VG Frequency

Two industry leaders in the video game industry team up to give lucky fans the chance to win a customized DreamAuthentics Katana Arcade Cabinet

(INDIANAPOLIS, IN — November 1, 2007) - DreamAuthentics, manufacturer of the official video arcade cabinet of the Video Games Live concert series, will give one lucky gamer at each show in North America the chance to win the newest custom-built personal cabinet—the Katana. Video Games Live™ is an immersive concert experience that features music from the biggest video games of all time, performed by the world’s most respected orchestras and choirs. The contest will kick off with the Los Angeles concert on October 19 at the Nokia Theatre.

“We are excited to give a Video Games Live fan the chance to win the most authentic, customized video arcade experience available,” said Rick Barretto, President and CEO of DreamAuthentics. “The winner will get to enjoy the newest addition to our lineup of arcade cabinets, the tabletop-sized Katana, valued at $2,495. It offers the ultimate in home entertainment, with over 200 video games and our customized jukebox feature.”

One Video Games Live attendee will be selected at random to play Space Invaders™ on stage during each show. If he or she can clear the entire first level of Space Invaders in two minutes, the attendee will take home DreamAuthentics’ Katana complete with Video Games Live custom artwork.

The Katana is fully integrated and ready to play with a custom PC-based game engine, a 17 or 19 inch flat screen display, over 200 licensed classic arcade games, and a two-speaker arcade audio system with subwoofer and exclusive jukebox features. The Katana’s custom computer platform can play any PC based video game, from favorite arcade classics to latest PC game titles. Users can also watch DVDs, listen to MP3s, surf the Internet, or hook up their XBOX®, PlayStation® or Wii™.

“The Katana contest with DreamAuthentics is very exciting for us and our audiences,” said Video Games Live™ co-creator and executive producer Tommy Tallarico. “The opportunity to play classic arcade games at home is a dream come true for any video game enthusiast.”

Video Games Live™ is a complete celebration of the video game industry which includes pre- and post-show festival activities such as costume contests, playable game demos, game competitions and meet-and-greets with game designers and composers. Video Games Live™ bridges a gap for entertainment by exposing new generations of music lovers and fans to a symphonic orchestral experience while also providing a completely new and unique experience for families and/or non-gamers. Video Games Live is the power and emotion of a symphony orchestra mixed with the excitement and energy of a rock concert and the technology and interactivity of a video game - all completely synchronized to amazing cutting-edge video screen visuals, state-of-the-art lighting and special on-stage interactive segments with the audience.

For additional information about DreamAuthentics visit www.DreamAuthentics.com or call 800.789.8424. To learn more about Video Games Live, visit www.videogameslive.com or for information about current tour dates around the word visit http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=dates.

About DreamAuthentics
DreamAuthentics is the leading manufacturer of custom built Personal Video Arcade cabinets that play both classic and modern video games. Game cabinets come with a built-in PC and can be fully customized with steel and lighted joysticks, custom graphics and advanced gaming options. DreamAuthentics arcade cabinets are available for purchase online at www.dreamauthentics.com.

About Video Games Live™
Created by two industry leading video game composers Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall, Video Games Live™ (produced under their company Mystical Stone Entertainment, LLC) is the frontrunner in the field of live video game music performance. Video Games Live™ is an immersive concert event celebration featuring music from the biggest video games of all time. To purchase tickets visit www.videogameslive.com.

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OC ReMix judge and all-around swell coffee-and-cream stallion Larry “Liontamer” Oji (Editor’s note: When you write about yourself, you can make the description colorful too) interviewed on this past Sunday’s broadcast of Nitro Game Injection, episode #103, now available for download. Let’s drop the 3rd-person pretense so I can overview my appearance. Myself and the NGI duo, KyleJCrb & AkumuHau discussed:

*KyleJCrb: Did the vikings even know of Africa? I don’t think so. [laughs]
*Akumu’s English (!)
*My background in the community
*What I look for in a good VGM arrangement
*The stupidity of artists who react poorly to criticisms
*Criticisms of the VGMix review system
*How Akumu got involved in the VGM fan arrangement scene
*The burden of provide content to readers or listeners
*The origin of Akumu’s NSF Archive
*The Cheetahmen
*Criticisms of Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream
*Akumu hanging with Chris Hülsbeck and Arnie Roth at PLAY!
*The VG Frequency blog
*The worldwide depth of the VGM fan arrangement scene
*Criticisms of Dwelling of Duels
*Artists who refuse to arrange from game soundtrack they’re not nostalgic for
*Our own video game nostalgia; and
*What I want to see from the fan arrangement community in the future including pimpage for The OneUps, Minibosses and zircon

My appearance also features 4 tracks personally chosen for airplay by me, selections from ktriton & Christian Pacaud, Israfel, Tim Follin and S.S.H. Random: At the 136-minute mark, the word we were looking for was “refugee”. Also, you’re put on notice not to listen to the show at work. It’s not work-safe in the slightest. Tune into the recently resurrected show Sunday nights, 6PM EST.

Stockholm, Sweden native Mattias “Another Soundscape” Gerdt helped kick off the inaugural edition of FF-XIII.net’s FXN Final Fantasy XIII Podcast, lending his Final Fantasy VII “Fanfare” arrangement, “Too Much Fighting”, fresh off the Voices of the Lifestream album.

The Final Fantasy XIII fansite obtained permission directly from the artist to use “Too Much Fighting” as the podcast’s first song presentation. Swing by FF-XIII.net’s podcast section to check out Episode 1, and you can jump up to around the 128-minute mark to hear the Canadian crew discuss Voices of the Lifestream and Another Soundscape before closing the show out with his excellent ReMix. FF-XIII.net is hoping to feature additional OC ReMix artists for future podcasts, so keep an eye out for additional episodes as they’re released.

Just a quick one today plugging M4G’s latest interview with Stephen Barton. The Harry Gregson-Williams protégé discussed his recent assignment for Activision’s Call of Duty 4 (available this coming Tuesday), stepping in for the very busy Gregson-Williams and securing a unique opportunity to score a video game.

Barton spoke on the criticism of video games as an art form, the ease and support of working with Call of Duty 4 developers Infinity Ward, the approach of the soundtrack relative to the game’s modern setting, and most importantly (for you music-making fetishists with pro aspirations) his comprehensive studio setup. That last one’s over my head, but that certainly didn’t detract from the interview being an excellent read.

YouTube member residentevilug had this to say on Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting:

This is proof that the new Xbox Live Arcade version is crap. I use to spend hours and hours at the arcade and won round after round. I was hysterical when I heard Street Fighter was coming to the XBOX LIVE ARCADE. Boy was I dissapointed…

Why do I love Street Fighter? Well, not only did the music of the series push me over the top in terms of seeking out VGM, but I also get gold like this video, courtesy of Big Giant Circles. The sarcasm from this guy could power 10 suns!

On the flip side of the coin from a good game with bad music comes…a bad game with good music. Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft shed light on the new hotness in the Japanese VGM remixing scene: the soundtrack to the 1992 unreleased NES game Cheetahmen II. Ashcraft sets the scene:

Back in the early 1990’s, now defunct developer Active Enterprises manufactured 1,500 copies of its never released NES game Cheetahmen II. The dev hoped the three Cheetahmen (Apollo, Aries and Hercules) would be the company’s answer to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They weren’t. The sequel is bug infested and almost unplayable, but thankfully, the unsold copies were found in a warehouse for us to laugh and point at. According to a GameSpot review, there are enemies that can neither be killer or avoided. However, the soundtrack is SO GREAT!! Big thing on the Japanese internet right now is remixing that musical awesomeness.

A commentor at Kotaku asked if the artists of OC ReMix knew about this yet, which I can definitely say “no” to. It’s safe to say that they will soon.

Watching the in-game footage, I definitely found myself initially asking what was so good about Cheetahmen II’s music. The game being so awful, the music doesn’t really…enhance the experience. But I was soon to be sold on it. Though all of them would get the Form Rejection Letter if I ever encountered them in the OCR submissions inbox, some of the remixes in the article’s YouTube video collection do show off the clear potential of the theme through some bootleg sound upgrade mixes. It’d be interesting to see what other capable artists in OCR and elsewhere could cook up with Cheetahmen, given some actual talent. The last video, featuring 16-bit brass samples, made me wanna see DZComposer do something way, way better.

Lemme throw you this beginnerish techno mix to illustrate the potential. On a side note, it’s funny to me that some people believe that this is all we encourage or accept at OC ReMix. All the more reason to enjoy it:

Mustin has reassembled the Bad Dudes for OneUp Studios‘ new Halloween-themed EP, entitled Zombies Rocked My Neighbors. Let’s find out what’s up from the head Dude:

The Bad Dudes are back with another EP of some freaky business for you all. It’s Halloween and time to scare some kids. So we deliver unto you some scary tracks (and well, some not so scary tracks, but they rock anyway). Put them on your Haunted House playlists for the neighborhood kids or just freak out your friends by locking them in the closet for a few weeks, not feeding them, and making them listen to zyko. ouch. Enjoy this freaky business and we’ll deliver more sooner than later.

~m

Along with some scary uh…pumpkin-esque album art from Maximo Lorenzo, the tracklist from yesterday’s seven track release includes arrangements of several scary and otherwise trippy games that go bump in the night including Castlevania, Psychonauts & Silent Hill, as well as other soundtrack given the spooky treatment such as Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess courtesy of Diggi Dis, JigginJonT, Kaijin, ktriton, Mazedude, Mustin & zyko.

If your wallet is so inclined, the Dudes have a PayPal donate button on the album page you can hit in order to give them something they need a lot more than Halloween candy…or even worse, fruit. They don’t need no stinkin’ apples.

Submission Standards Revision

After discussion and implementation of feedback from the community, OverClocked ReMix today released revised submission standards, available at:

http://www.ocremix.org/info/Submission_Standards_and_Instructions

This revision doesn’t significantly change the content of the previous standards, but instead revises them for clarity and conciseness. We intend to translate these standards into other languages, so this was an important step to complete first, but even without the translation, it is important that this document - which is at the heart of what OCR is all about - is as clear and direct as possible.

Updated & Improved Drop-Down Menus

OCR’s drop-down DHTML navigation was updated to a more recent version, and icons were added to assist in differentiating the numerous options available. In addition, menu items were reorganized to more logically present the variety of data available on the site, while allowing for future expansion.

Quick Search Functionality Improved

The “quick search” functionality residing on the left sidebar throughout www.ocremix.org has been modified. Previously, searches for composer, game, remix, and remixer brought back a list of remixes that met each criteria. Now, if you perform a quick search on composers, you’ll get a list of composers that match your criteria, for games a list of games, remixes will provide the traditional list of mixes, etc. - the results are specific to the type of search issued. Also, searching for composer searches both the composer name field and the known aliases field, and searching for remixer searches a remixer’s pseudonym and their real name as well, when it is available.

All three of these improvements took a good deal of time and energy; more will follow.

Super Mario Galaxy, due out for the Wii on November 12 in the United States of America, is the next console installment in the main Mario series, following up 2002’s Super Mario Sunshine for the GameCube and 2006’s New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS.

Nintendo has published a series of articles on its Japanese Wii site entitled “The President Asks ‘Super Mario Galaxy,’” in which Nintendo president Satoru Iwata talks with different staff members working on SMG about the game, development, etc. Volume 1, “Producer/Director Volume,” featured designers Takao Shimizu and Yoshiaki Koizumi, and the second, “Development Staff Volume,” featured several members of the development staff, like Futoshi Shirai, map director for Super Mario Sunshine. Volume 3, “Sound Staff Volume,” is a chat with Koji Kondo, the legendary Nintendo composer who’s created many of Nintendo’s signature songs in the Mario and Legend of Zelda series; Mahito Yokota, who composed the music to Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat and orchestrated the teaser music of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Masafumi Kawamura, who’s worked on sound effects and sound effect programming for several Nintendo games, like The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure and Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat.

All the interviews are in Japanese, so you won’t get too much out of them unless you know the moonspeak or enjoy gripping translations like “Now, which is headquartered in Kyoto in return, the MARIOGYARAKUSHI sound, responsible, staff are encouraged to talk to inquire.”

So what’s the biggest thing to take away from Volume 3?

Live orchestra.

28 songs on the soundtrack were performed by a live orchestra and recorded for use in the game. The interview contains two videos featuring music from the game: a video inside a recording studio of the orchestra performing (possibly the game’s main theme) and another featuring just a still image and the theme of “Egg Planet.” Check ‘em out; the songs aren’t half bad.

Other things of note:

• The game will have more musical tracks than those, but the additional pieces will not feature the orchestra and instead be synthesized.
• Kondo composed four of the tracks for the game, but his role was mainly as an advisor. Yokota composed the others.
• Maybe I should’ve learned Japanese after all so I could read more of this garbage.

Some people on the world wide internet weren’t pleased that Nintendo decided to forgo a live orchestra for Twilight Princess in favor of almost entirely synthesized music, but they’re taking a big step with Super Mario Galaxy. Hopefully the rest of the music will turn out as good as these two samples.

After last week’s revelation of Bungie buying itself back out from Microsoft and going independent, gamers high on the news of studios “loosening themselves from the handcuffs of monolithic corporations” were summarily deflated to hear yesterday’s announcement of Electronic Arts being poised to acquire both Pandemic Studios and BioWare in a deal potentially totalling US$825-860 million.

The hate some gamers have for EA is all too real. It’s so real, we at OverClocked ReMix were able to center our 2005 April Fool’s Day joke on it with EA ReMix, not only pretending we were bought out that day, but later claiming that EA’s legal representation had sent up a cease-and-desist letter, successfully fooling many of the people who were wise to the original joke. People were cursing EA up and down for being that evil, accepting EA’s killjoy threat of litigation as genuine without a second thought. For whatever reasons, that large logo above (we love pushing buttons) makes some people assume the worst.

As a gamer haven, it’s no surprise that OC ReMix has its own forum-goers lamenting the Pandemic/BioWare buyout. But recent Pandemic hire and senior user interface designer John “The Wingless” Burnett had his own words on the matter from the inside, defending the positives of the deal and putting much of the gamer hatred for EA into perspective:

As part of the EA deal, I’ll give you my two cents.

You know what bothers me MOST about the deal? That nobody fucking CARES that we’re (Pandemic) are even involved in the deal. Nothing crushes morale when you’re part of a $800+ million dollar deal (the biggest in industry history) and you are less than a footnote in the great shitstorm of internet reprisal.

Regardless, all of you going, oooh woe betide my beloved Mass Effect that isn’t even out. What are you upset about? Seriously, what is terrorizing you so much? That EA will somehow befoul it? How? They bought the company(s) because they are doing well by themselves. EA is in it to make money, and this particular regime of EA rule knows that you leave well enough alone, especially when it’s generating revenue. The only time they’ll step in is when we, the game developer, fail to deliver.

In essence, we get more money, more backing, probably the biggest marketing powerhouse in the industry and a lot more press.

And for those of you horrified by sequelitis… seriously, why the fuck do you care?

Three years in the industry have no made me loathe everyone who ISN’T in the industry. It’s a hell of a thing.

Will EA sabotage Saboteur? (Note, we at VG Frequency are clearly an exception to The Wingless’s loathing.)

Obviously, it remains to be seen what effects and/or potential reshufflings will ultimately result from the buyout. Yet it’s important to note that what some gamers conclude to be a tragedy, some employees on the creation side believe to be…an opportunity.

Of course, even employees have mixed feelings. As The Wingless said later in the day…

Now… if you ask me whether or not the EA acquisition is good in the short or the long term… you will get some wildly different answers from me…

…

…

…ellipses

So Jayson Napolitano recently finished a stream of consciousness-like audio journal of Metroid Prime 3. As a non-gamer, I thought it would be a cool idea to work a similar idea but letting someone else do the work of gameplay for me. I was in luck, as last month speedrunner Jody “Upthorn” Northup (Happy 23rd birthday!) released a much-improved speedrun of Konami’s Rocket Knight Adventures for the Sega Genesis. The music team had a heavy hitter in Michiru Yamane, and the game always looked exotic back in the day. With Jody unleashing this new run, I figured why not take 27 minutes and 18.13 seconds to check it out.

The lead character’s name was Sparkster?! Yeesh. No wonder this didn’t take off as a franchise. But since this isn’t an editorial on the naming of Sparkster…

(Thanks to Project2612 for the VGMs, which are used for song title references.)

00:13 ~ The stage 1-1/1-3 theme had some pretty anthemic-sounding moments (including the Stage Clear jingle heard at the end of each level), before trailing off into some forgettable stuff. As least in my experience, you want Stage 1 music to stick in someone’s head no matter what the game. Even if the rest of the soundtrack were forgettable, Stage 1 is supposed to come through. Didn’t feel like it here, unfortunately.

01:13 ~ Stage 1-2’s airbound theme was definitely a high point of the game and a very underrated piece of writing that would lend itself well to orchestration. A very fitting composition for the level.

02:47 ~ The boss theme, with some good intensity, was encountered for the second time fighting some giant enemy…mechbug. The more industrial sounding aspects of the track fit in well with the techno-medieval theme of the game. (Yeesh, two sentences, two made-up words.)

03:31 ~ Fairly catchy stuff with Stage 2-1 with an almost faux-surfing vibe that matched well with the stage, for the first few seconds anyway before the terrain changed.

04:26 ~ Stage 2-2 had good tension for the precarious scenario of riding on a cart through an extended track with scores of bomb-throwing swine (think Donkey Kong Country but much faster), before transitioning into an almost irreverent comical routine and subsequently looping.

07:10 ~ Though it seems like he’s flirting with disaster above (complete with great facial expression on Sparkster), Upthorn made the fluctuating lava and water levels of Stage 3 look like a cakewalk. The great thing about auto-scrolling levels is watching the speedrunner entertaining himself and the viewer by toying with the potential of death. Meanwhile, the stage theme had some good music for the first 30 seconds before the other 30 felt a bit scattershot in terms of fitting well with the militant vibe the opening gave off. I’m a bastard that’s always looking for a hook, so sue me.

09:46 ~ Stage 4 sounded like a WWKD (What Would Konami Do?) of Sonic the Hedgehog 2’s Casino Night Zone, but what do I know. An airship level? Nah, not the mental imagery I got. Don’t miss the boss music again at 11:02 as Jody smack’s down the largest pig-inspired vibrator in God’s creation.

I also feel like it’s important to note that this was the last point in the speedrun where this game looked beatable by a human being. The sheer insanity of the game afterward leads me to believe that no one’s ever actually gotten much farther than Area 5 without the wonders of emulation. Why?

This…

12:02 ~ Look at Sparkster scandalously rubbing his pixels all over that rocket, a scathing insult to Konami’s sense of collision detection. Jody shamelessly navigated the maze of rockets, bullets and swines in this level to the point of absurdity. It might look reasonable at first, but I think you’ll end up agreeing with me pretty quickly if you keep your eyes fixed. Stage 5-1 here had a really upbeat, adventurous theme that I’d love to see someone at OC ReMix arrange.

13:39 ~ Stage 5-2 featured teleportation antics that really spiced up the gameplay, alongside the jazzy overtones of the stage music (offered in two variations), which sounded like one of Shnabubula’s compositions, only turning the dial down on Sam from 11 down to 4. Due to Upthorn quickness and the teleportations stopping the music, this ended up being one of the tracks you didn’t get to catch for an extended period of time.

17:08 ~ After the intro, the Stage 6 theme definitely coughed up some good spacesynth style composition (17:26) mixed in with the occasional warbly SFX breakdown. Just slow the tempo down, and you’d have some perfect material. Someone bug Mark Vera about it. In any case, a good fit for the fast-paced outer space level setting, but unfortunately not one you get to hear much of as well in-game.

21:37 ~ Yes, there are so goofy sounds mingled into the composition, but overall I was feeling the creepy vibe from the Stage 7 music, along with a criminally understated bassline. Felt to me like more of a run-and-jump platform level than what the area turned out to be, but whatchagonnado?

23:42 ~ The Final Boss music for the first leg of the ultimate showdown felt like a letdown in terms of being sinister and nerve-wracking. Too much to expect? I dunno, the final boss did look like the swine step-cousin of something out of Contra III.

28:29 ~ The cloud effect with Sparkster flying during the Credits was pretty cool stuff for back in the day, even if it is monotonous. But hey, if you wanted triumphant themed music, and you’ve actually beat this game, you earned it as it’s pulled off nicely for the game’s conclusion.

While feeling the soundtrack was a hit-and-miss affair, props to the Rocket Knight Adventures sound team for, in my opinion, getting the some of absolute best out of the Mega Drive’s YM synths. Clearly classics like Golden Axe and Altered Beast had their own memorable tunes, but Rocket Knight Adventures pushed the YM2612 near its creative limits.

The major majority of tool-assisted speedrun fans don’t look to videos like Upthorn’s to scope out the music, but I’m just that kind of guy. Perhaps we’ll do this again sometime. Happy 23rd to Jody and thanks for this nice run!

Lots of S’s in that headline.

So we received a submission from Eternal Sonata over at OCR yesterday. Having never heard of the title (I’M NOT A GAMER, LEAVE ME ALONE!), I did a quick search to find out when it was released. “Fuck,” I thought as I saw the release date: September 17, 2007. “How am I gonna get the soundtrack?”, since I needed it to compare the source tune to the submission. Luckily, the submitting artist noted that the official website of the recent Xbox 360 release offered several streamable pieces off of the soundtrack, mostly composed by Motoi Sakuraba. 32 pieces, actually. They don’t play around.

Lemme quote part of the premise of this game. I suppose it’s not TOO difficult to come up with really out there concepts for a game. But seeing as the game is at least rooted in the life of Frédéric Chopin, this game’s story particularly threw me for a trip:

On his deathbed, the famous composer, Chopin, drifts between this life and the next. In his final hours, he experiences a fantastical dream where he encounters a young girl facing a terrible destiny and the boy who will fight to save her. On the border between dreams and reality, Chopin discovers the light that shines in all of us in this enduring tale of good and evil, love and betrayal.

So…Chopin is dying. Of pulmonary tuberculosis, no less. So he’s slipping and probably dreaming things.

But he’s seeing…a full-blown RPG???

“Sun Slash???” What in the hell? Now that’s where you’ve lost me. But really, I’m just busting Namco Bandai’s chops. Strangely conceived and unashamed of it, Eternal Sonata certainly sounds like a very creative venture, and recent reviews for the title have been pretty solid.

The kicker for me of course is the praise being given to Sakuraba’s soundtrack (which naturally also includes some of Chopin’s work, performed by Russian pianist Stanislav Bunin, alongside the original score). DarkeSword feels that Sakuraba’s work can be “hit or miss.” Having listened to the soundtrack of Star Ocean: The Second Story, I can agree with that on some level. But I’d be lying if I said this particular soundtrack didn’t feel a lot more like a hit than a miss, in my mind the praise being very well-deserved.

I definitely encourage anyone interested in the works of Sakuraba and Chopin or any casual RPG player to swing by Eternal Sonata’s official site, listen through the deep selection of tracks offered, and see how you feel about it. Never has a tale of tuberculosis been such good times.

Jayson Napolitano of Music 4 Games posted an interview yesterday with Nintendo composer Kenji Yamamoto and the Retro Studios sound team regarding the sound of Retro’s latest game and Yamamoto’s latest work, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (co-composed with Minako Hamano and Masaru Tajima). It’s a rather nice read, detailing the technical, creative, and organizational processes that went into making the sound and music of Samus’s latest adventure:

As for the music for Metroid Prime 3, we knew we wanted to move in a more orchestral direction, but one that still maintained the game-y and synthetic nature of the previous Prime soundtracks. I sat down and identified some reference game and movie soundtracks and progressive electronic music to present to Yamamoto-san as possible style guides and references. Soon after I compiled my references, we found out that Yamamoto-san was coming to the states and was interested in visiting Retro Studios himself. This allowed me to present to him my musical references and style guide in person and for us to have a face to face dialog. He was very easy to work with and really understood our desired aesthetic. The cool thing was that after we got our musical direction discussion out of the way, we were able to geek out and exchange ideas about audio tools, music in general and even have a quick jam session. It was truly an honor that I got to play drums behind Yamamoto-san’s excellent guitar playing and our CEO Michael Kelbaugh’s kick ass bass playing.

Yamamoto also talks a little bit about his past work as well. Check out the full interview at http://www.music4games.net/Features_Display.aspx?id=174.

OC ReMix Announces Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream Music Video Competition

For Immediate Release
October 4, 2007
Contact: David W. Lloyd, dlloyd@ocremix.org

FAIRFAX, VA–OverClocked ReMix today announced a music video competition related to the recently released Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream project (http://ff7.ocremix.org). This is the first official competition held by OC ReMix. Partnering with Piano Squall (www.pianosquall.com), and eStarland (www.estarland.com), prizes include signed limited edition promotional copies of Voices of the Lifestream, signed copies of Piano Squall’s album GAME: Game & Anime Music Emotions, Final Fantasy VII merchandise, and OverClocked ReMix shirts & hoodies. Additional prizes may be announced during the course of the competition.

There are three different categories for music video submissions, and each category will have prizes for the winner and runner-up. Submissions will be evaluated by the OverClocked ReMix Judges Panel and djpretzel. Winners will be credited on the VotL website and have their submissions shown at Otakon and other anime and gaming conventions that OC ReMix attends. The deadline for all entries is December 14th, 2007; details and rules for each competition are below.

Prizes (as of 2007-10-03):

• Winners
  • Limited edition promotional copy of Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream
  • Signed copy of Piano Squall’s album GAME: Game & Anime Music Emotions
  • Choice of OverClocked ReMix shirt or hoodie
  • Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children action figure
  • Credit on http://ff7.ocremix.org and presentation of video on OC ReMix convention panels
• Runners-up
  • Limited edition promotional copy of Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream
  • OverClocked ReMix shirt
  • Credit on http://ff7.ocremix.org and presentation of video on OC ReMix convention panels

Final Fantasy VII Category

This contest involves creating a music video for any track from Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream using footage from Advent Children (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385700/), Last Order (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489134/), and/or the Final Fantasy VII, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII video games.

Anime Category

This contest involves creating a music video for any track from Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream using footage from any anime. However, to distinguish from the FF7 category, please do not utilize footage from Advent Children or Last Order.

Original Category

This contest involves creating a music video for any track from Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream using only footage that you yourself create. It can be live-action, 2D or 3D animation, rendered from Flash, etc., but it needs to be your own creation, and cannot incorporate substantial outside sources.

Rules

1. The deadline for all entries is December 14th, 2007.
2. All submissions are made under the terms of the OverClocked ReMix Content Policy, available at http://www.ocremix.org/info/Content_Policy. Please read it before submitting.
3. You may only enter one submission for each category.
4. In the case of submissions that involved collaboration, you must designate a single point of contact for the prizes and coordinate amongst yourselves who receives what.
5. Only one song from Voices of the Lifestream should be used per video, no other music should be present, and the video should not exceed the length of the song selected.
6. Content should generally be “PG-13″, avoiding nudity, profanity, or extreme violence.
7. Video should be in HQ AVI DivX, XvID, H264, or MPEG2 formats, at a resolution of 720×480, with a 23.97 or 24 fps (progressive) or 29.97 fps (interlaced) framerate, with uncompressed 44.1khz stereo audio. Please utilize the WAV versions of VotL tracks (available via bittorent at http://bt.ocremix.org), not the MP3s, when creating your music video(s).
8. For the FFVII and anime categories, please try to follow common Anime Music Video contest guidelines, available on the websites of most major anime conventions. We want submissions in these categories to be submitted to as many different AMV contests as possible.
9. Do not utilize low-quality footage or footage with subtitles burned-in.
10. Do not include credits, bumpers, trailers, or other material in your video, only the actual submission content.
11. You may choose to post your video(s) on YouTube, etc., before/after submission, so long as the OverClocked ReMix Content Policy is followed.

Submitting

Include the name you want the video(s) credited to, your contact information (website, email), the name of your video(s), all sources (anime, games, movies, etc.) utilized in your video(s), and any additional information you feel is relevant with your submission, whether via email or physical mail.

Email (preferred):

Send an email titled “FF7 Music Video Competition Entry” with a link to your video(s) to submissions@ocremix.org. Do NOT attempt to attach the video itself, or any form of preview. Make sure that the link still functions on Dec. 14th and for as many days after as possible if you submit before the deadline.

Physical Mail

Send a CD-R or DVD-R only (no tapes!) to:

OverClocked ReMix
PO Box 223104
Chantilly, VA 20153

Postmarked on or before the Dec. 14th deadline. All physical materials submitted to OverClocked ReMix become the property of OverClocked ReMix and will not be returned.

Updates

Updated information and answers to questions regarding this competition will be available on an announcement thread at OverClocked ReMix (http://www.ocremix.org) - please check it often as prizes may be added or rules clarified. Winners will be announced before the end of the year, with the specific date dependent on the number of submissions received.

Good luck!

A quick rundown of some goings on around OC ReMix for any curious on-lookers.

Reviews have been generally strong for the recent Final Fantasy VII album, Voices of the Lifestream. From this side, you generally have to have a thick skin, as a lot of the criticisms were hyperbolically brutal! Broadly covering most criticisms: Final Fantasy VII is overremixed so why not do “game X,” the album is all techno (note: it’s not), the arrangements aren’t recognizable enough (note: the source tunes are involved in the majority of every track), the arrangements are too conservative (?!?), the production was overdone, the production was cheap, Final Fantasy music shouldn’t have vocals (note: shows how little they know), video game music shouldn’t have vocals (note: shows how little they know…2), and other people liked it too much so there was too much hype. Props to everyone who enjoyed the album despite overwhelming “evidence” to the contrary. :-D

Stopped by with djpretzel over to eStarland today, who were having a huge sale at their physical location on a wide array of video games, systems and other stuff. djp hooked it up with an FC Twin (clone system makers have been bolder since Nintendo’s primary US utility patent on the NES expired in November 2005). We’ve snagged some goods for some upcoming community activities. Stay tuned and you may be a winner.

I also snagged several NES games for OCR scored by Tim Follin, whose Wikipedia page I massively updated a few days ago. They didn’t have Solstice or Silver Surfer, but I’ll be damned if I don’t get a hold of it soon. The scores [double meaning?]: Sky Shark, Kiwi Kraze, Target: Renegade, Pictionary, and Magic Johnson’s Fast Break. In short, I’m gonna be collecting them as long as I can find working copies at reasonable prices. Couldn’t find Lemmings for the PSP, but maybe I’ll luck out another day.

Speaking of eStarland, we’ve restocked the store with hoodies for all sizes, so that info should be updated on their site soon for anyone looking to fly the colors this fall and this coming winter as things proceed to get colder in the coming months. I finally snagged the large hoodie I’d paid for a while back. While I wear a medium T-shirt, I found I had to step it up a size on the hoodie or it felt too snug. Just something to keep in mind.

The site database has been getting some attention lately just to fill out some gaps and make things more accessible to our Japanese fans. Most game systems and games in the database have had Japanese names added into the database where applicable, courtesy of djpretzel. If you’re seeing a lot of “??????” and think it’s gibberish, you better install some Japanese character support.

Lastly, not counting anything coming in today, I’ve got 7 tracks left to judge before I can say that I’m caught up, not just in giving submissions their preliminary evaluations, but in judging everything that I subsequently pass along to the OCR Judges Panel. Wish me luck. Or if you’re a submitter, wish yourself luck on passing.

Quite a bit going on, with other exciting developments I’m leaving out. Once the house is in order, so-to-speak, then everyone will be let inside to take a look.

Niels “DarkMessenger” van der Leest announced via MySpace bulletin that he was notified of his victory in Dutch magazine Interface’s latest competition, Sound Game Contest 2007 [note: in Dutch], with his entry receiving The Public’s Choice award garnering an impressive 46.4% of the votes.

Niels, along with other entrants, worked to rescore the cutscene “Ghost Story” from the 2004 Xbox release Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 2, developed by Red Storm Entertainment.

The competition was co-sponsored by Streamline Studios and QANTM College, with voting for The Public’s Choice being featured in the upcoming Interface issue #112. We’ll keep you posted if and when DarkMessenger’s winning effort goes public, and congratulations to Niels on his popular victory, which will hopefully provide him some of the spotlight.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there was a game company named Toaplan. They made quite a few games in the 80’s and early 90’s, like Snow Bros. - Nick & Tom and Zero Wing (known for the “All your base are belong to us meme). Most of the games they created were, like Zero Wing, shmups.

In 1994, Toaplan declared bankruptcy, but its employees went to form other companies, like CAVE, known for its flamingly difficult bullet hell shmups like those in the DonPachi and Mushihime-sama series. Another company formed from the remnants of Toaplan is 8ing/Raizing, which made shmups early on, but has recently focused on fighting games like the Naruto: Clash of Ninja and Bleach: Heat the Soul series.

Where am I going with this? Well, Atsuhiro Motoyama was one of 8ing/Raizing’s composers, and he’s the subject of this Composer Spotlight. Let’s dance.

Works featured in this post:

• Digital Champ (TurboGrafx-16)
• Dimahoo (Arcade)
• Kururin Paradise (Game Boy Advance)
• Maruan Series 1: Umihara Kawase Shun ~Second Edition~ (PlayStation)
• Sorcer Striker (Arcade)

full list of works

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Motoyama’s music can be very roughly partitioned into two groups, corresponding to the two different types of games he’s worked on. The first is the “laid-back” style, the tracks of which are generally slower and more melody- or groove-oriented.

“Flower Land 3″
Kururin Paradise (Game Boy Advance)

“BGM 2″
Maruan Series 1: Umihara Kawase Shun ~Second Edition~ (PlayStation)
co-composed with Shinji Tachikawa

The “laid-back” style generally corresponds to the games that are more, well, laid-back. Games like Ganbare! Golf Boys and those in the Kururin and Umihara Kawase series are all generally easy-going, and so have easy-going soundtracks to match. Even though I say that all these soundtracks fall into one style, as shown by the samples above, the actual pieces of music can sound quite different. The songs of Umihara Kawase and Maruan Series 1: Umihara Kawase Shun ~Second Edition~ is all very light like the sample above, while those of Kuru Kuru Kururin and Kururin Paradise are more varied, ranging from bouncy, happy songs to darker ones like the sample.

Then again, games from which you’d expect more upbeat or driving tracks also fall into this style. Motoyama’s tracks in Beastorizer, a fighting game perhaps more familiarly known as Bloody Roar in its PlayStation port and subsequent sequels, are also not high octane pumpfests, but more grooving, albeit with some majestic flares. And Digital Champ, a boxing game, has an exceptionally mellow and groovy soundtrack.

Track 5
Digital Champ (TurboGrafx-16)

And the other style, in contrast to “laid-back,” is, well, not laid back. The tracks, while not necessarily faster, tend to be more tense, more driving, and so on. The other commonality these soundtracks have is that they all belong to shmups developed by 8ing/Raizing.

“SORCER STRIKER (Stage 1 BGM)”
Sorcer Striker (Arcade)

“THUNDER STORM ~ Stage 5″
Dimahoo (Arcade)
co-composed with Ken-ichi Koyano

Despite shmups only comprising a third of Motoyama’s total game output, of the five soundtracks of his that have had album releases, three belong to shmups. His music on CDs doesn’t adequately show his full range of music, so my secondary motive behind this spotlight was to show off some of his other material.

Thanks to OC ReMixer Gecko Yamori for pointing it out on the OC ReMix boards, as Electronic Arts, the owners of Westwood Studios, are celebrating today’s 12th anniversary of the original Command & Conquer by freely releasing the game!

As evidenced by the instructions provided by EA, one does have to jump through several hoops to get the game compatible with today’s versions of Windows. Nonetheless, the classic status enjoyed by C&C will no doubt bring in a lot of fans both new and old into the fold via this very welcome free rollout. With the advent of Wii’s Virtual Console and Xbox LIVE Arcade, EA’s realized the value in redistributing the first game of the C&C franchise, which was certainly smart thinking, thinking that I’m sure the company believes will help move the subsequent parts of the series off the shelves and into your homes.

On a tangent, one thing I enjoyed a lot about Scott Peeples 2001 Command & Conquer ReMix “On the Prowl Redux” was how the arrangement, while posessing its own personalized style, managed to retain the feel of Frank Klepacki’s already impressive score, sounding like a natural fit for the actual in-game soundtrack.

As the name of the game around here at VG Frequency implies, I’m always a fan of the music of games in particular. Klepacki’s first Command & Conquer soundtrack set a great standard for real-time military strategy games, providing music that’s functions well in the background yet holds up greatly upon active listening, driving along the action and overall mood of the game. Even on just that level, the now freely-available C&C is easily worth the pickup.

BioShock is an first-person shooter just released on the 21st on this month by 2K Games. It is a spiritual successor to System Shock 2, another FPS that was developed by Irrational Games, which was acquired by 2K Games in 2006. The game is generally regarded as being pretty cool stuff.

A limited edition of the game was released with a figurine, making-of DVD, and CD. The CD was originally supposed to be a soundtrack of the game, but instead contained three remixes of classic songs from the time period the game is supposed to take place in (and which appear in-game), arranged by Moby and Oscar the Punk: “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin, “God Bless the Child” by Billie Holiday, and “Wild Little Sisters” by Brian Lovely and Paul Patterson.

However, 2K Games has just released twelve orchestral pieces from the soundtrack of the game, composed by Garry Schyman. While it’s not a complete score, the twelve tracks still give you a taste of the creepy atmosphere of BioShock. You can download the music from 2K’s “The Cult of Rapture” BioShock community site, or directly download it from their site.

We don’t have enough eccentrics in the game arrangement community, but truth be told John “The Wingless” Burnett could fill in for 10 of them. He’s his own improv troupe, although why he isn’t in The Second City is beyond me (he’s auditioned with them before).

Continuing in the vein of yesterday’s blog regarding Mazedude, it’s good to see individuals take their hobbies and successfully run with them into the professional world. Having already made his way into the gaming industry, The Wingless recently posted of an employment change via Facebook and MySpace, announcing a move from Chicago’s Midway Games as a user interface artist to Los Angeles’s Pandemic Studios as a senior user interface artist this past Monday.

So those of you in the know already caught wind of this, so if this is shocking news to you, please do not think ill of me for not telling you. Either there was no good way to tell (which happens) or I just flat-out don’t like you (which, while implausible, most certainly is possible).I accepted a job with Pandemic Studios in L.A.

So I’ll be moving out to Cali (Westwood, to be specific) by probably the 10th of September to start my new life between Santa Monica Beach and Hollywood. My last day at Midway Games will be August 31st, the very last trembling drop of Summer.

But in the meantime, I’ll be around for at least 3 weeks and I would *love* to spend as much of my time with all of you as possible. Send me a line if you’d like to do something, and I will try my best to be with you. Also, if you’ve had a crush on me, but were bereft of a charming way to ask me out, now’s as good a time as any :)

In any event, I will miss you all very much. Believe it or not, the hesitation to move was based largely on all the resplendent personalities I have met. I adore everything about you.

All my love and all my luck. I have more than enough to spare.

With the move, John’s now in the hub of American video game development. If you’ve followed his website over the years, through its many core design changes and plethora of side projects, his design skills are already mutil-faceted. Will he eventually make the transition to sound design or music composition? Well, he’s already got some mutual acquaintances with VGM professionals based in the area through friendships with members of OneUp Studios, so the future looks bright no matter what the angle is. We definitely wish The Wingless the best of luck as he valiantly attempts to trim the wings off of the City of Angels.

Andrew “zircon” Aversa is a long-time colleague of mine on the OCR Judges Panel, and has a remarkable business sense about him. He’s always trying to learn everything he can not just about the creation side of music, but the fiscal side as well. Currently attending Philadelphia’s Drexel University, he’s in a great place to soak up knowledge, and always passes along cool information he picks up along the way.

Via the July issue of Fast Company (#117), Andy clued me into something regarding Electronic Arts that I read about a year or so ago in the conception phase having recently resurfaced. The article by Cora Daniels features EA Worldwide Executive of Music and Marketing Steve Schnur discussing his plans for a record label inspired by video game music.

Well, not in the traditional sense of releasing original or arranged soundtracks. But with the Artwerk label (a cooperative venture with Nettwerk), Schnur feels that the exposure from popular EA franchise games like Madden NFL and NBA Street have the potential to launch breakout bands with original albums after clinching fan interest via the game soundtracks. So far, the label’s first big signing in Tom “Junkie XL” Holkenborg this past March looks nothing but good. With such a conservative approach by Schnur and EA purposefully not aiming to create a big label, however, do you think a format like this could fully achieve its stated goals?

Steven Spielberg didn’t start off directing extremely well-known movies like Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In the beginning of his career, he directed small, independent films like Amblin’, episodes of TV shows like Night Gallery, and made-for-TV movies like Duel. And even after becoming a big-name director after such box-office successes like the Indiana Jones trilogy, he still managed to direct some films that fell under the radar, like Always and The Unfinished Journey.

Tangent: the VG Frequency record for most links in a single paragraph is now 11.

The point is that, when a person has a large body of works, it’s inevitable that some of them will be overlooked in favor of others, even if the person is as famous as Steven Spielberg. The same principle applies to video game composers as well. Most people are probably familiar with Yasunori Mitsuda’s work on games like Chrono Trigger/Cross and Xenogears (certainly remixers are), and maybe even some of his lesser-known works like Tsugunai: Atonement and Graffiti Kingdom (his best soundtrack no matter what anyone says), but he’s also worked on other games that don’t immediately come to mind, like Mario Party.

I mentioned in my very first post that I’d write something about “overlooked works by big-name composers.” And exactly two months later, here’s the first one!

And since I used Mitsuda as an example above, let’s just go with that.

~~~~~~~~~~

Bomberman 64: The Second Attack!
Composers: Yasunori Mitsuda, Yoshitaka Hirota
Platform: N64
Release date: 1999-12-03 (Japan), 2000-05-28 (United States)
Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: Vatical Entertainment

Mitsuda and Hirota have worked together three times, including this game; their other shared works are Shadow Hearts (co-composed with Masaharu Iwata and Ryo Fukuda) and Shadow Hearts: Covenant (co-composed with Kenji Ito, Tomoko Kobayashi, and Ryo Fukuda). And, if you listen from a distance and squint your ears, the soundtrack of Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! does sort of sound like what the soundtrack of a Bomberman RPG would be, if a Bomberman RPG existed.Unfortunately, the Flash player I’ve been using to provide music samples, JW MP3 Player, chooses to play the tracks from this game at an accelerated speed. It actually is kind of amusing to listen to, but instead I’ll just give direct links to the tracks. So long, convenience of being able to listen to the songs without navigating away. You shall be missed dearly.

>> “Sthertoth, the Demon”

>> “Warship Noah”

The music is unlike that of any other Bomberman game, befitting the fact that this is the only game in the series either composer worked on (and also befitting the fact that the story and atmosphere are unusual for the series as well). However, the music is also unlike that of the Shadow Hearts series which the two composers collaborated on; noticeably absent are the series’s music’s quirks and Mitsuda’s Celtic trappings.

>> “LD Angel”

>> “Miheale Theme II”

The music of the game is quite difficult to track down, since there exists no complete rip of the game as far as I know (the samples in this post come from an incomplete rip where every track is 3:10 in length). If you’re feeling adventurous and have the ability to play USF sets (as I am unable to, being Mac’d), there exists a preliminary USF set at USF Central that might not be complete, or work. There are also ten MIDIs over at VGMusic.com.

This man looks really happy. That’s because, I’m really looking forward to Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Black Ops, and he’s gonna get my cash. Excellent coverage of this pending business transaction is provided by The Onion.

And here’s a free track from OC ReMix arranging Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear; classic stuff with Jared Hudson, who (if all goes well) will eventually score a future Tom Clancy-named interactive cash cow.

You may have heard of The Black Mages. Formed in 2003 with, among other people, three Square Enix composers (including Nobuo Uematsu), TBM is the closest thing Square Enix has to an official band. Other game companies (especially during the 90’s) have had bands featuring one or more in-house composer, like Konami’s Kukeiha Club and Taito’s Zuntata, but TBM is probably the most prominent modern example.

Live performances of VGM have been not necessarily commonplace in Japan, but certainly more frequent than in the United States and elsewhere. However, in the past few years, there have been an increasing number of video game concerts like PLAY! A Video Game Symphony and Video Games Live. So, I figured it might be kind of cool to look at other, earlier VGM performances, including those by in-house bands and those like VGL. I mentioned the S.S.T. Band in “Composer Spotlight #3: Koichi Namiki,” so that’s as good a place to start as any.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The S.S.T. Band was one of the first, possibly the first, official developer band, starting way back in 1988. “S.S.T.” stood for “Sega Sound Team,” befitting the fact that, of the six original members, three were Sega composers (Hiroshi Miyauchi, Jouji Iijima, and Koichi Namiki). A fourth member, Kimitaka Matsumae, would later become a Sega composer, as well as would two future band members who were not part of the original lineup, Hisanori Kumamaru and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi.

I was going to make an info file about the S.S.T. Band’s members, discography, etc., but their Wikipedia article is very thorough, probably more thorough than anything I would have written, so I’ll pimp that out instead. The only full arrangement albums are MEGA SELECTION I & II and BACK IN THE S.S.T. BAND!!; all of the others contain both arrangements by the S.S.T. Band and original soundtracks.

An interesting thing to note is that every single S.S.T. Band member had a stage name, most of which were taken from Sega arcade games:

Jouji Iijima: GALAXY (Galaxy Force)
Shingo Komori: BURNER (After Burner)
Hisanori Kumamaru: SPLASH Wave (”Splash Wave” is the name of a track from OutRun)
Kimitaka Matsumae: HARRIER (Space Harrier)
Takenobu Mitsuyoshi: R360 (refers to the R360 arcade cabinet)
Hiroshi Miyauchi: Hiro
Koichi Namiki: Mickey or Pretty K.N.
Masato Saito: TURBO-kun (Turbo OutRun)
Takehiko Tanabe: THUNDER (Thunder Blade)

But the best part of the S.S.T. Band, even moreso than their rockin’ arrangements, is their appearance. Remember when sleeveless vests, ponytails, bandannas, and sunglasses used to be cool on musicians?

“After Burner” (arrangement of the track of the same name from the game of the same name)
video from the S.S.T. Band Live! DVD (1990 concert)
Jouji “GALAXY” Iijima: Guitar (red)
Kimitaka “HARRIER” Matsumae: Keyboards (right)
Hiroshi “Hiro” Miyauchi: Keyboards (left)
Koichi “Mickey” Namiki: Guitar (yellow)
Masato “TURBO-kun” Saito: Bass
Takehiko “THUNDER” Tanabe: Drums

The band’s arrangements always stayed close to the original, usually being covers with the occasional solo thrown in to retain the feel of the originals, all of which were from Sega arcade, Master System, or Genesis games. Since the band’s instruments were guitars, keyboard, and drums, they usually picked upbeat songs that could easily be converted to synthrock, like the title theme from After Burner seen above. However, as the material dictated, they were not above slower, jazzier pieces like their medley of Galaxy Force tracks and ballads like their cover of “Last Wave,” the high scores theme from OutRun.

Other videos from their 1990 concert on YouTube are “Magical Sound Shower” from OutRun and an After Burner medley featuring other tracks from the game other than the title track. One last video, from no concert I can identify, is a cover of “Like the Wind” from Power Drift. Soak up the retro.

I’m ironically not much of a gamer, so anything having to do with actual game releases I’m bound to be slow on. DarkeSword recently made mention that Cave Story creator Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya released a new, even simpler free homebrew shmup called Guxt. (Have Japanese characters installed on your comp, please.) With Cave Story under his belt, Pixel’s already got the buzz needed to give any new project of his a good deal of attention in the gaming community, and February’s release of his most recent game has already got people talking.

I make mention of Guxt, because Pixel is not only a programmer, but a composer as well. With his one man Studio Pixel team, Amaya does it all, inclu