I was recently sent this absolutely charming one-man tribute to the Super Mario World soundtrack. Aside from being a rather stunning piece of music arrangement by a fan, it’s also pretty much perfect music for a balmy summer day like the one hitting NYC right now:
Feel free to download the whole thing for free right here.
xoc, the artist behind this (real name: Jason Cox), also did a similar project for Kirby’s Adventure available here. Check out xoc’s website for more.
So a little over a month ago I finally got with the times and bought a set-up for Rock Band, the up-to-four-player rock and roll karaoke video game with plastic guitars and drums. Among the first things I did was browse the lineup of the weekly-updated Rock Band Store. Rock Band‘s song selection tends to skew a bit more towards the indie rock while Guitar Hero‘s aims for the head-banging arena rock crowd, and Rock Band also tends to add at least twice as many tracks a week as Guitar Hero, so I was looking forward to a lot of good stuff. Sadly, I didn’t spend more than a few bucks, downloading only a few tracks from TV On The Radio, Elvis Costello, the Von Bondies, the Zombies and Blondie. It makes sense, they want to make money so they focus more on mainstream crowd-pleasers like Pearl Jam and Green Day, but I really don’t care about those at all.
Earlier this week, Harmonix, the studio behind Rock Band and the first two Guitar Heros, among others, unveiled their user-generated music platform, Rock Band Network:
Basically, any musician with access to the program (entering beta soon) can take their own master recordings, program the beat layouts for the guitar, bass and drum tracks, even the vocals, and then upload them to the Rock Band Network where they can then be sold to players around the world with the profit going right back to the musician. Awesomesauce, but that’s a whole extra level of complicated work, making the playable patterns for the game. Surely only dedicated bedroom musicians will do this, no bands you’ve actually heard of, right?
Wrong, because IGN just reported that Sub Pop records plans to release its entire catalog of music on Rock Band Network after they’ve learned the technology. Its entire catalog! The big’uns in there include Nirvana’s Bleach and the Postal Service’s Give Up, but that also means we could soon see an influx of tracks and albums from the Thermals, Sunny Day Real Estate, CSS, the Go! Team, Wolf Parade, Flight of the Conchords, Fleet Foxes, Low, Hot Hot Heat, No Age, Foals, the Jesus and Mary Chain and a ton of others. I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally hope somebody at Sub Pop learns how to program those tracks with great quality and frequency, because this is going to be awesome.
Two fairly prominent chiptune tribute albums have been released in the past month: Da Chip and Weezer – The 8-bit Album, based on the music of Daft Punk and Weezer respectively. On the one hand, this perfectly shows exactly what kinds of nerds were into both bands and what kind of nerds chiptune musicians are, namely exactly the kinds of nerds I am. It was hard to find bands more prominently dorky in the 1990s than robo-electronic pioneers Daft Punk and thick-glasses garage dweebs Weezer, and it was just as hard at the time to not be romantically whisked away by the wonderlands of 8- and 16-bit videogames, so naturally the two worlds should meet in euphonic bliss, no? Well, not quite.
The most glaring issue with Da Chip is that it immediately seems all too easy. Daft Punk were already making electronic music. Covering those songs in a more primitive electronic format comes across as little more than gimmick, not quite tribute. Only EvilWezil’s take on Discovery‘s “Veridis Quo” breaks the structure of the source material enough to be interesting on its own. This brings to mind the other instantly recognizable issue with Da Chip, the complete absence of Human After All. I accept that Daft Punk’s third LP is their least popular, but seriously, an entire tribute based around two albums seems a little off. “Technologic” practically lends itself to chip-love, and any of the other tracks would have been sweet too, especially “Make Love.”
As for Weezer, well, the covers are varying degrees of successful. It’s often distracting to hear vocals in chiptune, especially when the musicians are very much not singers, as in the case of Anamanaguchi’s take on “Holiday.” With the exception of videogame orchestra’s Castlevania-inspired take on “Island in the Sun” and Bit Shifter’s glow-stick-raver “The World Has Turned And Left Me Here,” the songs are all pretty straightforward covers. Tugboat’s “El Scorcho” winds up a sconce adorable and would fit in perfectly on the Little Nemo: The Dream Master soundtrack. While neither is particularly impressive, both seal of quality’s “Hash Pipe” and Unicorn Dream Attack’s “Jamie” are entirely likable fun. The biggest disappointment of the bunch, without question, is nordloef’s “Buddy Holly” which forgoes any sense of experimentation or playfulness in favor of a straight midi cover with a fist-pumping club beat.
There’s also a three-disc chiptune Prodigy tribute in the works, which I believe makes this a full-on fad. Thankfully, most of these chip-artists are still producing original works that are far better than these tributes. Sadly, only those of us who were already dweebs even know that. The lack of real excitement in these tributes shows and newcomers will ultimately see these as gimmicks and walk away with a laugh.
TAITO just released this trailer for the iPhone/iTouch port of their mobile phone hit Space Invaders Infinite Gene. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve seen on the internet in weeks on a purely speculative level.
Space Invaders was the first videogame I truly loved as a child, the somewhat genius reimagining Space Invaders Extreme was my ninth favorite video game on 2008 and I’m very much interested in the upcoming SIE2, but wow, Infinite Gene is exactly what I want right now:
Sure, it’s cool that you can finally break away from the x-axis and that there are bosses and cool visual effects, but that makes it like pretty much every top-down shooter on the market these days. What really excites me is that part about generating custom levels based on the music on your iPod. Procedurally-generated stages reading from the music you choose to listen to? Radtastic! And hopefully there will still be tons of the old-school Space Invaders charm to make the game feel unique, yet familiar.
TAITO says it should be hitting the App Store soon. I am officially on the lookout.
When developing their then-controversial dual-screened, touch-enabled portable DS, Nintendo approached Japanese sound artist Toshio Iwai to see if he had any ideas for the platform. The idea he had was Electroplankton, a non-game collection of ten types of fish who would generate ambient electronic music based on the player’s interactions via the touch screen, buttons, and microphone. The epitome of “niche” titles, Electroplankton perfectly demonstrated what the DS could do that no other device at the time could, earning the prestige of being the first DS cart produced (the ROM’s code is titled NDS0001) along with the hearts and imaginations of creative gamers around the world, despite being very difficult to find and purchase outside of Japan.
Seeing the promotional materials for Electroplankton online while I was in college absolutely set off sparks in my brain. I had been a very passive gamer for the previous decade, only playing games in web browsers and at friends houses, never getting serious enough about any one game or even the idea of gaming to purchase a device upon which to play any. The first thing I did upon settling home after graduation was decide to reward myself for years of successful schooling by purchasing a brand-new Nintendo DS and a copy of Electroplankton. No piece of software has ever been so addictive. When shown to my friends, they would play for hours, completely ignoring friends and family and responsibilities, so very focused on the three-inch screen and the blips and bloops around it. By the time each of these friends were convinced to buy DSes of their own, Electroplankton was long-since out of print and warranting over a hundred dollars per card online. The single greatest motivator for illegal software emulation on the DS amongst my peers has been the ability to play Electroplankton without stealing my only copy.
Nintendo of Japan announced just a few days ago that they are rereleasing Electroplankton‘s ten fish types as separate applications of DSiWare, downloadable software for the recently-released DSi. At 200 points (100 points = $1), purchasing all ten will only set the player back $20, bargain price for new DS games and an absolute steal for this hard-to-find gem.
I found it only fitting that Electroplankton be the first card in my DSi when I picked it up a couple of months ago. The card comes everywhere with me, so I don’t really have need to purchase these if/when they are released in the US. If, however, these releases have any additional features, modes or options, I may just be down for a second dip in the pool, particularly for favorites “Hanenbow” and “Beatnes”. More importantly, though, if these sell well, maybe Nintendo can talk Toshio Iwai into producing some new fish for the service, or possibly even a full-on sequel. Wouldn’t that be a fine fish tale?
It’s a bit hard to believe that I haven’t written about video games for an entire month, but that’s how long it’s been since the mandate that we stop updating 61FPS has been enacted. What a crazy month to not write about video games, too. In addition to all the huge announcements at E3 (New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Project Natal, PSP Go, and so much more), here’s the list of games I know I’ve invested time in playing this past month:
Wii: Boom Blox Bash Party, The Munchables, Up: the Videogame, MarioKart Wii, Water Warfare
DS: Mighty Flip Champs, Art Style: Boxlife, Korg DS-10
PS3: inFamous, Burnout Paradise (Big Surf Island), Rock Band 2
iPod Touch: Peggle, rRootage, Hero of Sparta
There are surely more than those and plenty of browser and PC games, but already that’s a pretty substantial lineup for jus tone month and I HAVEN’T WRITTEN ABOUT ANY OF THEM.
What the hell, world?
Forget everything you know about chiptune music. There, that was easy, right? Starscream’s new EP Future, and It Doesn’t Work does not sound like a love song set in the land of Pokémon, nor does it sound like a violent rave happening inside of your Game Boy, the two realms that most chiptune fall into. 4bit synths compose a melancholy and majestic melody while acoustic drums fill the air with intensity and urgency lacking from similar songs that aren’t sped up to imply that time is running out. The truth, though, is that time does run out all too soon. The boys of Starscream are not afraid to linger on the good moments, but at a scant twenty minutes, this EP will surely leave players itching for the next level.
John’s at E3 right now. I’m not. He promised to text me when anything exciting happens, but we all know that’s not going to happen. No, instead I get to sit here at my desk working on other things and imagining what kind of wacky shenanigans are going down in LA.
To make matters worse, Ubisoft announced last week that comedian Joel McHale of E!’s The Soupfame would be hosting their E3 press conference. My mind has been atwitter with anticipation ever since. What celebrities will be unfairly mocked in association with what games? The only problem is we still don’t know much about what Ubisoft will be showing this year. Assassin’s Creed 2, for sure. Rabbids Go Home, definitely. Red Steel 2, most likely. No More Heroes 2, possibly? Um… Petz?Shaun White World Tour? Ah, damn you Ubisoft for giving me so little fodder for Soup-style celebrity ridicule.
As long as I’m imagining it all anyway, let’s pretend McHale is hosting EA’s press conference, okay? Much better. Here’s what I think the Soup star would have to say about some of EA’s big properties, given the opportunity: (more…)
Wow, we’re just on a Mega Man streak right now, aren’t we? Far be it from me to break up a good thing.
Regular readers may remember back in April when I posted the mashup of Memphis Black’s “Like That” with Mega Man 4’s Skullman theme off of Tae K’s impressive Mega Man mixtape. Well less than a month later Tae K came back with a new mixtape using samples from Mega Man 9 and the results were more often than not fantastic.
I had a hard time trying to figure out which track to feature here; the opening theme with Lupe Fiasco, Hornetman with Eminem, Splashwoman with Q-Tip, or Jewelman with Kanye? Hitting an impass with this decision, I’ve decided to post the whole damn mixtape instead. Enjoy! (more…)
Remember Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw? His brand of monotone sarcastic animated game reviews dripping with visual puns and wit were all the rage on the internet over a year ago. Yahtzee has of course begun to suffer the fate of all internet celebrities in that people stopped being so charmed by his ire, and regardless of whether the blame lies with the audience for growing bored or with Yahtzee for growing boring, people have stopped watching. It’s a bit of a shame, too, because this week’s review would be deemed “classic” if the world of internet video reviews permitted such a term.
A remarkable change of pace, Yahtzee chose this week to review Duke Nukem Forever, a game which he loved sincerely and sings the praises of its designers forwaitaminute… Duke Nukem Forever? (more…)
