Related to the recent release of Fable III I thought I'd bring up a unique track by the artist Matti Paalanen. Amongst other things Paalanen composed a host of music known as the "Celestial Aeon Project". The compilation of tracks in the Aeon Project mimics three of my very favourite composers; Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, and Jeremy Soule. Why are these artists some of my favourites? Well just look at the list below for tracks or pieces scored by them.
Jeremy Soule - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Danny Elfman - Fable (one) theme, The Simpsons theme
Hans Zimmer - Inception (2010), Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Anyway the music tracks in the Fable games have always helped the series, because the tracks do such a good job of setting the mood, and being catchy. For this reason the music just tends to stick in my head for the unique sound. This brings me to the Celestial Aeon Project.
While Listening to the music I ran across a track called "Masquerade" which immediately struck me as authentic Fable music. I double checked the tags and was surprised to learn it was written to sound like music from Fable. I have to say it was resounding success, as it totally fooled me.
I digress, if you've ever herd the music from fable the track below will sound VERY familiar.
Celestial Aeon Project - Masquerade
----CP Out----
Monday, November 01, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Fur, Feathers, Horror
Fitting for the month of October I thought I'd cover something from one of my all time favourite games, Banjo-Kazooie. More specifically the music track from the level called "Mad Monster Mansion". Ever since I played the N64 classic back in 1998 I found myself humming the theme from the level at odd times. This brings me to the fan site called OC Remix.
For those of you who don't' know, OC Remix is a website dedicated to updating the tracks from video games and making them fresh. The site is fully driven by community submitted remixes, and only the best are posted since they have to pass a panel of judges. Anyway while it's not new, below is what I consider to be a great remix of the original Mad Monster Mansion theme. Has a real Halloween feel to it, or maybe that's just the level design attached to it.
Banjo-Kazooie - Malevolent Mansion
----CP Out----
For those of you who don't' know, OC Remix is a website dedicated to updating the tracks from video games and making them fresh. The site is fully driven by community submitted remixes, and only the best are posted since they have to pass a panel of judges. Anyway while it's not new, below is what I consider to be a great remix of the original Mad Monster Mansion theme. Has a real Halloween feel to it, or maybe that's just the level design attached to it.
Banjo-Kazooie - Malevolent Mansion
----CP Out----
Friday, August 13, 2010
Square One
The big summer blockbuster, Inception. I can understand why people have given this movie rave reviews, because it's a good definition of "out of the ordinary".
I won't dwell on the quality of the visuals and depth of the story, or it's paradigms. All of those elements were great, and made the film worth while, but I think the original soundtrack is what's really worth mentioning.
Hans Zimmer really is a stand up composer. His music was different and original in Sherlock Holmes last year, and the music in Inception is so well written it stands out from the film. Themes from movies like Lord of the Rings, or Pirates of the Caribbean are well remembered for being catchy, however Inception's soundtrack is what you would call subconsciously memorable. Meaning you probably won't remember the music, but if you herd it again the film would come rushing back all at once. At least it would (and does) for me. Granted that probably wouldn't be the case if the movie wasn't as gripping, well written, and so well edited. But the fact stands, Inception is a good movie, and there's not a doubt in my mind that the quality of it's soundtrack is largely (though not chiefly) responsible for it's success.
The following track does a rather stand up job of capturing many of the feelings from the movie in one go.
Inception had everything I could hope for:
Action, Paradox, Twist, Emotion, and a Conclusion that leaves you thinking.
----CP Out----
I won't dwell on the quality of the visuals and depth of the story, or it's paradigms. All of those elements were great, and made the film worth while, but I think the original soundtrack is what's really worth mentioning.
Hans Zimmer really is a stand up composer. His music was different and original in Sherlock Holmes last year, and the music in Inception is so well written it stands out from the film. Themes from movies like Lord of the Rings, or Pirates of the Caribbean are well remembered for being catchy, however Inception's soundtrack is what you would call subconsciously memorable. Meaning you probably won't remember the music, but if you herd it again the film would come rushing back all at once. At least it would (and does) for me. Granted that probably wouldn't be the case if the movie wasn't as gripping, well written, and so well edited. But the fact stands, Inception is a good movie, and there's not a doubt in my mind that the quality of it's soundtrack is largely (though not chiefly) responsible for it's success.
The following track does a rather stand up job of capturing many of the feelings from the movie in one go.
Inception had everything I could hope for:
Action, Paradox, Twist, Emotion, and a Conclusion that leaves you thinking.
----CP Out----
Friday, July 30, 2010
Tetra Guise
After being dominated and ruled by Persona 3 for a near complete two years, I decided my tactics had to change for Persona 4. After recklessly grabbing the beast by it's horns I have emerged victorious.
Long story short, Persona 3 took me 2 years or 200+ hours, but Persona 4 took me two weeks or 80+ hours. Big change in speed.
What can I say about person four? It was a good game, but I feel that it somehow lacks the epic feel that Persona 3 has. I'm not suprised though, Persona 3 didn't waste time getting started. It threw you into the struggle almost as soon as you booted the game. However, in P4 you're eased into the experience, and, because of this, the actual game play is withheld for a considerable amount of time.
This tactic results in having a greater understanding of why your fighting, and more interest to know WHY things are happening.
There are other reasons for why P3 was more epic than P4. In P3 you find out who your ultimate enemy is, and are given time to let your impending fate sink in. Yet with P4 the final Enemy is elusive, and you won't even have an opportunity to fight it unless you know to look for it at the last second.
There's also the contrast between the two games with how character development progresses. In P3 the characters are chiefly expressed during meetings, where the group discusses intel and strategy. In addition when displayed one at a time, each character's development is usually connected to death somehow, giving the game a mroe serious tone.
But in P4, characters are initially presented when their suppressed desires are displayed (due to supernatural phenomena). And subsequent development is mostly shown through misadventures, usually related to school activities.
Simply put Persona 4 is more light hearted. Your enemy is faceless, so there's less to get you down. Characters inner selves are displayed first, so less serious events follow to show what you don't know about them. And the main story is primarily a mystery, which takes time to solve, so the gaps between new data coming to light are filled with fun times.
Don't get me wrong, event though I'm comparing Persona 4 to Persona 3 I'm not saying anything bad. P4 was is just a very different experience. Above that it fixed a lot of the nuisances that P3 had.
It was a great game, I had fun playing it, But like most jRPGs I won't likely go back to it any time soon.
Persona 4 Intro Montage
-----CP Out-----
Long story short, Persona 3 took me 2 years or 200+ hours, but Persona 4 took me two weeks or 80+ hours. Big change in speed.
What can I say about person four? It was a good game, but I feel that it somehow lacks the epic feel that Persona 3 has. I'm not suprised though, Persona 3 didn't waste time getting started. It threw you into the struggle almost as soon as you booted the game. However, in P4 you're eased into the experience, and, because of this, the actual game play is withheld for a considerable amount of time.
This tactic results in having a greater understanding of why your fighting, and more interest to know WHY things are happening.
There are other reasons for why P3 was more epic than P4. In P3 you find out who your ultimate enemy is, and are given time to let your impending fate sink in. Yet with P4 the final Enemy is elusive, and you won't even have an opportunity to fight it unless you know to look for it at the last second.
There's also the contrast between the two games with how character development progresses. In P3 the characters are chiefly expressed during meetings, where the group discusses intel and strategy. In addition when displayed one at a time, each character's development is usually connected to death somehow, giving the game a mroe serious tone.
But in P4, characters are initially presented when their suppressed desires are displayed (due to supernatural phenomena). And subsequent development is mostly shown through misadventures, usually related to school activities.
Simply put Persona 4 is more light hearted. Your enemy is faceless, so there's less to get you down. Characters inner selves are displayed first, so less serious events follow to show what you don't know about them. And the main story is primarily a mystery, which takes time to solve, so the gaps between new data coming to light are filled with fun times.
Don't get me wrong, event though I'm comparing Persona 4 to Persona 3 I'm not saying anything bad. P4 was is just a very different experience. Above that it fixed a lot of the nuisances that P3 had.
It was a great game, I had fun playing it, But like most jRPGs I won't likely go back to it any time soon.
Persona 4 Intro Montage
-----CP Out-----
Monday, June 28, 2010
Festival of the Third Guise
Some time ago I blogged about having intrest in a little game called Persona 3 FES (the extended edition of Persona 3). I spoke on the game back in 2008, and I hadn't even touched it when I wrote the post, but mentioned that it looked like something worth looking into. Well I ended up buying the game on (according the receipt I found tucked away in the box) the sixth of july 08. Now I'm back to say that eight days short of having the game for two years, I've finally beaten it from front to back.
Overlooking "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion", P3F (as titled on the box) is the game that has resulted in THE most bang for my buck I've ever purchased. FES is divided into two games, "The Journey" which is the main story, and "The Answer" which extends the story, and gives additional closure. The game is advertised as having 100+ hours altogether. However, since I love to play RPGs exhaustively, I spent a rough total of 180-200 hours on the game. Most of that is because of my OCD for grinding, but none the less that's a value of $0.16 and hour VS. the traditional $10 an hour value (6hrs for a $60 game) I'm used to getting.
I digress, The entire point is that P3F was a fantastic game, and it shows that others agree since it's about to have it's third release for the PSP in early July (ironically the same day I bought FES two years ago). I spent an exhaustive amount of time on the game, and for good reason. It's story was well written, the game play was good (though it had it's quirks), and all the characters were properly fleshed out so you knew who they were and why they acted the way they did. Besides that it's structure was a breath of fresh air, allow me to elaborate.
in most RPGs you have minimal control over what happens in the game world other than how you choose to level your character, and fight enemies. However in Persona 3 game play is split into two different domains, traditional combat, and a simulation of high school life. At night you fight monsters, level up, and engage in all the traditional RPG elements. However during the day you go to school and hang out with friends. This part may seem like it's useless, but because your character has the special ability to combine summons (personas) to make new ones leading the life of a highschooler has it's useful purpose.
All personas in the game are classified by arcana (based on the tarot card system). The purpose of the highschool life sim is for you to make friends (or in some cases girlfriends), and forge strong bonds that correspond with a certain arcana. The stronger the bond between you and the friend that represents that arcana, the more powerful a persona created under that arcana will be when made by fusion. This results in one game with two very different appeals, which, through this system, are woven quite tightly together.
Anyway that's the basic rubdown of how the game's structure that caused it to be such a UNBELIEVABLY different experience. With a radically different spin on the traditional turn based RPG something was bound to happen, in this case it just so happened to be good.
Well I'll cut off here since I've rambled long enough. Check out the special montage seen at the beginning of P3F below.
Now here's to hoping that I get through Persona 4 faster. Oh did I mention that while in the middle of Persona 3 I bought Persona 4 on it's release day?
----Cp Out----
P.S. Right now I'm experiencing shell shock from finishing a game I've been playing for so long.
Overlooking "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion", P3F (as titled on the box) is the game that has resulted in THE most bang for my buck I've ever purchased. FES is divided into two games, "The Journey" which is the main story, and "The Answer" which extends the story, and gives additional closure. The game is advertised as having 100+ hours altogether. However, since I love to play RPGs exhaustively, I spent a rough total of 180-200 hours on the game. Most of that is because of my OCD for grinding, but none the less that's a value of $0.16 and hour VS. the traditional $10 an hour value (6hrs for a $60 game) I'm used to getting.
I digress, The entire point is that P3F was a fantastic game, and it shows that others agree since it's about to have it's third release for the PSP in early July (ironically the same day I bought FES two years ago). I spent an exhaustive amount of time on the game, and for good reason. It's story was well written, the game play was good (though it had it's quirks), and all the characters were properly fleshed out so you knew who they were and why they acted the way they did. Besides that it's structure was a breath of fresh air, allow me to elaborate.
in most RPGs you have minimal control over what happens in the game world other than how you choose to level your character, and fight enemies. However in Persona 3 game play is split into two different domains, traditional combat, and a simulation of high school life. At night you fight monsters, level up, and engage in all the traditional RPG elements. However during the day you go to school and hang out with friends. This part may seem like it's useless, but because your character has the special ability to combine summons (personas) to make new ones leading the life of a highschooler has it's useful purpose.
All personas in the game are classified by arcana (based on the tarot card system). The purpose of the highschool life sim is for you to make friends (or in some cases girlfriends), and forge strong bonds that correspond with a certain arcana. The stronger the bond between you and the friend that represents that arcana, the more powerful a persona created under that arcana will be when made by fusion. This results in one game with two very different appeals, which, through this system, are woven quite tightly together.
Anyway that's the basic rubdown of how the game's structure that caused it to be such a UNBELIEVABLY different experience. With a radically different spin on the traditional turn based RPG something was bound to happen, in this case it just so happened to be good.
Well I'll cut off here since I've rambled long enough. Check out the special montage seen at the beginning of P3F below.
Now here's to hoping that I get through Persona 4 faster. Oh did I mention that while in the middle of Persona 3 I bought Persona 4 on it's release day?
----Cp Out----
P.S. Right now I'm experiencing shell shock from finishing a game I've been playing for so long.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Life After "The End"
Upon completing the new game Red Dead Redemption I found myself pondering the general evolution of game endings. Why did I start thinking about this you ask? Well, it's quite simple, But it will take a bit to explain, so bear with me.
Red Dead Redemption is a game very similar to the Grand Theft Auto series, not only in it's play style, but also how it looks and generally feels. Because it was produced by RockStar Games (the same people who make GTA) this is to be expected. However, I also expected it to follow the same story formula which the GTA games have, even though I knew it would be somehow different.
Yet when I drew to RDR's close I was faced with some very surprising plot twists, and even more surprising were the choices the developers made to allow you to continue playing the game after finishing it. The ending of Red Dead Redemption aside, I came to realise the general constraints on story telling in games which allow you to continue playing after the main story ends.
This phenomenon is generally tied to the sand box/world builder gene. I suspect this is primarily due to how much there is to do in such games, even after you finish them. This means it makes more sense, and is more critical, to be able to keep playing than in traditional linnear games, such as first person shooters, turn based RPGs, or adventure games.
Now if it is expected that you can continue playing after completing the main story of the game, what does that mean about how the story can end? Well for one it means the main character has to survive, you can't play a tragic hero. Secondly, the world cannot end, everything has to still be there after you finish. Third, your empire, achievements, power, money, etc. has to stay intact, otherwise it feels like you played through the game for nothing.
Looking at those three stipulations it becomes rather clear that open ended games will all likely have a rather similar and predictable ending. This in turn means repetition is inevitable for the genre. However Rockstar seems to have anticipated this little issue, and in turn decided to make some bold moves to alter the fate of a "play after the end" game like Red Dead Redemption.
I'm not certain of exactly how I feel about how Rockstar decided to change this trend. In their efforts to prevent a predictable ending but still allow you to play afterwards they looked at those three rules with contempt. One rule they obeyed, another didn't apply to how the story worked, and the other one they directly disobeyed. It took some creative writing to pull off, and I have to say the story was far more unpredictable, further into the game, as a result.
In the end Rockstar has made it clear that they are making profound efforts to refine the open ended game, and change it. And even though I'm uncertain of how I feel about how they did so I can say one thing. If a game can be defined as good by weather or not it was worth the money it cost, then Red Dead Redemption can be called a good game.
Red Dead Redemption Début Trailer
Now I'm off to crack into a non story heavy game called Super Mario Galaxy 2.
----CP Out----
Red Dead Redemption is a game very similar to the Grand Theft Auto series, not only in it's play style, but also how it looks and generally feels. Because it was produced by RockStar Games (the same people who make GTA) this is to be expected. However, I also expected it to follow the same story formula which the GTA games have, even though I knew it would be somehow different.
Yet when I drew to RDR's close I was faced with some very surprising plot twists, and even more surprising were the choices the developers made to allow you to continue playing the game after finishing it. The ending of Red Dead Redemption aside, I came to realise the general constraints on story telling in games which allow you to continue playing after the main story ends.
This phenomenon is generally tied to the sand box/world builder gene. I suspect this is primarily due to how much there is to do in such games, even after you finish them. This means it makes more sense, and is more critical, to be able to keep playing than in traditional linnear games, such as first person shooters, turn based RPGs, or adventure games.
Now if it is expected that you can continue playing after completing the main story of the game, what does that mean about how the story can end? Well for one it means the main character has to survive, you can't play a tragic hero. Secondly, the world cannot end, everything has to still be there after you finish. Third, your empire, achievements, power, money, etc. has to stay intact, otherwise it feels like you played through the game for nothing.
Looking at those three stipulations it becomes rather clear that open ended games will all likely have a rather similar and predictable ending. This in turn means repetition is inevitable for the genre. However Rockstar seems to have anticipated this little issue, and in turn decided to make some bold moves to alter the fate of a "play after the end" game like Red Dead Redemption.
I'm not certain of exactly how I feel about how Rockstar decided to change this trend. In their efforts to prevent a predictable ending but still allow you to play afterwards they looked at those three rules with contempt. One rule they obeyed, another didn't apply to how the story worked, and the other one they directly disobeyed. It took some creative writing to pull off, and I have to say the story was far more unpredictable, further into the game, as a result.
In the end Rockstar has made it clear that they are making profound efforts to refine the open ended game, and change it. And even though I'm uncertain of how I feel about how they did so I can say one thing. If a game can be defined as good by weather or not it was worth the money it cost, then Red Dead Redemption can be called a good game.
Red Dead Redemption Début Trailer
Now I'm off to crack into a non story heavy game called Super Mario Galaxy 2.
----CP Out----
Monday, May 17, 2010
Crash
In my aimless wander across the internet the other day I ran across an old flash game that I used to spend hours on. It's called NANACA†CRASH!!, and it's an interesting twist on the traditional how far can you throw something game.
What makes this instance so special is how it's based of the traditional shonen school drama concept. You know the drill, some guy goes to a school, meets a ton of girls, ends up in love with one, etc. In the process he probably gets slapped around by the girls for having some rather perverse incidents occur, weather they be intentional or not.
Anyway Nanaca Crash launches the main character into the air after having a collision with a girl on a bike. Like any game of the type you can gain boosts by hitting special objects, or lose speed, or stop entirely by hitting others in this case the objects being different girls and your male friends respectively. What makes this version special though is how there are combos you can activate.
I'll stop there, if you want to know more just check the link above.
----CP Out----
What makes this instance so special is how it's based of the traditional shonen school drama concept. You know the drill, some guy goes to a school, meets a ton of girls, ends up in love with one, etc. In the process he probably gets slapped around by the girls for having some rather perverse incidents occur, weather they be intentional or not.
Anyway Nanaca Crash launches the main character into the air after having a collision with a girl on a bike. Like any game of the type you can gain boosts by hitting special objects, or lose speed, or stop entirely by hitting others in this case the objects being different girls and your male friends respectively. What makes this version special though is how there are combos you can activate.
I'll stop there, if you want to know more just check the link above.
----CP Out----
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