I downloaded some games onto my Wii, and my family has one too, so I stuck the games onto my SD card and brought it over. SD to Wii memory... copy... "Cannot copy to this Wii console."
PUNK'D BY COPYRIGHT PROTECTION.
Forgot that Nintendo likes to keep all the money. I'm sure there are ways to hack it, but that's so illegal and naughty naughty. Stealing games isn't like stealing music! The difference is that games are harder to "share." There's no such thing as Game Napster! Except Bit Torrent. And everything like it. Hm.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Game Musicality
In Japan, video game soundtracks are pretty huge. Sure, even over there, Nobuo Uematsu's latest epic won't top the charts, but at least Japanese gamers care. In America, the only way to get most soundtracks is to import them. A few companies like Atlus will include it in a collector's edition of a particular game, but they're all about the fan service. It's not an everyday occurrence.
Th problem is that good music in a game may not be the kind of music you want to listen to in real life. Plenty of RPG's have sweeping orchestral pieces that may interest people that are into classical music. But besides that... much game music is just game music. It's ambient and it makes a point. You don't want a climactic point made at you while you're driving down the interstate. You just want to enjoy yourself. Instead of being crafted solely for your listening pleasure, game music is supplemental to game action. Taken as a whole, the game experience can be incredible, dramatic, and moving... a total greater than the sum of its parts.
I love the music in Quentin Tarantino films. It plays into the action perfectly in every instance. It's actually one of the things his movies are most well-known for, his perfect ear for scene-stealing music. But I listened to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack the other day, and it's kind of lame. The songs are too long, and they're mostly slow oldies. When taken out of the context of the film, the songs really lose their luster. The same can be said about a lot of game music. Metal Gear Solid had sharp, interesting music. But without Solid Snake's supplemental stealthy shenanigans, it's just hard to care.
Th problem is that good music in a game may not be the kind of music you want to listen to in real life. Plenty of RPG's have sweeping orchestral pieces that may interest people that are into classical music. But besides that... much game music is just game music. It's ambient and it makes a point. You don't want a climactic point made at you while you're driving down the interstate. You just want to enjoy yourself. Instead of being crafted solely for your listening pleasure, game music is supplemental to game action. Taken as a whole, the game experience can be incredible, dramatic, and moving... a total greater than the sum of its parts.
I love the music in Quentin Tarantino films. It plays into the action perfectly in every instance. It's actually one of the things his movies are most well-known for, his perfect ear for scene-stealing music. But I listened to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack the other day, and it's kind of lame. The songs are too long, and they're mostly slow oldies. When taken out of the context of the film, the songs really lose their luster. The same can be said about a lot of game music. Metal Gear Solid had sharp, interesting music. But without Solid Snake's supplemental stealthy shenanigans, it's just hard to care.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Soundtrack of my life. Or at least my games.
When you repeatedly hear the same music with the same actions, you forever associate them with each other. I always listened to Sugar Ray's self-titled CD when I mowed the lawn or played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 on the Game Boy Advance. Now, certain songs on that CD make me feel like I'm out mowing in the hot hot heat or skating around the rooftop level as Tony Hawk. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was a sublime game, but the music was... lacking. The minimalist soundtrack with a heavy emphasis on ambient nature sounds and footsteps was a huge turn-off for me. Luckily, 360's let you import your own CD's onto it to make a custom soundtrack for your games. I would travel all across Cyrodiil while bumpin' Cold War Kids. Now, whenever I hear their music on the radio or play their CD in my car, I picture the beautiful landscapes of Tamriel and the often ugly faces of the hundreds of NPC's in the game. It's like a subconscious music video. It's hard to hear Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit" and not picture the dark gymnasium from the music video. I have unintentionally linked Oblivion and Cold War Kids in my mind, and it's not a bad thing. It gives imagery to the songs, even if the images conjured up are not the intended ones.
Another game I've remixed is Fable II: Pub Games. Barely a game at all, Pub Games' tedium is almost eliminated by listening to Beck's Modern Guilt while spinning the slot machines ad nauseum. Almost. Also, I want the prizes and achievement points! Anything that helps me mellow out after a long hard day is a winner in my book.
Fallout 3 is an improvement over Oblivion, I guess. There is a radio on the game that constantly loops often-humorous reinterpretations of old-time music. If I would hear that music in real life, I would be transported in my mind back to the world of Fallout 3, the way the game makers probably intended. Still, I wonder how long before I started playing some Radiohead in its place...?
Another game I've remixed is Fable II: Pub Games. Barely a game at all, Pub Games' tedium is almost eliminated by listening to Beck's Modern Guilt while spinning the slot machines ad nauseum. Almost. Also, I want the prizes and achievement points! Anything that helps me mellow out after a long hard day is a winner in my book.
Fallout 3 is an improvement over Oblivion, I guess. There is a radio on the game that constantly loops often-humorous reinterpretations of old-time music. If I would hear that music in real life, I would be transported in my mind back to the world of Fallout 3, the way the game makers probably intended. Still, I wonder how long before I started playing some Radiohead in its place...?
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Part III - What makes music games so great?
This one's easy: music games let you party like a rock star. You invite a bunch of friends over for Guitar Hero or Rock Band and you can all be guitar legends or rock out on drums that go clack clack instead of boom boom or sing terribly off-key renditions of Alanis Morissette. Even if you are terrible at real music, set the game to easy or no-fail mode and you can feel like you are actually playing Free Bird in front of millions of screaming fans.
The games are the same basic formula as DDR - you match the notes flowing down (or up) the screen, and you rack up bigger and bigger combos as you play better. It's strange that by merely including a plastic guitar instead of a dance mat, the entire genre took off. Best Buy and Wal-Mart even have whole aisles now dedicated to the ever-increasing amount of hardware you need for these games. I don't think it was the peripherals that helped launch companies like harmonix into the stratosphere; I think it was the music.
DDR is techno music, house music, and trance music, with a few current pop hits sprinkled throughout. Guitar Hero is rock. Not only that, it's good rock. When the original Guitar Hero came out on PS2, nobody knew it would take off like it has. People would say, "Oh, another game that costs $90 because you have to get a fancy controller with it." Until they played it. The game had songs from everyone from Queen to Ozzy to Incubus to Pantera to the Stones. At first, every song on the game was a cover, but they were remarkably good covers. Harmonix really knew their stuff. Maybe their musical chops had been honed with Frequency and Amplitude, or maybe it helped that they were all musicians in real life. But they could tell the difference between a song that you'd want to listen to on the radio and a song that you'd like to play fake guitar to. When they found one that had both qualities, they would stick it in the game.
One thing not great about music games is the overlapping songs. There is 50 years of rock 'n' roll history to choose from, so why do we get a dozen songs that are the same on two games released barely month apart? I can understand band overlap - who doesn't want to be Kurt Cobain? - but making people pay almost 200 more dollars to play songs they've already played is almost criminal.
It's true: playing Guitar Hero is not the same as playing real guitar, and if people actually practiced real instruments as much as they played games there would be a lot more starving artists on the streets begging for your change with their guitar. However, the drums are very similar to real life. You have a bass pedal and you use real drum sticks to play real drum songs. Move the pads a little farther away from each other and you have a real drum set. How many drummers for bands in the future will have gotten their start on Rock Band? We'll see.
Even though it's not the same as the real thing, playing fake guitar can be just as challenging as real guitar. You can't fake your notes. You can't play power chords instead of full bar chords. you can't tune to Drop D to make songs simpler. You have to hit every not that comes at you without making mistakes if you want the top score. Play Through the Fire and Flames on expert then try to tell me that it doesn't take real practice and real skill to be good at fake guitar just like real guitar.
With the invention of the Internet, face-to-face interaction in games has been, shall we say, stifled. Music games are bringing that back. Sure, you can play on the 'net with people on the other side of the world, but there's nothing like having your own Rock Band rockin' out in your living room, spilling beer all over your mom's couch. It recalls the days of the Halo LAN parties for the original Xbox, before Live had really taken off. Face time with like-minded peers has been lacking recently, not only in the game industry, but in other aspects of life as well. Its nice that, even in this troubled economy, you can still have some friends over for a good time. Thanks, music games.
The games are the same basic formula as DDR - you match the notes flowing down (or up) the screen, and you rack up bigger and bigger combos as you play better. It's strange that by merely including a plastic guitar instead of a dance mat, the entire genre took off. Best Buy and Wal-Mart even have whole aisles now dedicated to the ever-increasing amount of hardware you need for these games. I don't think it was the peripherals that helped launch companies like harmonix into the stratosphere; I think it was the music.
DDR is techno music, house music, and trance music, with a few current pop hits sprinkled throughout. Guitar Hero is rock. Not only that, it's good rock. When the original Guitar Hero came out on PS2, nobody knew it would take off like it has. People would say, "Oh, another game that costs $90 because you have to get a fancy controller with it." Until they played it. The game had songs from everyone from Queen to Ozzy to Incubus to Pantera to the Stones. At first, every song on the game was a cover, but they were remarkably good covers. Harmonix really knew their stuff. Maybe their musical chops had been honed with Frequency and Amplitude, or maybe it helped that they were all musicians in real life. But they could tell the difference between a song that you'd want to listen to on the radio and a song that you'd like to play fake guitar to. When they found one that had both qualities, they would stick it in the game.
One thing not great about music games is the overlapping songs. There is 50 years of rock 'n' roll history to choose from, so why do we get a dozen songs that are the same on two games released barely month apart? I can understand band overlap - who doesn't want to be Kurt Cobain? - but making people pay almost 200 more dollars to play songs they've already played is almost criminal.
It's true: playing Guitar Hero is not the same as playing real guitar, and if people actually practiced real instruments as much as they played games there would be a lot more starving artists on the streets begging for your change with their guitar. However, the drums are very similar to real life. You have a bass pedal and you use real drum sticks to play real drum songs. Move the pads a little farther away from each other and you have a real drum set. How many drummers for bands in the future will have gotten their start on Rock Band? We'll see.
Even though it's not the same as the real thing, playing fake guitar can be just as challenging as real guitar. You can't fake your notes. You can't play power chords instead of full bar chords. you can't tune to Drop D to make songs simpler. You have to hit every not that comes at you without making mistakes if you want the top score. Play Through the Fire and Flames on expert then try to tell me that it doesn't take real practice and real skill to be good at fake guitar just like real guitar.
With the invention of the Internet, face-to-face interaction in games has been, shall we say, stifled. Music games are bringing that back. Sure, you can play on the 'net with people on the other side of the world, but there's nothing like having your own Rock Band rockin' out in your living room, spilling beer all over your mom's couch. It recalls the days of the Halo LAN parties for the original Xbox, before Live had really taken off. Face time with like-minded peers has been lacking recently, not only in the game industry, but in other aspects of life as well. Its nice that, even in this troubled economy, you can still have some friends over for a good time. Thanks, music games.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Game Music - Not for Every Taste
Intelligent Qube, an obscure yet wonderful PlayStation title, had a terrific, beautifully orchestral soundtrack. I don't think it was licensed classical music; it was just music. It was ambient and calming yet intensified at just the right moment (usually when you were just about to die). With IQ's simple premise and graphics, the mood music did a great deal to add to the memorability of the game.
Much music in games today is licensed, especially since the popularization of the music game genre. Actually, it was Road Rash that first made licensing music matter - when games could be put on CD's, there was plenty of space on the disc for things like Soundgarden songs. But now, only sports games (EA Trax) and Tony Hawk games get the licensed music, and it all sounds the same: rap and hair metal. Where can we hear some indie music, or techno, or Beck? Puzzle games would be an obvious fit for all three, but where else? Indie music in indie games? I could imagine some Radiohead or Death Cab for Cutie playing while I slash my way through The Dishwasher. Recent PlayStation Network games like Fl0w and Flower seem almost made for weird ambient music that can sit with you while you inhabit a strange, surreal world. Maybe instead of just throwing together a Tony Hawk tracklist, developers could design games around certain styles of music - to let the gamer feel what it might be like in a techno bass beat, or a faux-gay emo chorus, or a sweeping Vivaldi symphony. Even video games could use a little synaesthesia. Something different. The genres have become so defined that it is difficult for anyone to take a risk on something new for fear of going out of business... just like Okami developer Clover Studios. People, en masse, fear change. But we need it.
Much music in games today is licensed, especially since the popularization of the music game genre. Actually, it was Road Rash that first made licensing music matter - when games could be put on CD's, there was plenty of space on the disc for things like Soundgarden songs. But now, only sports games (EA Trax) and Tony Hawk games get the licensed music, and it all sounds the same: rap and hair metal. Where can we hear some indie music, or techno, or Beck? Puzzle games would be an obvious fit for all three, but where else? Indie music in indie games? I could imagine some Radiohead or Death Cab for Cutie playing while I slash my way through The Dishwasher. Recent PlayStation Network games like Fl0w and Flower seem almost made for weird ambient music that can sit with you while you inhabit a strange, surreal world. Maybe instead of just throwing together a Tony Hawk tracklist, developers could design games around certain styles of music - to let the gamer feel what it might be like in a techno bass beat, or a faux-gay emo chorus, or a sweeping Vivaldi symphony. Even video games could use a little synaesthesia. Something different. The genres have become so defined that it is difficult for anyone to take a risk on something new for fear of going out of business... just like Okami developer Clover Studios. People, en masse, fear change. But we need it.
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