win or should win. I hear Forza 2 is pretty sweet though, if only for its livery customization.

~~Best Military Game~~

Why is this even a category? If so, where are the best Fantasy games or best Sci-Fi games? I don't even want to bother listing the nominees here.

Studio of the Year

Bungie Studios
Harmonix
Irrational Games
Valve

The Studio award is much like the 'Director' award in how it relates to "Best Film". It usually, if not always, gets given to the studio that developed the best game of the year. Therefore, I'll predict that Harmonix doesn't stand a chance and that depending on what the "GotY" is, either Bungie (Halo), Irrational (BioShock) or Valve (Orange Box) will get it.

Best Graphics

BioShock
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Crysis
Mass Effect

What a loaded category. Really, this should have been titled: "Best Graphics, Realistic". Sure, BioShock has a bit more of an artistic spin to them, especially in the enemy department, but on the whole this award seems to be only recognizing developers' abilities to render digital actors and movie sets.

Best Graphics, Artistic: Super Mario Galaxy, Ratchet & Clank Future, Folklore, Heavenly Sword. Let's not be limited by hardware here, people. When judging from an artistic point of view, the lack of HD simply does not matter for Mario. The game is beautiful in its design and presentation. Ratchet & Clank was given accolades for its "near-Pixar beauty", and really deserves a nod. Folklore is simply gorgeous, with one of the coolest art styles yet represented in a game. And then Heavenly Sword failing to get any recognition for its beautiful cutscenes, art direction and most importantly its animation... it's simply criminal.

What should have been nominated: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Come on guys, it's coming out on the same day as Mass Effect. It looks brilliant. It's just as realistic as all the rest on the list. Why the snub?

What will win: Crysis. It's a no-brainer really. Especially in this crowd of realism emphasis, Crysis takes the cake with its mind-blowing rendition of reality. Depending on the voters love for military games, CoD4 may get the nod since more people are likely to have the consoles to play it versus Crysis' intense PC requirements.

What should win: On a purely technical standpoint, Crysis. But when you add in artistic flavor into the mix, both Mass Effect and BioShock look more appealing in terms of creating new environments that are iconic of the game. I'm personally split between the two, if given the choice of the nominations.

Breakthrough Technology

Crysis
Halo 3
Portal
Rock Band

What shouldn't have been nominated: Rock Band. Harmonix, I love ya, but it was done almost 10 years ago. The drums, almost 9. The Karaoke, since the dawn of time. That's not breakthrough technology.

What will win: Crysis. With such a heavy emphasis on on graphics in the new generation of consoles and PCs and the like, I think it's an unfortunate victory that will likely go to CryTek's solid engine.

What should win: Portal. It changes gaming. 'Nuff said.

Best PS3 Game

Heavenly Sword
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Warhawk

There they are! I found them! Heavenly Sword, yum. Uncharted, yes. Warhawk, hell yes. Why these games aren't nominated for anything else is just silly. Yet here they are, head to head in a battle for obscurity.

What will/should win: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. This game, while unreleased, seems prone to be delivering the best performance out of any PS3 game this year. I'm anticipating it hotly, and I think a decent portion of the gaming population is as well.

Best Wii Game

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Super Mario Galaxy
Super Paper Mario

I can't help but get a good chuckle when looking at this list, if only because the list never changes from year to year. On a Nintendo console, we play Nintendo games. That's simply the way of it. Nintendo makes their classic franchises, we eat em all up, and at the end of the day it's what gets remembered the best. Also, why is Zelda on here? It's a 2006 game. I suppose they really wanted to trick out the Big N Trifecta to be even more obvious.

What will/should win: Super Mario Galaxy. It's really a given. Out of all Nintendo franchises, Mario is always the one that comes out on top in terms of nostalgia and player appreciation.

Best Xbox 360 Game

BioShock
Halo 3
Mass Effect
The Orange Box

Remember when I said these award nominations were bias? I'm getting a slight tinge of deja-vu looking at this list... Oh right, it's the Game of the Year listing! Silly me. Whoever wins GotY will also win this, so the same predictions apply.

Best PC Game

BioShock
Crysis
The Orange Box
World in Conflict

Win it, Orange Box! You know you can do it! At least one of these copious nominations will be yours!

[insert obligatory sports game nominations here]

Sorry, I can't talk intelligently about games I don't play.

Best Soundtrack

BioShock
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Tony Hawk's Proving Ground
Rock Band

I had to do a bit of a double-take here, then remember that "soundtrack" applies to licensed music, whereas "original score" is where the real meat is. That said, there's some good collections of tracks here.

What will win: Either Guitar Hero III or Rock Band, likely. It depends on the judge's preferences. However, my opinion lies elsewhere...

What should win: BioShock will probably get passed up in favor of the huge rock collections of the music games. However, I have to give them major props for the awesome implementation of period music into the environment. It's an unconventional application of licensed music in a situation that simply makes sense in a narrative game. In the case of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, it's sort of a given that licensed tracks will be involved.

Best Original Score

BioShock
God of War 2
Halo 3
Mass Effect

I have a problem with this list. It's far too impersonal for a score of the year award. Ideally, I think the composer's name should be listed along with the award since it really is a personal accolade as much as it is a recognition of the game's features.

I also have a problem with the nominations. BioShock may have a cool theme, but the majority of the score is either the licensed tracks mentioned above, or riffing off of the techniques introduced in Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. That's not a bad thing by any means. It shows a great deal of skill and balls to create a score so atonal and dissonant in an art that traditionally praises melodic grace. However, it doesn't fall into my qualifications for a great score. God of War 2, while epic, really doesn't do too much different from its first iteration. Halo 3, similarly, continues the thread from 2. Mass Effect, on the other hand... How the hell can people know if it's a good score yet? It's one thing to make prejudging opinions based on trade show hands-on time and preview builds... But to judge the entire soundtrack based on these? Sorry, not gonna work for me.

What should've been nominated: Here's where I bust out. Super Mario Galaxy. This game not only has an amazing soundtrack, but its use of dynamic and adaptive programming is masterful. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The music is top notch, composed by Greg Edmonson of Firefly fame. Heavenly Sword. The beauty in this soundtrack is really something to behold, as it contains some excellent writing and a wonderful usage of ethnic instruments in interesting combinations. Hell, I would even nominate Everyday Shooter for totally blurring the lines between an indie rock album, sound effects and a game soundtrack. Notice a running thread here? All these soundtracks did something new. With the exception of BioShock and possibly Mass Effect, the nominations really didn't.

What will win: Halo 3. The community knows no hate for Marty and his monks. Similarly so for his main theme that just sort of riffs off of traditional Celtic motifs and chord progressions. My thoughts? Good music, not great, and certainly not score of the year.

What should win: Out of the ones listed? Mass Effect, only judging from the music I've heard in gameplay demos and trailers. Am I being absolutely hypocritical here? Yes. But given the alternatives, I'd much rather give this one the accolade. Plus, it has some great efforts by both an industry veteran and a new composer. I'm all for encouraging new composers getting into the industry *cough*. However, left to my own devices, I would personally give the award to Heavenly Sword. Now if only a soundtrack was released for it. iTunes, I'm lookin' at you. Lair's OST was released, so there's no reason HS can't get a similar treatment.

Best Multiplayer Game

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Halo 3
Rock Band
The Orange Box

This is actually a bit of a challenging pick. However, my ultimate choice isn't listed here.

What should have been nominated (and win): Warhawk. Plain and simple. It's a standalone multiplayer game, pulls it off to a T, and has been one of the most fun I've had playing with my friends locally and online.

What will win: A difficult one. Unfortunately, TF2 will likely be overlooked in favor of badboy Halo 3. That'll likely win it. Rock Band will get a nod, and CoD4 probably is too obscure at this point and not popular enough to win overall.

---

Phew, so, that's it eh? I covered pretty much everything I wanted to, leaving out a few obscure categories that I had no experience to talk about, and there you have it. Overall, not too pleased. Sure, it's a bit better than last year's total crap fest that attempted to be an award show... And sure, the nominations are at least much more solid than BAFTA's pathetic lineup that ended up giving 6 awards to Wii Sports. But, as an award show with integrity... I give the following suggestions:

Do not hold the nominations, awards or show until 2007 is over.
Make the awards more personal. We need to treat AAA games less as products with features and more as artistic efforts created by a skilled team of individuals.
Try not to be so bloody jaded. Yes, that means acknowledging that there are in fact some great games on Wii and PS3.
Create separate awards for downloadable games. With Live Arcade, Steam and PSN getting cooking, and Wii Ware on its way... 2008 better be equipped to deal with the onslaught of independent games and their impact on the industry. It will be huge.

That's it for me. We'll see how the actual awards compare!

Gateway C-140 + M-Audio FireWire 410

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 07:21:00 +0000

The past few days have seen the delivery of two new additions to my studio setup. But first, some back story.

Ever since my old Macbook kicked the bucket several years back and I transitioned to using my desktop PC full-time, I've been pining for the mobility of a notebook computer again. Recently, a near-death experience with my desktop's hard drive caused me to seriously consider the purchase of a new computer. With nary the funds to bust at this point in time, I managed to work out a deal with my dad to split the cost considering that it would be a justifiable business expense. With the two of us set to collaborate on a new CD project, the timing was perfect.

So, I began to research and plot and figure out how exactly my new studio would look and function. Especially taking into account the fact that I'll be moving into an apartment soon. Ultimately, I decided to create a modular studio that could work in several different configurations. At home, everything would combine into Voltron. You have the laptop functioning as the central hub and secondary monitor, my 20" widescreen serving as the main monitor, a new M-Audio interface hooked up into the mixer and speakers, and hooking up the mouse + keyboard of my current PC for ease of use, along with any other devices that need to be used (printer, scanner, etc.)

In portable mode, there would be two main configurations. Along with the audio interface, the laptop could be used remotely as a portable audio recording setup so long as I have access to a power outlet for the M-Audio bit (since my laptop's FireWire port isn't a 6-pin). And then as a standalone, the laptop I chose is one of the best combinations I could find of durability, power and ease of use. Gateway has been in a bit of a slump previously, but they're slowly returning to their former glory with some very smart configs being put out there. The C-140 is one of them, and it's a very fun and functional notebook/tablet.

I always love it when computer manufacturers surprise you with an overestimated shipping date. The day I was given was November 7th, this coming Wednesday... However, upon returning home after working overtime on Thursday the 1st, I found this lovely box awaiting me!

Having shed its cow-like exteriors, the box within was very slick and handle-ready, much like a certain line of Apple-produced products. Considering the look and functionality of Gateway's new "One", you can definitely tell they're going for that hip aesthetic that works so well.

Out of the box, a very unique shape for a laptop. This was before attaching the battery, which made it even more curvy. It has a rubber bump to it that feels very nice when toting it around, and doubles as a prop to angle the keyboard for better typing posture.

Open, it looks like your typical laptop. Yet, with a few additional buttons on the left-bottom of the screen. That, and the conspicuous hinge. One thing to note about this photo is that the touch pad is indeed as uncomfortable as it looks. Particularly the buttons, as their clicks are extremely stiff. A minor gripe, considering that I'll mainly be using a USB mouse and the pen.

Ah yes, the hinge. What's this? Has my laptop gone exorcist on me?

Apologies for the shoddy photo. Damn phone cameras. However, this is the result of the transformation! A nice littlebig tablet PC all ready for toting around and writing or drawing. While I am admittedly a faster typist than I am a writer, the writing functionality (especially with Vista), is very smooth and satisfying. A bit of an example, with some intentionally sloppy handwriting:

It's not perfectly accurate at first, but you can edit exactly what you're writing and it will adapt over time to your various quirks. Using made-up words is slightly more challenging, so the handwriting recognition is mainly for more formal purposes rather than typing out messages to friends. There's all kinds of great applications for this too, such as writing directly on sheet music. Even used with Sibelius, there's a certain satisfying feeling in "writing" in the notes onto the staff rather than lots of clicking.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the laptop from both an aesthetic and performance standpoints. The thing is very fast with its 2GHz dual-core and 2GB of RAM, rivaling my desktop PC in certain tasks. The graphics card isn't the hottest thing out there, but it can run Hellgate London on Medium settings just fine which is good enough for me. The more hardcore PC gaming will have to take a back seat, but considering that my game queue is obscenely high already, I can deal. Oh yeah, and the M-Audio FireWire 410 works like a charm. Bet you didn't think I'd mention that did you? It sounds beautiful, looks great, and was a snap to set up. Now I just need a 7.1 speaker setup to use its full potential! Hah.

Into the Earth | Into the Sky

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 19:47:00 +0000

For the past month or so I have been collaborating with a local choreographer Karen Brown and her co-run dance company Weaving Dance on writing the music for an upcoming performance - just one week away! I've been working very hard on this, trying new things and experimenting, all with a rather limited schedule due to full-time work. I think it has come together extremely well, especially having visited a rehearsal yesterday to observe how it all tied together with the dance.

The piece finds its origins in the theme of the concert it is being performed in, titled "Rooted". Similar to the piece I wrote last year, Observations of Nature, it deals with reflecting on the non-human aspects of the world (in this case, trees) and how we relate to them in our daily lives.

The dance, prior to the music existing, began when Karen came across a photography collection of trees in various seasons, some of which highlighted with a thin fabric background or foreground. It used the lighting of the day and silhouettes of trees to create a very interesting look at the subject.

The idea of using fabric and silhouettes gave Karen the idea to incorporate similar elements into her piece, utilizing a parachute and her dancers in various tree-like shapes either in front or behind it. The idea of people-as-trees continued on into various other elements of the dance, with various solos as an introspective look at individuals' reflections.

With the music, I attempted to capture similar elements with a limited instrumentation and attention to the narrative subtext. I had previously written a series of pieces based on trees for my Junior Recital in college (Dreamer's Path), using a combination of live players, songs and recorded sounds to create an atmospheric and dream-like experience. With approaching this accompaniment, I wanted to firmly ground the music in reality.

For this new perspective, I drifted away from my usual emphasis on orchestral and synth-based instrumentation and to something more akin to a current alt. rock band. Using sample-based instruments, I attempted to create something of a mini-concept-album with recurring thematic elements and a constant set of 'players'.

If you're in the Seattle area, I highly recommend you come check out the final result. The choreographer and dancers have worked extremely hard on pulling this thing off and I have nothing but respect for their efforts. They really are the stars in this production, so hats off to them! All necessary information and tickets can be found on their website.

If you're not in the area, feel free to check out the music below. I also have each 'track' labeled. On my website I'll be releasing it as separate mp3s, but it really is a through-composed piece and is best listened to in one sitting. The total runtime is 16:11.

Into the Earth
Into the Sky

Rooted (0:00 - 2:44)
Cherry Blossom (2:44 - 6:17)
Willow in Sway (6:17 - 7:50)
Autumn Rain (7:50 - 12:22)
Frigid Ascent (12:22 - 16:11)

Screw Formality

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 05:56:00 +0000

I don't think I can keep a regular schedule with this, so instead I'm going to just be updating it when I can and without some convoluted format. The new format is, while not exclusive to the three topics I initially set up, still following them primarily. In other words, it won't be anything drastically different, just without the expectations involved with a weekly three-pronged endeavor.

To those reading this on FauxSheezy, hi! Sbob coerced me into cross-posting onto their neat little community blog, so I'm obliging.

So, Portal. I'm going to just be rather blunt and say that it's already infiltrated my top five games of all time. Something I would never have imagined a 3 hour game to do. But sometimes a game just comes along that totally upends the metaphorical coffee table of convention so hard that you begin to reconsider the gaming experience.

Let's get some questions out of the way: Do we need 60-70 hour long epic adventures to create a masterwork of a game from a storyline's point of view? No. Is it necessary to have tons of main characters with predictable flaws and an inevitable death of a female to keep interest in plot development? Nope. Does the entire world, every nuance, every bit of symbolism need to be explored in all its facets to wring the last drop of satisfaction out of a mythos? Nada. Lastly, must a game take itself serious to not only have interesting dialogue but also a satisfying story thread? Hell no.

The setup for Portal is simple. You're a test subject being spoken to by a computer and put through cleverly paced tutorials in order to be prepared for the meat of the adventure. My sheer transparency of its mechanics, the fact that it is very clearly a puzzle game even to you as the in-game protagonist, creates a scenario that plays out exceedingly well in how it develops.

What we're beginning to see in gaming is the emergence of what is the "short story" in the literary world. The goal of a short story isn't to immerse yourself in a fully realized world and ongoing strife, but rather to present a transformation. Between the beginning and the end, something happens. Something changes. The art of the craft is presenting it in a convincing, natural, and ultimately satisfying way.

Portal nails this, through its masterful use of a singular narrative voice, its interactions, and its conclusion: something simply too awesome to mention, for fear that all would be spoiled once a hapless reader comes across its discussion here.

Other games have also nailed this for me. ICO is one of mention, and uses even less dialogue to convey its messages. The atmosphere is closed, confined, even uses puzzles as its primary gameplay mechanic, and despite its wordless nature still emanates an emotionally stirring experience. It does things in a much more introverted nature than Portal's all-out hilarity, but the same guts are still there. The characters undergo a transformation, and you can't help but be pulled along.

In a somewhat related games-as-art perspective, another game occupying my time has been Everyday Shooter: something that takes yet another art's medium and shows how it can be made into an interactive format. In this game's case, the art is the music album.

In 2002 (2001 in Japan), the world (or at least those that paid attention to the game) was shook by the release of Rez, a game that was one of the first successful attempts at melding music and gameplay together into a complete package. While the game's soundtrack was primarily trance music, the experience was certainly one that hadn't been successfully duplicated since.

Saying this may be blasphemous to Rez fans, but I think that Everyday Shooter pulls it off even better. As great an experience Rez was, I believe it was limited by its overall goal. An immersive saturation of the senses, for a fledgling project, couldn't push difficulty or create an overly complex structure. Such a first impression might lead people to believe that the medium had no value beyond the game mechanics due to the difficulty hindering the enjoyment of said experience.

In that way, Everyday Shooter has a lot to be thankful for in the simple fact that it came later. The game is damned challenging, yet the failures don't begin to occur until an ample flavor of what's to come has seeped into the experiential taste buds. Because of this, the game not only succeeds as interactive art, but as an excellently-designed game.

There's much more to ramble about, but I'll save the suspense of waiting for a new blog post and lend a few two(ish)-liners about recent happenings:

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions is an excellent update to one of my favorite games of all time, leaving the awesome sauce intact and bolstering its weaknesses (namely, its translation and cutscenes). The new dialogue is leagues above the original (on par with other Ivalice titles such as Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII), and the new cutscenes not only have amazing art direction but solid voice acting to boot.
The soundtrack to FFVII: Crisis Core surprised me in several ways: Takeharu Ishimoto (formerly of my It's a Wonderful World OST hatred) can actually write beautiful music, he is an extremely talented writer of chamber music (the string quartet pieces in CC are excellent), and can play one metal guitar. Additionally, Kazuhiko Toyama provides some beautiful orchestrations. Lesson learned: Keep Ishimoto away from techno and synths, and he can do no wrong.
Radiohead's new (and amusingly controversial) album, In Rainbows, blows my mind. It's always amazing to me how simplicity can be such a useful ally to a band that constantly evolves with each new song. Also, I paid £1 for it. Experimental!

My final word of the day is: Website revamp! It's been a long time in the working, and I'm extremely glad to push it live. The only issue so far is that it does not comply with Internet Explorer's shoddy handling of CSS. If anyone could give me some pointers on how to make it work for that abortion of a browser, I'd be much obliged. For now, however, it works perfectly on Firefox, Opera and Safari. If you're still using IE, do yourself a favor and make the switch. Oh, and I will be changing the blog's layout soon to comply with the new design. There shall be more horizontal room! It's about time. This column was getting claustrophobic.

Tangential Tendencies

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 06:00:00 +0000

TGS Rundown Part 1

Another year gone by, the Tokyo Game Show has come and gone with its series of announcements, surprises, and disappointments. I'll do my best to rundown all my impressions, albeit through relayed media and others' impressions.

White Knight Story - This is definitely a game that I fell for the moment I watched its initial unveiling back at last year's E3. Since then, we've been peppered with various pieces of beautiful concept art, a full-length story trailer, and the promise that the game would be playable at TGS. The game was fully unveiled this year, and I could not be more excited about it. The battle system plays out in what seems like a fusion of FFXII's free-roaming fields and battles, but instead of a delay-based MMO-style combat, the game takes elements of PSO's real time combos and infuses them with Radiata Stories' customization. Additionally, it never fails to amuse me that the game features a character creation system that rivals just about any MMO out there. How the game's online elements come into play is one more piece of the puzzle that has yet to be unveiled, and something that I'm anxiously anticipating.

Metal Gear Solid 4 + MGO - There's honestly not much to be said that hasn't already been discussed at length, especially on this week's 1UP Show and 1UP Yours. Both games have an intense buzz that gets me really excited, since I've always been a fan of MGS... despite never beating any of them due to my sheer lack of skill playing them. I really aught to go back and take another stab at them before 4 comes out next year.

Valkyrie of the Battlefield - This game came out of nowhere for me, and like WKS became an instant interest once I saw its unveiling trailer and several gameplay videos. The visuals are just stunning, and almost remind me of the tech utilized for the flop Unlimited SaGa's CG cutscenes, yet in full real time goodness. One thing that gets me even more excited is that the game is being developed by the charred remnants of SEGA's Overworks team, the talented folks that put together Skies of Arcadia for the Dreamcast. And joining the cast is also Hitoshi Sakimoto for what seems to be his umpteenth score this year. There's huge evidence of the guy spreading himself a bit thin, considering that one of the in-game tracks sounds nearly identical to a piece in FFXII... But even still, I look forward to his efforts for this game. It just disappoints me a bit when he isn't putting a full unique spin on each project.

In Part 2, which I'll hopefully write up later this week, I'll reflect on more of the TGS games and media... As well as give some reports on other music I've been listening to as well as writing.

The Past, Made New

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 07:33:00 +0000

As autumn gradually approaches, the seasons of nostalgia begin for me. While Spring and Summer are often about progression and moving forward, Autumn and Winter tend to bring out my memories and fond recollections of past times whether good or bad. Often times, there's triggers for these memories. It could be smelling or feeling a certain chill start to waft in the air, or the lack of sunlight in the evenings. It could also be hearing certain music, or playing a certain game. Regardless it feeds on our longing for how things used to be, and in a time where so much has changed from one year to the next, it affects me particularly strong.

Everyone has their own story about playing FFVII, whether it was their first RPG, an anticipated one amongst a middling collection, whether they simply enjoyed it or thought it was the best thing ever. Despite popular acclaim, despite controversy, despite recent milking; it's an influential game. Anything associated with it brings me back 10 years to when it was released in the winter of '97. I had a particularly comfortable wicker chair in my room at the time, right in front of my TV, that I would always curl up in to play games. I remember the creak of it at 1 or 2 AM when I should have been asleep but just kept on playing anyway, recklessly hacking my way through the battle system I didn't fully comprehend at the time.

While I got my start on gaming on the NES, these days of the PSX RPGs were really what defined it for me. FF7, 8, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, among many others. It was a time before the constant hype on the internet, reading copious other opinions besides my own and friends'. All current news was limited to whatever magazines were glanced at within a month's time, and print ads actually meant something. It was possible to be surprised by something coming out of nowhere and shaking the foundation of the industry.

Too many things are taken for granted these days, what with copious interviews, previews, constant chatter and hype from both fans and journalists and fellow developers. Sales, press conferences, NPD numbers, review scores. In my personal golden age of gaming, I didn't care what a game scored. I didn't care what games sold the most copies. It was just about the love of gaming, and owning one system or another didn't seem to matter quite as much. Enjoying one system didn't seem to be such an obscure point of view.

Granted, that's just my perspective on things since I never was a part of this wide gaming community until the past few years. While community definitely brings us all further together, there are lot of interesting ups and downs that come along with it. I can't say whether either way is preferred, but the differences are there and it's impossible to go back.

Weekly Gaming: Enter the PSP

While most of my week's gaming has been absolutely dominated by the monstrous (length-wise) Persona 3, I've finally caved and purchased a PSP what with the advent of the new Slim & Lites coming out. The three games I've picked up so far are somewhat diverse, though I've only really dived deep into one of them in my morning/evening commutes.

Jeanne d'Arc came out relatively recently and, along with Brave Story and the upcoming Final Fantasy Tactics remake, was the catalyst for the PSP purchase. I've always been a fan of Level 5's games, though I've yet to actually complete one or be drawn into its story. Dragon Quest VIII was a game with unparalleled visual and aural appeal and entertaining gameplay, but I never really dug into the storyline and as a result moved on to other things rather than complete it. Rogue Galaxy was also along those lines, since it came out amidst a wave of hype for FFXII and my enthusiasm to approach it was dulled by a coworker explicitly naming its faults (similar to DQ8's).

And so here we are with Jeanne d'Arc, a game that is neither turn-based RPG or action RPG, but in the third major category: strategy. It also follows a familiar tale of a young woman with the ability to hear the voice of god and the quest she embarks on before a tragic end. For the benefit of a deep game however, many liberties were taken and the world of old France and England has been transformed into a fantasy mythos with a mixture of typical and obscure elements.

One early reveal that eased my initial worries about the story was that the magical bracer that Jeanne obtains early in her journey is not in fact connected to the celestial voice. At least, the second character met in the journey with the ability to transform using his own bracelet is unable to hear the voice. Otherwise, I would suddenly have hilarious mental images of medieval Power Rangers transforming and reporting to a Zordon-esque god.

So, as a relief, I'm actually digging into the storyline. Also, as per Level 5's history, the gameplay and visuals are rock solid. The graphic style is crisp and very well suited to the PSP's display and resolution. The sound effects also are very crisp and effective, but I unfortunately can't say the same for the soundtrack. I've never been a big fan of Level 5's in-house composers, and this game isn't an exception along those lines. The developer greatly profited from Sugiyama's presence in DQ8, but sadly Takeshi Inoue's tracks don't live up to my standards for SRPGs... which is perhaps a bit unfair considering that most of my favorite ones were written by Hitoshi Sakimoto, one of the better composers in the industry today. In any case, the music isn't unbearable by any means. It just isn't memorable at all, and lacks any substantial dynamic range.

Overall, however, I'm very much enjoying this game and will continue to put in sessions on the bus rides to and from work every day.

The second of three PSP games I purchased initially is something I hadn't planned on getting, but there it was at Best Buy's $10 rack at the check out... And I couldn't resist it. The game is Gunpey, and unlike Jeanne above it does make use of the full dynamic range quite deliciously. I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but I'm really digging this musically inclined puzzle game. I never really got into Lumines much, because I'm not nearly as good at block-dropping puzzlers, but I love the Panel de Pon style games like that, Meteos, and coincidently this. The concept is neat in that you're trying to connect lines rather than colors or shapes... It's interesting to think, randomly, how much different this game would be on DS with touch input (yeah I'm aware that a version of Gunpey came out for the system), but I think what makes up for it is the delicious soundtrack.

The soundtrack's interactivity didn't quite hit me until the 3rd level, but when it did I got hit hard. Level three, in particular, is one of the coolest levels I've played through in this type of game. The way the music and sound effects merged together was seamless rather than awkward, and it actually sounds like you're putting together some music while playing the game. It really encourages me to keep on going and see what other levels have in store. Definitely another to keep plugging away at.

Unfortunately, the third title Brave Story hasn't been touched due to a total lack of time. Once I finish Jeanne d'Arc, I'll get to it though. Likewise for my backlog of console games. I'll finally get to Bioshock and doing it properly as soon as I reach the conclusions of Persona 3 and Metroid Prime 3. All in good time...

As a final note, I'm going to be saving my weekly music for a little later in the week, as it's getting a bit late here and what I've been listening to needs a bit more time to digest before I can really give a proper opinion on it. 'Till then, keep rockin'.

New WIP + Pre-TGS Microconf

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 06:27:00 +0000

Since I didn't get around to writing a normal entry this past weekend, I figure I'd make up for it with dual entry focused on two absolutely unrelated subjects: A sneak peak at a new piece I'm working on, as well as some of my initial reactions to tonight's pre-TGS Microsoft press conference.

Forest Fall (Tentative) Work In Progress

This piece is, essentially, the middle section of a longer work that I'm composing in collaboration with a local Seattle choreographer Karen Brown. I've worked with her several times, as she was a fellow Cornish graduate, and it's always a pleasure to join forces. I wanted to take a bit of a step away from previous things I've done and seek out something different, and ended up with the 3 minutes here thus far. Enjoy!

Download (4.3 MB)

Pre-TGS Microconf

Just some brief snippets of impressions of the big reveals/re-reveals here, mainly.

~ Rez & Ikaruga coming to XBLA - Awesome to the max! If I had a 360. I'll rectify that eventually, but as of now I'm obviously overloaded.

~ Ninja Gaiden 2 - Microsoft publishing is a surprise, but not unexpected. Probably insurance to keep Ryu on their platform. Game looks graphically nice from the released screens, but I'm somewhat iffy on the direction it's going. It's like Ryu somehow fused with Wolverine and Kratos to be some sort of crazy vengeanceja rather than a ninja. Of course the NG games never were very ninjaly in the first place. If anything, props on getting some uh, realistic looking blood and gore goin on.

~ Infinite Undiscovery - Can anyone explain the title yet? Reports of "choppy" battles in the trailer are unnerving, but it's early and I'm sure they just wanted to show something. World seems generic fantasy, with talks of fighting fire breathing dragons. Oooh, edgy. Again, I'll need to see more to get the full picture. Some screenshots are out, and look decent. I like the character designs, not as much on the environment designs yet.

~ Last Remnant - Somewhat amusing that their ending note is a deliberately multi-platform game when they're trying to sell the 360 to the waning Japanese audience. Either way, sounds a bit generic as well. Demons kidnapping sisters and all. Another wait and see title. The stuff they showed previously looked pretty nice though.

With a lack of big news from awaited heavy-hitters Konami, Capcom or Atlus... I wonder what will be unveiled next week at TGS's real opening. I've got my fingers crossed for a PS3 MegaTen game, mainly because I'm so engrossed in P3 right now. We'll see!

That Old School Feeling

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 22:24:00 +0000

Freeform: Sounds like a video game?

It may be my jaded upbringing on Japanese console games talking, but I have a theory: Western game developers are afraid of their games being identified as games. Now I don't mean that they're consciously shivering in their corner telling the bad pixels to go away, but judging from the latest slew of games one can recognize this trend and how it's developed alongside technology.

The emergence of games as a cinematic experience and the lust for interactive movies stemmed from the early days of SEGA CD schlock and the beginning of CD-based games on PC. Pre-rendered video and redbook audio began the technological explosion that eventually led to where we are today.

All of this leads into the audio-centric portion of what I've been setting up. In the drive for interactive film, the Western game developer has no more need for the video game composer. This was extremely apparent to me at my semi-recent visit to the Game Developers Conference back in March. While there was much discussion about technology and interactivity with audio stems and other things only possible in games, everything related to the creative side of music composition was based around one mantra: Diversity is dead, conform to the Hollywood sound.

Okay, I over exaggerated that last part, but it couldn't be helped as I heard the efforts of both newcomers wanting to show their stuff as well as the showcases of industry big-names. To be honest, I don't place much fault on the composers themselves. Rather, it all boils down to what kinds of games are being created and what they call for in their presence. With games becoming the interactive cinema that they are, equally cinematic approaches tend to be the easy fallback way to score them. As a bit of an anecdote, I found myself writing up a demo for a recent horror-themed game last year. As a treatment of a main theme, I did something more akin to a Castlevania tune. It came as no surprise that the developers decided to side with a more gritty and typically "horror" sound, filled with guitars and no recognizable theme. Fine by me, really. All the better to get scared by, and no bitterness on my end.

But there's the catch. What was this horror game modeled after? A horror movie. Yet you take something like Silent Hill, which has a very cleverly designed sound that is distinctive as a game soundtrack, and its movie models the soundtrack after the game... Which leads to the movie feeling like a game, turning off audiences and getting poor reviews. The things we do for authenticity.

All tangents aside, I tend to listen exclusively to Japanese game soundtracks. One reason is obvious in that they always release a soundtrack for a game. The other reason is because they're so clearly game soundtracks and are intentionally written with the aim to be listened to over and over again. One of the big reasons why Western game composers are so obsessive with interactivity in their scores is that film music is linear, has a beginning and an end, and is intended to be heard once in the course of a 2 hour film.

Game music is cyclical. A good track written for a game is like a good piece of African music. (As obscure as that may sound.) The whole basis of African music comes from the concept of taking a "loop", developing it, riffing off it, and coming around to the same thing over and over and over. Yet it never gets old, it doesn't need to end. It can continue going until the sun sets and the dancers get tired.

Game music is also distinctly memorable. Partly because of its cyclical nature, and also because of its strong melodic importance. Strong melodies repeating endlessly. In the push for cinematic experiences, we now have games that play a main melody once in the course of a gameplay session. Usually on the main title screen. Any recent game player can probably hum you a strain from the menu music of Halo, but I highly doubt anyone would be able to recite a track from the in-game score.

In the end, since this ramble is drawing on a bit long, I don't really have some big thesis about my stance on all of this. A lot of it is observation, and noticing the trend that game music takes in its progression alongside technology. I can only hope for a meeting point between the two dire opposites of cinematic and game music. They both have their advantages and disadvantages when it comes to modern games, but the diversity can also be a positive one.

Weekly Music: A Deluge of Audio

In the wake of last week's strictly game-oriented entry, I'm going to forego my usual Weekly Gaming section in favor of a longer one focused on Music. Mainly because there were so many new releases and older albums that I got around to checking out. (Another reason would be that I'm still playing through most of the games I mentioned last week, with the slight addition of Warhawk in little bursts.)

Burn my Dread -Reincarnation Persona 3-

I should mention, since I didn't talk about the P3 soundtrack before this blog started up, that I'm a huge fan of what Shoji Meguro created for the latest entry in the Persona series. While Atlus composer Kenichi Tsuchiya has headed up the previous Persona games, Meguro came from his involvement with previous MegaTen projects including the original Persona, Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga along with the Trauma Center series to create this very unique soundtrack. So after playing the game for around 20 hours so far, I was really pleased to hear an arranged album complete with the full version of opening theme "Burn my Dread". The whole CD gives more of an alternative take on the game's tracks, since they aren't remixed or arranged by anyone other than the original composer. I'll definitely find myself revisiting this CD often as a good compilation of P3 tracks without having to skip some of the down-tempo tracks for casual listening.

Growlanser VI OST

While Shoji Meguro was busy staging his Persona coup, Kenichi Tsuchiya lent his efforts to this somewhat generic soundtrack. He wasn't the only composer, as other Atlus in-housers lent their talents to it: Eisuke Seki and Atsushi Kitajoh, whom I can't exactly say I'm familiar with at all. As a whole, the soundtrack isn't very memorable to my ears, but it has some strong themes sprinkled throughout. Such as "Submerged in Darkness", which has a good combination of tinkling bells, bass synth and bongos that remind me a lot of Mitsuda's "Shevat" theme from Xenogears. It's all very midi orchestral for the rest however, reminiscent of some PSX RPGs like Brave Fencer Musashi. It's also rather short, just spanning one disc and 23 tracks. What mainly killed the soundtrack for me was the total lack of quality in synths used, lacking any sort of dynamic range other than extreme mids for the most part. While it picks up towards the end, I probably won't be going back for another listen.

Dragon Quest Swords ~ The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors

As with any Dragon Quest game, its identity is extremely apparent from the onset with Koichi Sugiyama's "Overture" blasting away with its classically orchestral fanfare. While only certain themes of his are used (the usual mainstays), Manami Matsumae returns from the shadows of freelancing to write the majority of the soundtrack. If you're familiar with Mega Man 1 and 2, you know her music. She contributed to both titles under the nicknames Yuukichan's Papa and Manami Ietel. The resulting soundtrack is one that's clearly classically inspired and tries to remain within the sound that Sugiyama has established for the series, featuring some absolutely beautiful trumpet melodies (especially in the track "Come on, let's be off!"). While it's somewhat disappointing that a lot of it tries to hold (and succeeds) to the DQ sound, there are some tracks that break free of the formula briefly to catch my attention with their creativity. One such track is "Time of Mirror", which features sweeping synths similar to the infamous THX intro forming into chords periodically throughout the piece. "The Spiral Staircase" also has a very cool sound to it that reminds distinctively of Masashi Hamauzu's combination of piano and breathy synth pads. Overall, I think the soundtrack is a bit short (just 1 CD at 27 tracks), but it probably suits the length of this DQ side-game rather nicely. Matsumae has definitely proven that she can still contribute to the industry that's changed so much since her original offerings.

Minna no Golf 5

There's a lot of sub-genres within game soundtracks. One that always surprises and amuses me is: golf games. I have no idea why, but if I were to hear this soundtrack without an introduction, I would know right off the bat that it's the soundtrack for a golf game. There's just something about it, though I can't put my finger on it exactly. (A likely answer is that this composer does them all, but that may be too easy.) The game definitely caught my ear from the get-go with its awesome Stomp-inspired opening theme by Junji Kamatsuka comprised almost exclusively of sound effects from the game. The rest of it is written by Gon Ohtsuji who has been the Hot Shots composer for years, lending that sort of casual every-day feel to the games that sets the mood perfectly. I never thought I'd be praising a golf soundtrack, but it's diverse and is just fun to listen to.

Subarashi Kono Sekai (It's a Wonderful World)

I was extremely disappointed by this soundtrack. It's Takeharu Ishimoto's first major emergence from the job of synthesizer programmer and into the field of composition. His origins are from programming the outstanding soundtracks for Legend of Mana and Vagrant Story back in '99 and '00 respectively, but then went on to completely screw up Kingdom Hearts II's otherwise great soundtrack with some of the worst synth programming I've heard in a AAA RPG. Likewise, he comes into this project with some of the worst use of canned samples, trying to go for a hip from-the-streets sound that ultimately sounds like a teenage kid playing with Acid instead of doing his homework. If that's what he was going for, great job, but I don't think that's the case. There's also a handful of licensed Japanese electronica and hip-hop artists peppering the soundtrack that make it almost bearable, but for the most part it's actually pretty bad music compared to the better stuff out there. When you boil it down, it just sounds like a poor attempt to capture the spirit of Jet Set Radio's style of soundtrack without living up to it. Considering that he's being credited as writing for upcoming games FFVII: Crisis Core, Final Fantasy Agito XIII, and Final Fantasy Dissida, I fear for the integrity of the Final Fantasy name in regards to its musical quality. Hopefully they'll be much better than this.

King of Fighters Maximum Impact Regulation "A"

Toshikazu Tanaka has been pretty much a mainstay of solid SNK game soundtracks for so long, that it's not really necessary to mention that this game's music rocks. However, I'll mention it anyway. The soundtrack plays out a whole lot like an "electronica around the world" collection, with inspirations taken from Japanese, Indian, European, Eastern European, Native American, and Chinese traditional music. (Hey, like Street Fighter II!) Unlike Subarashi, this is how you handle samples well. There's some heavy usage of library samples and live recordings that all fuse together with the music well and create something that you can groove to rather than cringe at the stereotypical qualities of the tracks. It also contains one of the most hilarious song titles ever: "Giving a Manicure to the Fingernails of Darkness". Seriously, how can you beat that?

Phew! That's enough out of me for this week. 'Till next time!

PAX '07

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 02:04:00 +0000

To say I had a good time at this year's event would be a bit of an understatement. Events like this always put the drive back into me, reminding me why I do what I do and what the next step to take might be.

I've been attending PAX in some forms for several years now, this one being my third. The very first time was a direct result of my involvement in the community for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. In the long run, that effort didn't turn out perfectly, but it was my first glimpse into the behind-the-scenes aspect of game development that curried my desire to get involved. It was there that I met up with community representative Cindy Bowens, a bit of a legend when it comes to MMO-related community management. She was extremely kind and led to my first volunteer job as a games "journalist". I use quotations since the only journalism involved was focused on a single game rather than the industry as a whole. I wrote articles, did interviews, and performed a multitude of tasks for the hopeful community of an ultimately doomed game.

The second year was a bit of a solitary task. I had attended in hopes of meeting up with people, but ultimately was shut down by the extremely limited space that the Bellevue Convention Center had to offer. It was nigh impossible to walk, let alone move, through the place. Needless to say I was discouraged and left early, hoping that in the future a larger space would be acquired.

This year's convention answered my pleas and delivered in one of the best convention spaces I've experienced yet. Amusingly enough, despite living here, I've never been to the Washington State Convention Center (where this year's PAX took place). It's really a wonderful location for an event like this, from the multitude of glass walls near registration, to the very spacious showroom floor. Appropriate signage led me to where I needed to go without much confusion, and it seemed like everyone else was having a great time too.

The day started off somewhat solitary, as I had yet to spot anyone I knew. Yet suddenly, all within the span of 30 minutes or so, I had run into close to five or six co-workers. During the majority of my afternoon, I spent the time roaming the showroom floor and gathering impressions from various games on display:

Heavenly Sword - This was one of the first games I ran into, and one I already know I'm picking up once it's released. However, it was great to go in and play for a period of time that's not extremely short (such as the PSN demo provided). While the area I played was an arena battle, I really enjoyed playing through it. I tried as many ways as possible to kill the oncoming adversaries, my favourite of which involving throwing deceased soldiers at a line of advancing ones, knocking them all to the floor. The boss that followed, an encounter versus Flying Fox (one of the main henchmen), was relatively straight-forward, but by the time he emerged I had taken so much damage that I couldn't claim victory over him. Sadness, but it was a good stopping point.

Lair - Being a game of much contention among reviewers, I'm glad I finally got to get some hands-on time with it to formulate my own opinions before it launches in September. The only unfortunate part is that I believe the demo on the floor was an old E3 build, as it clearly wasn't optimized to the point that the game needs to be for its shipping quality. As a result, things were very choppy in places, especially scaled animations of far-away dragons (previously, I had only thought MMOs did this type of scaling). However, I personally got used to the controls very swiftly compared to most others' impressions. I love the feel of motion-controlled flight, and including a camera lock-on is a massive boon that saves the game and makes it tolerable in its massive scope. I'm very much looking forward to the final game, and really hope that the graphical polish is much better than the build I played. (Explosions are just terrible and uninspiring.)

Other games at the Sony Booth that I didn't get to play were Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, both of which looked stunning. I can't go too deep into impressions though, since it's nothing much different than watching gameplay videos.

Eye of Judgement was another game I didn't get to play hands-on, but got a good impression from seeing a setup of about 4-5 tables set up and playing it. Contrary to prior belief, the game actually comes packaged with everything for the standard $60 price point. And this is including the Playstation Eye, which wows me. The main concerns I have involve how the game will prevent severe cheating while playing online, such as drawing more cards than indicated or just browsing your entire deck unbeknownst to the opposing party. I should've asked the representatives there, but I didn't think of it at the time.

The next Midnight Club game was having a live demonstration behind a curtain at Rockstar's booth, which really impressed me as well. While I likely won't get it, as I'm not a huge racing game fan, they're doing a lot of very cool things with the franchise for current gen. And there's an in-car view too! One thing that may sell me on GT5, but that's another story altogether.

Last but not least on the list is Rock Band, a game that has "win" written all over it. The best possible promotional setup for the game was put on by EA, featuring a big stage set up with two guitars, drums and a microphone for vocalists. A huge line stretched around the booth, filled with eager gamers ready to get their rock on. And so four by four, the bands played their tunes to various degrees of success. One thing that came to mind immediately was that if you're going to have someone playing the drums, they need to be good, or else the entire song just goes to hell and sounds terrible. This happened more often than not, but sometimes an experienced player would step up and regain the rock.

After I was done wandering the showroom floor, it was just about time for the 1UP Gathering that I had been reading about. To my surprise, it would be even more fun and eventful than I had anticipated. I decided to, as P3 has taught me, burn my dread and wander over in a very self-confident manner and start getting in on conversations. Though there were several awkward moments when I found myself in a crowd of people who all obviously belonged together (due to their synchronized shirts), things were instantly lightened up when there were whispers going around about me, oddly enough. Thing is, The 1UP Show's Kathleen Sanders was there and had dyed her hair a very similar color to mine. So inquiries were going around as to whether I was some sort of long-lost brother.

After having met a number of people from 1UP and elsewhere that I have always wanted to meet, I ran into the awesome Jenn Frank who I helped find her way to a local brewery that seemed to be the popular spot to hang out outside the convention. Drink (only time for one) and good times were had, and suddenly it was time to head back to PAX for the live 1UP Yours podcast featuring the "original crew", meaning that Luke Smith was back in the 4th chair and back to his shenanigans. It was a hilarious show, and will be part of this Friday's upcoming podcast since it only lasted an hour due to convention scheduling. More good times were had, and I eventually bussed back to the ol' homestead extremely late.

In somewhat related news, I've decided to start up my own space at 1UP's blog space, and so starting next week all my posts will be located in both spots (double or mirror posting, in other words).

For now, that's all I've got. 'Till next week!

A Belatedly Busy Week

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 18:33:00 +0000

Blog post concepts have been billowing in my mind for the past week, since I neglected to update last weekend due to sheer busyness. One thing working full-time does, almost immediately, is make you perfectly aware of the weekends and learn to cherish them. Especially when big games come out all at once, like these past two weeks.

While I'd love to ramble on about something, much of my rambling likely has to do with what I've been playing lately, so I'm going to skip to the middle right away.

Weekly Gaming: PersonaShock Prime 3

Are these headers starting to get too cheesy? I don't know, but it's kind of amusing to play with them. Anyway...

The Fall & Winter tend to be the biggest seasons for hot game releases. It still is, especially concerning the massive onslaught of A+ games set to arrive for all three major consoles later this year. However, the storm has begun early with the release of three of my most anticipated titles of the year. The first of which being Persona 3.

The prelude to this is that I've always wanted to be a MegaTen fan, from the first days I ever set eyes on the concept art for Persona 2. That morbid surrealist in me just ate up all the weird and odd references peppering the franchise as a whole. But the one thing that always staved me off from the games were their admittedly harder-core-than-I difficulty and tendency to involve tedious grinding. Of course, since then I've gotten involved with MMOs, so there's really no excuse now to be adverse to grinding. But, in a single player game (especially one that's slightly clunky on the PSX hardware) it was more than I could take. Regardless, I loved the "real life meets surreal fantasy" vibe that all MegaTen games have presented, and especially Persona 2's curious detective story.

Then, enter Persona 3. There's nothing that pleases me more than a game developer that can take criticism, adapt their game, and still retain its core feel. That's what P3 feels like to me. Everything that I ever disliked about P2 got totally revamped and transformed, not unlike the formation of a certain tower named Tartarus. The story admittedly takes a bit of a back seat position once things start rolling in the game, but it's much more than just the main adventure. I don't think it would be at all adverse to call P3 the Japanese take on a Harry Potter like situation. Instead of an English boarding school as a basis, you have a coastal Japanese high school. While there is a large story at regular intervals throughout the game, there are also scenes that simply develop the school life of these teens and their relationships, much like how Harry Potter was more than just a series of books about a wizard. It was as much about the school and its history, students and teachers as it was about the main plot. I could probably muse about the battle system and persona fusing, but I do have two other games to write about after all!

Chronologically, the next game that crossed my desk of playitude was none other than the oft-discussed BioShock. I'm not sure if there's anything that hasn't been said about it, but I can provide some insight from my first impressions for what it's worth.

I think the very first thing that crossed my mind when the game started up its introduction was, "Holy shit... this is actually running on my computer?" It really does look that good. Considering that I originally built my PC to play hardware-greedy MMOs, I had never realized how well it would handle a "next gen" PC title. Now I know the answer to that. And yes, I didn't pick up the 360 version (mainly because I don't own one). But I also really prefer the traditional keyboard+mouse setup for this game, probably because it's so deep in its mechanics that with all these shortcuts at my fingertips, I feel more in control of the game.

But at the same time, similar to how each Half-Life began, it's hard to feel that it's a game you're playing until various mechanics are introduced to you in a very real and intuitive way. As everyone knows, if they've played the demo, the game starts you off in the water and wreckage of your plane having crashed miraculously in front of the lighthouse-esque entrance to Rapture. What follows is like a self-directed ride as you have no UI other than the immersive sounds of your character as he struggles to realize what's going on. Film reels, scratchy intercom voices, and menacing splicers then slowly unfold a narrative in your eyes and ears that conforms much to the "show, don't tell" theory of storytelling that games such as ICO and Shadow of the Colossus have nailed.

Since I won't be doing a section on music this week, I do also want to briefly cover the game's soundtrack. It was recently made available to download from the game's official website, at a somewhat unfortunately short length. Though, I imagine the reason is because of the quantity of classic pieces from the 40's inserted into the game in one of the most fitting uses of licensed tunes. However, when present, the orchestral score is one of the most haunting and contemporary scores a game has ever been graced with. While many western-developed games are now using film scoring tactics for their orchestral soundtracks, they're often still very tonal or rhythmic when you break them down. However, the music in BioShock dares to delve into the world of atonality in a way that I previously only heard in college, studying modern "conservatory" composition. Some of the techniques and effects used in the orchestral scoring remind me strongly of Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. It is, in my eyes, one of the most disturbing pieces of music ever written... And how fitting that BioShock's composer references it for reflecting on the disturbing nature of humanity's obsession with vanity and utopia presented in the game's themes.

Before I dive too deep into metaphor however, I'll wrap things up with the third game I've been playing this week. And it's actually one that not many have been playing... because it's not publicly released yet. One of the benefits of working for a gaming company is definitely the fact that we have access to games a little under a week prior to their official release date. And in conjunction with those perks, I've been playing the hell out of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

For weeks, after having tested countless games that do nothing for me, I've always said that the Wii has yet to host a game that really sold me on the system. Something that provided an experience that I couldn't get anywhere else. Moreso than Zelda, Smash Bros and Mario, I think that Metroid Prime 3 does the job extremely well and is the first proper Wii game I've played that convinced me in the console's virtues as a serious hardcore gaming device. Yes, it's cute to make mini-game collections using waggle (and touch-screen, as there's many analogous games created for the DS), but what I love to play are deep adventures that keep me engaged for hours. MP3 does this.

The first thing to come to mind, of course, is how much it begins not like other Metroid games. Many journalists have ran the line that the game begins very similar to the original Halo, and they're not wrong by any means. The intro is a full-fledged two-part siege on the Galactic Federation by the armies of the Space Pirates. Both on the beginning's space cruiser, and on the nearby planet's surface. Unlike the first Metroid Prime, the game doesn't begin properly once you land on a planet. Instead, it uses a series of other planets as its main staging point. The main difference here is that while the original Prime focused on vertical exploration, constantly moving throughout the planet's depths, Prime 3 focuses on a more horizontal exploration. The big draw is that you have full control over your ship and can land at many points on the planet's surface. This leads to more of a, dare I say it, Zelda-esque exploration scheme. And surprisingly, several boss battles feel very similar to a certain green tunic'd adventurer's encounters.

But beyond all the differences, is it still a Metroid game? I say yes. Why? Because, more than ever in the series, you are Samus. The Prime sub-series has no issue with presenting the fact that it is about immersing yourself as the character. With Prime 3, you feel more like the character than ever. Having people talk to her, react to her, flying and commanding her ship, physically ripping things off the walls and enemies... It all builds into the experience, and by the time you're on your main adventure, the sense of isolation kicks in strong. While you are working with rather set goals, there is a mystery there where things aren't quite as they should be. And once things get rolling, you are still Samus, the solitary Bounty Hunter that gets things done.

That's it for me this week. However, I'll have a special entry either later today or tomorrow, as I'm going to be going to Penny-Arcade Expo today! Expect impressions and stories. I'll hopefully have something interesting to say.

Location Matters

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:26:00 +0000

Freeform: Nix the World Map

Just a matter of minutes ago, I was browsing NeoGAF (as I tend to do idly before I head to sleep) and came across a thread that spurred my train of thought a bit. The general gist of it was reminiscing about past games that took place in a singular, isolated area. Either large or small. Several people mentioned a few classic games that have used this factor of scope in their design, but I'm slowly realizing that almost all of my favourite games of all time fit into this very distinct restriction.

Vagrant Story, the current ruler of my "best games ever" list, uses this style in the same vein as a lot of classic action/adventure titles have (action RPG in this case). It comes from the original Metroid, a game that pushed the conventions of gaming boundaries in its time. As the retrospective featured on GameTrailers puts it, it was one of the first open-world games, yet also one of the most cramped and claustrophobic. And because of it, it was brilliant at generating one of the most effective design aesthetics that I've come to appreciate over the years.

Since Metroid, every game in its series (with the possible exception of the upcoming Metroid Prime 3: Corruption) has taken place in this concept of isolation and discovery, preying upon the player's natural instinct to explore and become awestruck at what they find. While Samus was in hiatus between Super Metroid and her eventual 2D predecessor Metroid Fusion, the Castlevania series borrowed the open world convention for its hallmark title Symphony of the Night. Instead of exploring the depths of an alien planet, those that would seek Dracula's head instead found themselves exploring the ever-changing labyrinth of a castle. As a convention, it was a perfect fit. The feeling of isolation and discovery held true due to the nature of a castle: Finite space, every room needing to be searched for all the treasures they held.

With Vagrant Story, a very similar bout of exploration came about in the adventures of Ashley Riot and his game of cat and mouse with the mysterious Sydney Losstarot. With exception of the opening sequence and initial dive through cavernous hallways to reach the city proper, all of the game took place within the abandoned city of Lea Monde. It was epic, yet not in the sense of world scope. The secluded location kept it private and personal. Several characters enter a mystical location and are changed forever. It is the stuff that the best theatrical plays utilize to their fullest. In the theater, location is always a limitation. There's only so much an audience will believe when presented with a static and often sparse visual. And so the transformations of characters is exploited to its fullest, whether it be subtle or bombastic.

Another game that does this exceptionally well is the extremely under-appreciated title Shadow of Destiny. Released relatively early in the PS2's lifecycle, the game was ultimately passed over for its somewhat sub-par adventure-based gameplay. However, it remains with me as a very strong piece of character development (despite some cheesy moments that prevent it from being excellent). Like the previously mentioned title, the game takes place distinctly within one small town. However, this town has several key differences: It's fully populated and busy, and you get to visit it in 5 different points in time thanks to the time-travel heavy plot. Between tracing family trees to ancestral roots in the medieval hamlet version of the town, to observing the parents or grandparents of several of the town's inhabitants; Shadow of Destiny explores every aspect of the town and its citizens' histories.

I could probably ramble on for a lot longer, exploring the elements of solitary exploration in a closed environment in my favourite games and what makes them tick. Other titles include ICO, the Silent Hill series, and Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter. Ultimately, the theme sits strong with me and always strikes some part of my gaming tastes.

Weekly Gaming: Minish Rogue Stories

This week has been one of rediscovering and playing old games from several years back that I never got around to. The only unfortunate part to it all is that I know I probably won't finish any of the console games before the heavy hitters start getting released. Next week is the lovely Persona 3, which I've been waiting for quite some time for. Two weeks afterwards, and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption makes its way to the Wii. Which gives me two weeks to complete P3, whereas the titles I'm currently playing have only got a few days left! This means that ultimately I'm going to have to stop playing one of the two console titles. But why don't I get on with what exactly they are.

My portable title of the week has been Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap for the GBA. This little gem of a game is, believe me, absolutely impossible to find. After weeks of futile searches, a co-worker mentions that he'd be willing to lend it to me. Score! And so my adventure into this title came to be. I've been enjoying it thoroughly so far, having beaten two out of the four dungeons initially presented. What I like the most is how unique it feels, yet still remaining a traditional Zelda game. In the same way that Link's Awakening or Majora's Mask shook up the formula, Minish Cap does it again and even better in some parts. New gameplay mechanics are introduced, brand new items never used before are mixed in with series staples (mainly in the form of bombs and the ever-present boomerang). The story is a classic and overdone tale of greed and lust for power, but that's what the Legend of Zelda series has always been about since day one. I wouldn't expect anything else, though this game continues to prove that Ganon doesn't always need to be that embodiment of greed.

On the console side, I've been juggling between two rather similar (in some ways) action-RPGs: Rogue Galaxy and Radiata Stories. During the first 5 hours of both, I remained somewhat tentative on giving either of them a chance. I'll deconstruct them a bit in the paragraphs to follow.

With Rogue Galaxy, I came in with some bit of knowledge. I've owned the soundtrack for over a year now, and am very familiar with its tracks ups and downs. The composer is trying very hard for a Williams-esque Star Wars feel in its more orchestral and dramatic pieces, and ultimately fails at it. Synthesized choruses attempt to chant out ala Phantom Menace's epic battle theme, and just come across as a cheesy mess. However, the soundtrack really shines when it comes to the smaller and more tribal sounding pieces. The man is clearly a guitarist, and it shows in these smaller tracks.

As far as the actual game, it begins on a huge downer: A starry view of space with a simple page of text labeled "Story" and concluded with "Press X to Continue." Not exactly how I would open up an epic RPG adventure. Once passed though, a CG cutscene begins and introduces us to our hero: Jaster. He's returning from something, parched and on a desert planet not unlike Tatooine. He laments the Empire's (not really, but it's not like it's any different) dominance over his planet. I bet if provoked, he'd whine for some power converters too. Regardless, he gives a bit of an eloquent monologue about how he wants to make a difference. And then in the next scene, all pretense of a serious plot is shattered. Cue over-the-top goofy comic relief music as C3PO wannabe "Steve" and his companion (An R2D2 that happens to be more of a mechanical mole with a Scottish accent.) search for a legendary bounty hunter. When all's said and done, a big monster attacks the city and everyone's drawn to it as a catalyst for combat explanation (a well-fortified city suddenly has skeletons popping out of the sand!) and plot advancement as the pirate version of Han Solo invites Jaster to join him (under false pretenses, having been mistaken for said legendary Bounty Hunter.) It's all very goofy and tongue in cheek, and ultimately do I care much for it yet? Too early to tell, but I was going to stick with it until I reached a certain point in the second game I'm tackling with...

Radiata Stories is a bit of an odd one. It arrived without much fanfare, but is one of the very few original IPs that Square Enix has published in the recent years. It's actually developed by Tri-Ace, the team behind the Star Ocean games. And it shows, especially in its battle system. However, since I talked about Rogue Galaxy's first, I have to mention Radiata's obscure soundtrack. Never have I seriously hated and loved a soundtrack so much simultaneously. On one hand, you have the very over-the-top jazz-inspired tunes with wonky pitch-shifting woodwind lines and a cheesy midi horn section extremely similar to Marvel VS Capcom 2's schlocky BGM. Yet, on the other hand you have some genuinely beautiful bits of live violin playing and orchestral writing that seems to come out of nowhere considering the goofy vibe most of the soundtrack takes. I can only hope the lighthearted theme begins to fade slightly as the game dwells deeper in into reality, which I'll touch on below.

The storyline of Radiata, erm, Stories is somewhat deceptive. In the beginning you have Jack Russell, a character that at several points in the game's first 5 hours made me want to strangle him on the spot. He's your typical happy-go-lucky anime star that is reckless and idiotic yet somehow respected because he is courageous and true. He fails miserably at his trial to apply for the Radiata Knights, and yet gets in on the pretense that his father was one of the best warriors the kingdom has ever had. The rest of the game's lengthy introduction is spent in two missions where several overarching story elements and main characters are introduced. We learn that there's a very lenient tension between the humans of Radiata and the non-human faerie creatures including the dwarves and elves. All very standard fantasy stuff. You also have the bumbling and strident Captain Ganz and the sheltered raised-a-knight female protagonist Ridley. The latter of which has a very predictable competative-yet-caring relationship with Jack. At this point, I'm asking myself why I'm continuing to play this game and on the verge of switching back to Rogue Galaxy.

However, something happens that (as most typical movie trailers reiterate) changes everything. Throughout the game, the idyllic and quirky vibe has been quite abundant. Jack is a Naruto-esque guy that wants to be the best despite his constant failing. During the second mission, a blood orc suddenly appears and engages the brigade in battle. Ridley nearly dies as a result, and Jack breaks from his fantasy world to suddenly grip reality and takes charge in the intention to help her survive. Upon returning with the girl on the brink of death, her father snaps and orders the head of the Knights to take action against Jack and Ganz. The pressure is on, and so he does. Just as the game begins to make you feel safe in the happy and predictable life of a royal knight, they disband your brigade and strip you and your captain of all rank. Homeless and aimless, the two emerge into the suddenly very real streets of Radiata. Ganz heads to the tavern for a drink, and the two of them eventually discover the Theater Vancoor, a rough and tumble Warrior's Guild. It's then from there and your shanty apartment do you embark into the real world, and the real game. Gone are the original stereotypes that plagued my first impressions, and instead you have a bleak sense of abandonment and a quest for survival out on your own. The game has already taken the first steps of a great coming of age story, and I look forward to how things develop from here.

Weekly Music: A Brief Sonata

I've probably spent long enough blathering on in the previous two sections, but I at least wanted to mention something about what I've been listening to this week. The new release in gaming soundtracks this time around is Eternal Sonata, or Trusty Bell as it's known in Japan. Motoi Sakuraba of Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean fame delves into his more classical and orchestral side (versus the palette of synths and guitars he often falls back on in most soundtracks.) While I won't go too in depth, I was on a whole pleased with the soundtrack, though it was all very similar and relatively safe writing. The main things of note that challenged Sakuraba's usual faire were a variety of original piano pieces to fit in with Chopin's own compositions. They hold up quite well, surprisingly, and are even rather inventive compositionally. The true hallmark of the soundtrack though, comes in the form of the most badass final battle music ever: Chopin's Revolutionary Étude (Op. 10 No. 12) fused with Sakuraba's progressive rock style of battle music in one impressively bombastic tune. Classical music really is the predecessor of metal after all.

Structure as a Theme

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 07:11:00 +0000

I suppose I'll begin with a brief apology for anyone that was initially looking to this blog for immediate updates. I started it up roughly a month ago, but as circumstances would take hold of my time, no grand ideas came to me for topics. However, I think I finally have my bearings about me and will begin to update weekly, on either Saturday or Sunday. I think this will be the format that will work the best for my schedule, and I'll try to keep to it as best as I can.

Freeform: A New Act

As my life proceeds onward, I can put some very distinct categorization on various periods in it. A popular term is beginning a new chapter... though it's not a very elegant one considering how the concept of chapter in a novel has a somewhat limited scope and timeline. An act within a play would likely be a better term for it. But I digress.

The most recent act has been the four years of college. It was mainly a period of time where I focused specifically on what my long-term goal is in life, and gained as much knowledge as possible about it as I could. There was a lot of experimentation, and while that still goes on today, my more recent exploration has been more defined by honing in on a singular voice.

After graduation, there was a year's intermission where I finally got to experience what a freeform life was like. It was a whole year free from schedules and assignments, just focusing on making my way and seeking out freelancing opportunities. While that ultimately didn't work out financially, it was a good experience to have.

The latest act is one where I play the role of full-time employee. The most I can say is that I've entered the video game industry in one of the several entry-level positions out there. While it isn't anything analogous to my ultimate goal of writing music full-time for games, it's a foot in the door of the best kind. I can only hope that as this new portion of my life proceeds, I'll continue to meet great people and more opportunities will open up.

Weekly Gaming: Wrecking Dracula with Math

One of the most unfortunate parts about having a job with a severe NDA is that it limits my blogging rights tremendously. However, what I do in my free time is fair game to the max! (So to speak.)

With the advent of a full-time job, it also means that I'm spending at minimum 2 hours a day in transit where I'm just sitting on a bus either gaming or listening to music. (Potentially reading, but I conquered Book 7 in its release weekend, and have yet to figure out what I might tackle next).

One of the new games to come out that I've been tackling has been Picross DS. For those not familiar with the series, essentially what the game boils down to is sort of an inverse Minesweeper with a purpose, with a bit of Sudoku thrown in for good measure. Instead of uncovering bombs by looking at interior numbers, you're uncovering boxes or pixels that collectively come together to make a picture. On each row and column of the puzzle, various numbers represent the groupings of pixels that exist. For example if a column of 10 pixels had the numbers 4, 2 and 2, that would indicate that somewhere within the column there would be 4 in a row, and two sets of 2 in a row. So take that and apply it to a full 10x10 square, and you have the easiest puzzles in the game. It sounds extremely difficult, and I can say that the later puzzles most definitely are... However, the game thankfully starts you out with very simple endeavors before ramping up to its extreme difficulty.

The other game that I've been picking away at this week has been the recently re-released Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on PS3's Playstation Store. While I do own a CD copy of the game, it has sadly fallen into a massively damaged state. Areas of the game have music that skips or refuses to play, and for me that's a big issue. Thankfully, 10 bucks later, I've got a perfectly refurbished copy that can never get scratched. Though I haven't progressed too far yet, it's such a brilliantly nostalgic journey into my gaming past. The game is still as smooth as it ever was, and reminds me how much time has passed since I originally played it back in my first year of high school. One thing that always strikes my RPG-fan nerve (in a good way) is that random rare drops off of enemies in an action game is such an appreciated layer to the game. There's nothing quite like getting lucky, finding a rapier rather early on in the game, and stabbing things up with its heightened stats (compared to some of the early crap swords) and amusing flurry attack. It only drives me to keep playing and seeing what else I'll come across, even though I've beaten the game twice over.

Weekly Music: Heavenly Daft Souls

Recently, a few coincidences involving friends seeing live Daft Punk concerts and raving about them, and a friend hooking me up with the full collection of their albums, led me to revisit their music in a marathon of album play through's in my bussing adventures. The long and short of my conclusion is that Discovery is still one of the best albums I own, and still the best work that Daft Punk has put out in my personal opinion. While their first album is classic, to me it doesn't have nearly the same amount of character that Discovery does. I also had never bothered checking out their relatively newer album, Human After All. While it certainly contains some cool grooves... The album seems extremely limited and overly simplistic to me. Late to the party on this one, but I was really disappointed to find that nearly every track just contained a generally static groove based around the title of the song. Granted, the play off of "Steam Machine" was pretty neat and made for a trippy atmosphere, and the list poem of Technologic has gained much infamy through internet memes. However, compared to progressive pieces like Harder Better Stronger Faster and songs like One More Time, they just don't hold up beyond being cool grooves.

In the oft-visited realm of Japanese game music, I've been listening to a lot of Folks Soul's (Folklore in the US) neat little soundtrack. The majority of the OST's themes were composed by Kenji Kawai, who is mainly known for his work in film and anime. He's done a few games here and there, but this will likely be his first top-notch game title. Picking up additional composition credits are Shinji Hosoe (known recently for his BGM in Xenosaga Episode II and prior work with Namco on Ridge Racer titles), Hiroto Saitoh, and Ayako Saso. There's even a few Irish folk tunes thrown in for pub music. Overall, the game has an epic orchestral feel to it with a supernatural and dark tone... But in an Elfman sort of way, even though comparisons are drawn to his work far too often. The most enjoyable parts of the soundtrack are definitely the orchestral/choral pieces recorded by Kawai, as they have a really unique style to them. The other pieces are enjoyable, although somewhat roughly mocked up with samples rather than a live orchestra. The additional composers are able to capture Kawai's style accurately, but unfortunately don't put their own spin on it, playing it safe for the most part. A lot of the pieces are very aggressive and brash, which I suppose is for more action-packed aspects of the game... considering that is is an action-RPG after all. However, I don't think the action pieces were handled with as much grace as the original themes and more ambient pieces were. Fortunately, the amazing violin player Yuriko Mukojima comes in for two tracks (four, if you include the two Irish folk songs) filled with emotion and feeling that almost steal the show for me.

As a small addendum to close on that will hopefully be expanded on in the future... I've also been listening, albeit limitedly, to two sampler pieces from the upcoming Heavenly Sword soundtrack by Marc Canham and Nimrod Productions... Based on these two tracks and what I've heard in the demo gameplay, color me extremely impressed so far. It sounds very unlike everything we've been hearing in your typical action game. Coupled with Folklore, Lair and Warhawk, I have to say... One aspect that Sony's 1st and 2nd party studios certainly aren't skimping on lately has been music. Not only are they hiring very talented composers, but they're also funding some extraordinary production. I was able to attend a panel at GDC where a majority was spent talking about Sony's methods of handling music and audio production, and I was certainly very impressed. I would be honored to one day be involved in such a project.

Let's get started

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 01:28:00 +0000

When I first designed the latest version of my website, one of my main goals was to have some sort of blog on which to publish articles, rambles, and of course the latest finished pieces of music. While I've been informally writing on services like Live Journal for some time now, I wanted something a bit more professional and tied in with my website. Originally, my front page was some sort of monthly checkup on how things were going. However, it got to a point where I felt reluctant to update the front page unless something extremely major had been added to the content of the site. Thankfully, through Blogger I've been able to create something to update whenever I want with more than just updates on my website.

The first topic I should probably address is the blog name. Some people have accused me of being too verbose at times, and I'll give them that. My love of language is pretty close to that of music, so I'll milk it for all it's got. Diffusion is, aside from its scientific meanings, a word to describe the spread of cultural elements from one area or group of people to others, to quote Mirriam-Webster's 4th definition. Gregarious is a way to describe something that associates with others of their kind, or one's liking for companionship. And so by linking the two words together, gregarious diffusion, it could become a definition for art and our inherent nature to pass it along and collaborate with others in its creation. It's that definition of art that I live with and try to further define by the act of creating more. A bit heady, sure, but I can always use the excuse that I went to a pretentious arts college.

So what exactly would the casual reader of this blog expect to see in future updates? The primary factor will be my thoughts and commentary on what's going on in the current age of music and games, and as the short description mentions, everything in-between. That is to say, how games and music come together and are represented in the interactive medium. It could be general rambles, or responses to current news. One thought is to do a bit of a weekly roundup of the articles and news bits that caught my attention. We'll see how that works out.

Another primary factor will be what's going on in my professional life. If any projects come up that I can talk about, I'll be sure to post about them to whatever degree I can. If I have a new piece that I just finished, I'll also make a point of debuting it here before it gets added to the main website.

And what else? We'll see as time goes on. For now, this is a start. I wanted to get things initiated, and so they have been! You'll notice that, initially, I've allowed for Anonymous responses to be made. I'd really discourage this, as I want to know who you are! So even if you post anonymously, make sure to sign your name or I'll be totally clueless as to who you are.

I'm going to be out of town until the 4th of July, but once I return I'm sure I'll have plenty of things to write about. Until then, I'm out!

Beginnings

noreply@blogger.com (Leif) — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 19:25:00 +0000

This is a test to make sure this is all working. To be edited later with the actual post!

Edit: I lied. The new first post is above this one. I'll leave this here just for sheer novelty's sake.