4 those who see(k) the art in games
Archive for October, 2007
What do Korn and Sex Pistols have in common?
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Well, for one they’ve both made surprise appearances in games recently: not too long ago i read that after many years away time, not even showing up for big award because they’re protesting, now Sex Pistols reunite for … a game? And if that wasn’t a good enough proof that this silly thing called gaming is reaching out, now i read Haze will have an exclusive track recorded for it by Korn ? Hope Haze will be good! It was a bit dissapointing in art direction from what i saw in videos, but then again it has got the guys who made Timesplitters 1-3 behind it so I’m still hoping for good stuffs (everybody’s so amazed these days that Halo 3 has an editor: Timesplitters 3 had one on the ps2!!!). |  |
Games belong in libraries
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Kotaku has a great feature on the Library of Congress working toward saving games and virtual worlds for posterity:
The fact of the matter is, according to The Library of Congress, video games are just as important to our historical past as literature, movies and music. And at the moment, the LoC is teaming up with major universities across the country to begin a 2-year initiative with the sole intent of figuring out just how institutions can preserve video games for years to come, while making the content accessible for use and study. So our story today doesn’t present some artificial controversy ending in a sad, bleak future of debate and wasted efforts. Our story today is about the very real victory for game developers, enthusiasts and scholars, in which the top library in the nation has said they’re part of this video game fad for the count.
Head on over to Kotaku for a full scholarly read!
Max Payne 2 Soundtrack
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Brings back memories of slow motion shotgun action. Just start with the first track and work your way all the way down.
The Fall of Max Payne features a single titled “Late Goodbye” from the Finnish rock group Poets of the Fall. The song is based on a poem written by Sam Lake.[2]It plays during the game’s end credits, and several characters in the game also sing or hum snippets of the song to themselves during the game. One character, a “cleaner”, is even seen playing a piano version of a part of the song during the game.
The game generally does not have any music for most of the action sequences, although there are a few major musical themes that play during cutscenes or particularly intense shootouts. Major themes include a slower variation of the original Max Payne theme, a new action/love theme for cooperative firefights with Max and Mona, and finally a new version of the “nightmare” theme for nightmares and scenes involving the game’s main villain.
The cello in the main theme of Max Payne 2 was performed by Perttu Kivilaakso, one of the cello players from the cello rock group Apocalyptica[3].
(wikipedia)
Portal, the flash version
24 years ago
by Void
in Entertaining
Chances are you’ve heard of Portal by now. Big hit and all that inside The Orange Box. (if not you can have a peek here) Everybody seems to love it’s mindbending puzzles (even super funny normally critical Yahtzee did!). However “We create stuff” has gone ahead and prooved my eternal point: that you don’t really need all that much technology for certain ideas to show their genius… it helps, sometimes a lot… but you can go easy on the hardware requiremnts… for example if you choose to make portal not inside Valve’s Half-life 2 engine, but in flash version. How far did you get? I got stuck around level 10.
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The 1UP Show: Episode 10/19/07
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Things they touch on in this weeks show: Unreal Tournament 3, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, Link’s Crossbow Training. My impressions: Unreal 3 is looking quite tempting. An interesting bit of gossip is that this would be the first ps3 title that actually seems to come before it’s xbox360 counterpart, which says a lot for the ps3 state up to now. The places in the game seemed relativelly varied and interesting, which is a plus. They also show a bit on Too Human: i’m very dissapointed as it seems to be a glorified hack-and-slash… however i did see some interesting arti direction so that might redeem it a bit in my eyes. Story might be interesting too and i seem to remember hearing good stuff about the music so I might have to play through it even if it is a boring series of neverending lookalike enemies just to see the places and hear the music. Someday… that is.
Koh Ohtani
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Okay, I’m going to kickstart the music category with one of my favorite musicians in the last couple of years: Koh Ohtani. It’s really a shame how few people know about him. I myself feel so very fortunate to have heard his music and I listen to it much more and with much more pleasure than 10 popular TV artists of your choice put together… and most of the classics too. It’s just got that magic feeling, that moving deep inside of feelings, those shivers all over my skins as my heart trembles that good music is supposed to produce (everything is subjective, of course. But where there’s one there *could* be many).
I myself fell in love with his Shadow of the Colossus soundtrack, but he has much more creations it would seem. I hope to get my greedy hands on them sometime. Like we were saying in the ideology of this comunity: we belive there is great art in games, though it often flies by unnoticed as the people who play them are only interested in gameplay mechanics: it takes a certain spirit and a certain mindset to notice not how you play a game, but it’s beautiful architecture, it’s moving music, it’s grandiose imagery, it’s heart melting story… and that is what artsygamer is about. It may take decades before society as a whole realizes that all their accepted artforms, from music to painting are being integrated into this “silly gameplay thingie”… but that doesn’t mean great stuff isn’t there already.
Getting back to Koh Ohtani, here are some previews of some of my favorite pieces on the Wanda to Kyozou / Shadow of the Colossus soundtrack
大谷幸 – The Farthest Land (reprise)
大谷幸 – The Sunlit Earth
大谷幸 – Prohibited Art
大谷幸 – The End of the Battle
Here’s a recording of a play by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, 2007 and another piece interpreted by The Eminence Symphony Orchestra in Sydney, Australia.
what are your favorite soundtracks? How about writing an article about some of the best music you’ve discouvered in gaming?
Artsy Photo Duel Round 1: VTM VS Requiem
04 years ago
by Void
in Photography
So, until more photographers come out of the closet, two photos by me:
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in the left corner we have
Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption  |
and our contender is from
Requiem: The avenging angel  |
Get ready, get set, shoot! Which one do you find more interesting/like more?
Videogames: Can They Be Important?
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Ian Bogost, researcher, critic, designer, had a plenary address at the Southern Interactive Entertainment & Game Expo touching on some interesting stuff. A lot of poetry and references (Archilochus, Baudelaire, Charles Bukowski…).
Head over to his blog to read it whole, here’s just a sneak peak:
Head over to his blog to read it whole, here’s just a sneak peak:
Videogames will not be important because we say they are now, in this room, with all the hubris and import of professionals bearing credentials and affiliations as validation. They will not be important because of novel new mechanics that pique occasional, temporary curiosities. They will not be important when they make Steven Spielberg cry over them or Roger Ebert review them. They will not be important when they find their place in Entertainment Weekly or in the New Yorker. They will not be important when they become a regular part of gradeschool curricula, and they will not be important when they help government agents identify terrorists, and they will not be important when they teach burger flippers how to apply pickles to charbroiled patties.