61 Frames Per Second : daft punk

Chiptune Friday: 8-Bit Daft Punk

Derrick Sanskrit — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Third Daft Punk post this month? Clearly March is all about robots dancing as far as I'm concerned.

You may have seen around the 'net that a new bit of NES homebrew was released last month in D-Pad Hero, a game that mimicked the now all-too-familiar Guitar Hero/Dance Dance Revolution style of tapping buttons in rhythm to a scrolling bar of icons, only it replaces the guitar controller/dance pad with a traditional NES game pad and high quality song recordings with size and medium appropriate chiptune. Gameplay is expectedly challenging, but the songs are divine, especially the chiptune version of Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger".

Something about those clicks and warbles just seems... appropriate.

Even though the original "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" was popular when released back in 2001, it rose in popularity again in 2007 when Kanye West sampled it for his hit song "Stronger". You can download the ROM for D-Pad Hero here (you'll need some form of NES emulator). If you like it, click "support us" and PayPal them some cash to make a sequel. Maybe we'll get some chiptune Toto next time!

Related tunes:
NES Radiohead
Game Boy Postal Service
MIA vs. Super Mario Bros
RAC vs. The Legend of Zelda

Alternate Soundtrack: Noby Noby Boy vs. Daft Punk

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

As John previously mentioned, Spring is in the air here in New York. Coats and coffee have been replaced by t-shirts and...well... some people still have coffee. I've been rocking the cranberry juice myself. With all of this new life in the air, I find myself returning to my summer lover, Alternate Soundtrack, and where better to begin than with Bandai Namco's newest Springtime insta-classic, Noby Noby Boy.

As I'm sure you know, because you're all just that well-informed, oh wonderful 61fpsers, Keita Takahashi's Noby Noby Boy is a game all about relaxed play. In fact, the game's title is a pun on the japanese words for "loose" and "stretch," much like how the original Katamari Damacy was a visual pun in that the two kanji were nearly identical, but I digress. While Katamari was notorious for its ridiculously catchy and enthralling soundtrack, Noby's is much more subdued. Introductory tuba and bells clear the path for sedate acoustic guitar plucking. That's about it. Thankfully, Noby uses just about every feature of the PS3's Cross Media Browser, including the ability to play music from the hard drive, allowing you to make your own soundtrack with incredible ease. I found that the game works wonderfully with Daft Punk's Discovery.

Quite a leap, huh? Plucked acoustic guitar to pungent synth blasts, but it works. Much like Takahashi's sophomore game (let's face it, We <3 Katamari doesn't count) represents a shift in his own career, focusing less on "goals" and "craft" and more on the fun of play and freedom of youth, Daft Punk's sophomore album attempted to be more open-minded and playful than their previous material, and was as such named for the childhood psychological phase of discovery. Philosophically, the two works share a great deal of common ground: occassional moments of poignancy and introspection amidst an overall air of liberation and excitement, the carefree juxtaposition of elements from unrelated fields (cavemen did not have helicopters, but that makes the game more fun!), a deeper sense of connection with its intended audience and reliance on their reaction to achieve the works' goals. Oh yeah, and robots.

But it's all too easy to ramble about the meaning behind anything done by Takahashi and/or Daft Punk, let's just go to the video for a demonstration:

Oh yeah, that's the stuff right there.

Be sure to check back here in the not-too-distant future for more Alternate Soundtracks, and, of course, you're welcome to share your favorites and your ideas in the comments. If you sell me on a particular idea, it just might be featured later on, and I'm always happy to give credit where credit is due.

Previously on Alternate Soundtrack:
Castlevania III vs. Bush
Ai Cho Aniki vs. Xiu Xiu
Orbital vs. The Notwist
Altered Beast vs. Natalie Portman's Shaved Head
Kirby's Adventure vs. girlsareshort

Alternate Soundtrack: Need For Speed: Underground vs Justice's †

John Constantine — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Written by Derrick Sanskrit

Until 2003, the most serious racing game I'd played was probably F-Zero. This became a problem with my roommates, who LOVED racing games, and so I was baptized into the world with Need For Speed: Underground on the Playstation 2.

Now, if your experience with this game was anything like ours, you loved every minute of gameplay to be found in NFS:U. The characters felt human and you felt genuine affection for Samantha and disdain for Eddie. The city felt alive, and oncoming traffic was a plaything to use to your advantage. Circuit races were intense, drift races were ego boosts, and drag races separated the hardcore from the wimps. Everything about the game just bubbled with glowing, neon awesome.

Except for that soundtrack! Ugh!

Turning on the game meant being assaulted by the full-blast synth whoops and inebriated grunts of Li'l Jon & the Eastside Boyz' "Get Low", an obnoxious club banger that would later be resurrected as Usher's "Yeah" and, subsequently, EVERY OTHER SONG EVER. The mute button quickly became our MVP. The problem then became finding music that would keep our blood pumping fast enough to win races without being distracted by an avalanche of crap pooling out of the speakers.

What was aurally difficult to achieve in 2003 has become easy with the rise of “new rave”. Moronic as that name is, this new genre inspired by the brilliant electronic music of Daft Punk and the dance-punk scene of the early-aughts is perfect for just such a racing game. 2007's Need For Speed: Pro Street's soundtrack of Chromeo, Cansei De Ser Sexy, Datarock, Foreign Islands, MSTRKRFT, and The Rapture, among others, would indicate I'm not alone in this opinion.

My personal favorite for street racing has got to be † by Parisian electronic duo Justice. The slap bass and wild, squealing synths of "Let There Be Light" call to mind the heart-pounding moments at the start of a drag race, when engines are roaring and tires are screeching against black top. The relentless oscillating sirens of "Stress" induce a cold sweat as you scream around a narrow overpass at illegal velocities. The fuzzed out synth guitars that blanket most of the album's tracks are like the gentle purrs of your exhaust exploding with full tanks of nitrous oxide. And then, of course, there’s "D.A.N.C.E.", "The Party", and "DVNO". The only tracks with discernible lyrics, their cocky, self-assured swagger seems to say, "Oh, I'm sorry, are you trying to race me? I've been ahead of you this whole time having a tea party. How rude of me! Ah, is that what passes for a body kit these days? Your mom does terrible work when she's not in my bed." The entire album plays like the DJ set at the best club in town and sets a fantastic atmosphere for the dark and sexy world of illegal street racing.

There's plenty of other great tunes you can swap in while you race, but I find that † is just about perfect. But then, what do I know? Feel free to disagree in the comments!

Come back next week for a new Alternate Soundtrack featuring hot video action highlighting just how kick ass these soundtrack combos are and be sure to check last week's Alternate Soundtrack right here.