DP’s Favourite Video Game Music
June 4th, 2008
So you’ve read my reasons why I enjoy listening to video game music and still aren’t convinced that video game music is awesome? Looks like I’m going to have to post up some music samples of particular video game music which I enjoy. I know that this is cliché among us gaming bloggers but I thought that I’d jump on the bandwagon and give it a go. As usual I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and other great game music below.
The Moon – Ducktales (NES and Gameboy)
I don’t think that any song represents the 8bit era quite like this one. I can’t quite put my finger on it but somehow this music captures nostalgia down to a tee, even to people who never played either of the DuckTales games. Capcom owned the rights to Disney games in the 8 and early 16bit eras which paved the way for a solid (infact very good) line up of licensed material sporting the comical cast of Disney characters.
The Best is Yet to Come – Metal Gear Solid
There are only a few songs that I can honestly say tug at my heart strings (some of them I have listed here) and The Best is Yet to Come is one of those songs. Sung completely in Irish the song evokes a strong sense of loss and sorrow which is extremely overpowering and representative of the original Metal Gear Solid. The fact that I cannot understand the lyrics adds further reason as to why this song is a natural beauty. This song reminds me a little of Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy (listen here).
Main Theme – Metal Gear Solid 2
With my anticipation for Metal Gear Solid 4 at fever pitch, this song helps ease my waiting pains. When comparing this to the original MGS Main Theme this is almost laughably better (but the original has its own, PSone campy qualities). MGS2’s Main Theme is again highly representative of this game due to the traces of digital sounds and instrumental arrangement. The sample that I have selected represents a certain pride that I have for the game and captures the heart and soul of this deep series.
The Legend of the Hero – The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
I vividly remember this song at the start of The Wind Waker and if you love this game dearly as well then I think you’ll feel the same way. This track made you feel as though Wind Waker was going to be the game which would sequalize Orcarina of Time in terms of coherent story (that is the described story on the scrolls would actually be the story of the Wind Waker). Unfortunately The Wind Waker actually created a gapping hole in the series timeline but in anycase this music reaches into the core of the Zelda experience. The music itself provides background to the main themes surrounding the Zelda franchise; courageous, youthful adventuring on an encompassing scale all which The Wind Waker made good use of.
Title Black – Final Fantasy Tactics
Honestly I could choose any one of the 71 tracks on this soundtrack and it would still be worth listening to. Title Black is the perfect song to symbolize one of gaming’s most widely acclaimed soundtracks. Stop listening and just buy this soundtrack because it is 100% worth your cash especially to those who played and enjoyed the original.
Bramble Song – Donkey Kong Country 2
I can’t find an actual rip of this song so I am just going to post up an accurate enough version taken from VG Music. Donkey Kong Country 2 was unfortunately my least favourite game in the series and despite my deep affection for this series I only played the DKC2 this year (I had finished DKC and DKC3 back in the day, never had DKC2 though). Upon hearing this music my jaw hit the floor. This music is just so compelling and deep for a song of the SNES era. There is also a track from DKC3 that I like which is the remix of the main theme in the mountain levels. I’ll post it up if I can find it again.
Everything is Working in Perfect Harmony
June 3rd, 2008
I remember back a few years ago I read an article which talked about Hollywoodisation of the video games industry. The core idea was that as game development budgets rose across all platforms the quality of games would level out and more developers would take less risks in order to survive. This would in turn force developers to create more safe bets breeding a multitude of generic, samey games. Essentially this article forcasted the death for the video game industry.
At the time it definitely sounded realistic. I mean from where we sat we all knew that the cost of development would rise and that it would change the way that the industry operates. Looking at this theory now though it’s clear to see that no such thing exists. On second thoughts its not hard to argue that games are infact less like this now than before.
Balance and What Makes Balance
The idea of Hollywoodisation is very one dimensional, it had no choice but to be that way because back then we could have never predicted how games would evolve into what they are now. With the coming of the latest generation of games we have seen new outlets open up providing users with more selection rather than the idea of the one size fits all format that we have been walking for sometime. These many new evolutions have ensured that we are currently more balanced than ever in turn lowering the burden that Hollywoodisation has on our industry. Lets look at some of these avenues that have helped out industry evolve so much in such a short amount of time.
Read the rest of this entry »
Heavy Metal Blues
June 1st, 2008
In a previous article where I was sharing my thoughts on a few gaming sites I mentioned that Kombo had a feature that I wanted to talk about later on. Well now it’s time to discuss it.
Probably since the start of this year I have bene working on piecing together a series of posts looking at the various series questions that Metal Gear Solid 4 should answer when it gets released on June 12th. I had been tirelessly doing my research on this for months investing tens of hours into the project while getting little writing done.
A FEW SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT
What I realized was that where the series currently stands there are just too many unknown factors for me to piece together a coherent articles. Also when it comes to clarification on certain issues such as the relationship between Ocelot and Solidus Snake at Shadows Moses descriptions are quite vague which opens a lot to interpretation.
So in the end it just became way too hard and I didn’t want to gloss over and make unrealistic assumptions on various plot points.
Fortunately Nick Michetti over at Kombo has been writing a feature titled: Heavy Metal. This feature puts various questions and plot points under the microscope to make a bit of sense of it all. There are already 7 installments of this series and overall it is quite good. I have noticed a few minor errors but it’s nothing that I wouldn’t have made myself.
So if you are interested in such speculation then I recommend that you take a look at the feature I never could write myself:
Heavy Metal Features #1-7
Of course, if you too need your own refresher then hopefully the following videos could be of some assistance:
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