61 Frames Per Second : super mario galaxy

Queen Plus Mario Equals High-Flying Fun

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:45:00 GMT

Anime music videos—often known as animated music videos or simply AMVs—are about as hit-or-miss as a hobby based on video editing can possibly get. 95% of the AMVs that clog YouTube are garbage. Take note of that 95%. It is not a fabrication or exaggeration.

But once in a while something comes by that makes you glad people took the time to match up a bunch of animation frames to some kind of music. Super Platinum 61FPS member Roto13 made me aware of one such video: fast-paced Super Mario Galaxy footage set to Queen's “Don't Stop Me Now.”

Mario works really well alongside Queen's peppy rock. One of the reasons AMVs fail so often is because “editors” don't realise that Pokemon and Linkin Park will never mix, no matter what depraved means are exercised in order to force them to mate.

(By the way, if you also want to become a Super Platinum 61FPS Member, just slip me a hundred bucks while I throw this tinfoil ball up in the air to distract Constantine.)

Video after the jump.

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Super Mario Galaxy Cake is Made of Awesome (and Butter, Eggs, Sugar)

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:26:00 GMT

See this cake?

A dude named Will made it for his daughter's birthday.

It's exactly like the cake your parents made you for your birthday, right?

Oh, what's that? Your parents never made you a cake like this for your birthday?

Do you know why?

Because they hate your guts.

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Your Way: Chrono Trigger and The Glory of Options

John Constantine — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:15:00 GMT

I spent the Thanksgiving holiday not shopping, not overeating, not doing much of anything outside of that most traditional holiday pursuit: catching up with family. Not the extended fam, just the nuclear, and even then we weren’t all around. Sometimes work and obligation gets in the way and not everyone can make it home, just the way it goes. It was just me and the parents. And Chrono Trigger, obviously. A true homecoming, really; early winter playthroughs of Chrono Trigger have been, for me, as much a tradition as seeing loved ones during the season but I’d fallen out of rhythm over the past three years. Excited as I was to play the game again, I was going in with some trepidation. Not over the two new dungeons, the new ending, or the re-written dialogue. (The script, by the way, saw far more significant changes than was previously reported. The re-write isn’t bad by any means, but some of the charm of Ted Woolsey’s original is lost.) No, I was worried about the incorporation of the PS1 version’s animated cutscenes. I skipped the earlier re-release because the thought of slowdown in Chrono Trigger is nauseating, but getting to avoid the cutscenes was an added bonus. Nothing against the anime stuff, it’s fine that it exists, but the game’s story simply doesn’t need those scenes. Not to mention how they break the game’s seamless presentation.

So it was a nice surprise when I saw this screen:

Much like the original SNES version, Chrono Trigger DS offers you a choice before the game even starts. In addition to letting you choose if you want battles to play in the Horii-standard turn-based fighting or the mid-‘90s-Sakaguchified active mode, CTDS asks if you want to use the new touch screen interface and if you want to turn off the anime cinemas. Not only that, but you can change the settings you choose whenever you want throughout the game, in a menu that is literally overflowing with customization options. Four pages of them in fact, letting you toggle everything from the anachronistic run button, menu cursor memory, even tutorial messages. You name it. And all of your current settings are listed on a single page on the DS’ top screen while you change them on the bottom. It is one of the most considerate features I have ever seen included in a game.

There is a lot to be said for a game being unchangeable by the time it reaches a player’s hands. This is what the creators wanted you to play and experience, so why should you be able to alter that? But I can’t tell you how much more I would enjoy Super Mario Galaxy if I could turn off Mario’s constant grunting and yelping, Resistance 2 if I could turn off the NPC-ally chatter, if I could just re-map the damn buttons in Mega Man Anniversary Collection on Gamecube. Think how much more enjoyable all of the 3D Zeldas would be if you could turn off tutorials? These might not seem like deal breakers, but sometimes it’s the niggling annoyances in a game that stick with you more than the story or actual gameplay. In letting you tune your experience, a game’s designer can not only ensure you get the most out of your time with their creation, but also let you glean an even greater appreciation for the work that went into making it. A perfect example is the ability to switch out the HD sprites for the originals in the recently released Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Trust me, you don’t appreciate just how gorgeous the new characters are until you’ve seen the overgrown, pixilated classics hopping about in widescreen.

I enjoyed Persona 3 more because it let me turn off the voiceovers. I enjoyed Resistance: Fall of Man more because it let me completely remap the controls. And I enjoyed Chrono Trigger DS even more because of its truly generous options. What do you think, readers? How far should game designers let you tweak their games to ensure you play the best game you can?

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Ceci N'Est Pas Une 1-Up: The Surrealist Future of Postpunk Gaming

John Constantine — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:30:00 GMT

While reading Rip It Up and Start Again, Simon Reynolds’ sharp history of postpunk, I started thinking about videogames. I’m nothing if not predictable, I know. There’s a slight corollary between the gaming zeitgeist and punk rock. Not politically, of course. Videogames are, at least popularly, more conservative today than they’ve ever been. Just look at Bobby Kotick’s reasoning for dropping Brutal Legend and Ghostbusters from Activision’s release schedule: "[Those games] don't have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises.” I realize that Activision is in the business of making money and not artifacts to inspire the human soul, but publicly stating that your publishing ethos is assembly-line-production makes it difficult to assess the creative merits of Guitar Hero: Buy This One Too, Just ‘Cause.

No, videogames in 2008 are, like punk rock in 1974, taking a medium that’s become marked by excess and stripping it back to its most basic. Even beyond Capcom’s retro efforts and traditional two-dimensional, genre exercises (Braid, Castle Crashers) on Xbox Live, designers like DICE are trying to keep games simple and raw. Mirror’s Edge, for all of its visual polish, uses only three buttons for the bulk of its action and the game’s goals are uncomplicated (run to, run away.) Games are also trying to put the power of creation back into the audience’s hands. Halo 3’s Forge, LittleBigPlanet, and Maxis’ Spore might not be putting players into the guts of design, but they are inlets for everyone to make their own games. You don’t need to know how to play guitar to rock, and you don’t need to know C++, or draw, or write to make a game. Add these mainstream juggernauts to the booming independent dev scene, the confrontational tedium of games like No More Heroes (as Goichi Suda says, punk’s not dead,) and we may look back on the 2010s as gaming’s punk rock era. But how does punk lead to postpunk, the rebellion of aestheticism through the surreal and the futurist against the simplistic and traditional? What would that game even look like?

Modern gaming’s genesis came during postpunk’s six year lifespan and the two, strangely enough, shared many of the same audio/visual tics. But where postpunk’s visual tendency toward angular, primary colored geometry and aural predilection for jittery electronics and propulsive bass lines were born of artistic statement, videogames came to them out of necessity. This is why envisioning a surrealist gaming experience is problematic; the hallmarks of surreal a/v media are traditionalist hallmarks in games. While a game like Deus Ex Machina, Mel Croucher’s 1984 Spectrum title – a game that could very well have been a Fast Product Records release a few years before – look like ready examples of surrealist design, but were it released today, it would look like little more than retro fetishism. In order for a game to be successfully surrealist, its mode of expression will have to be tied directly to play and not traditional presentation. The game has to subvert expectation based on established mechanical tropes to garner the desired subconscious effect. The seeds for this are out there, in places you might not expect. Mario tends to be associated with childlike psychedelia, but the manipulation of perspective and gravity in Super Mario Galaxy are a larval form of potential surrealist play; for twenty years, Mario would die if he jumped into a void, and here the void propels him to new heights.

A game can be most anything the designer wants it to be. In the coming years, the most difficult task for both designers and players will be looking backward, seeing what games are and have been, and figuring how they can break them to create something brand new for the future. Punk play to postpunk to whatever comes next. Now if only we could figure out how to get the vital social commentary in there…

(Thanks to 1UP for the Bobby Kotick quote and Edge Online for the Deus Ex Machina retrospective)

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Easy Access

Nintendo Might Just Hate You

John Constantine — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:15:00 GMT

The Nintendo Press Conference back at the beginning of October was, as Bob so precisely put it at the time, a bit like Christmas for the Nintendo faithful. The reveal of new Punch-Out! and Sin & Punishment games and a recommitment to Trace Memory (one of the publisher’s scant few newborn IPs) certainly made the old Nintendo fanboy inside me stir for the first time in a couple of years. The announcement of Nintendo’s Play On Wii line of re-appropriated Gamecube games featuring tacked on Wii controls gave me pause though. It’s a very good thing to give games like Metroid Prime, Pikmin, and Chibi-Robo a new print run considering that there are literal millions of Wii owners who never had the chance to try them out on their initial release (or don’t know they can walk into any Gamestop in the country and pay fifteen dollars total for all three.) But will they be full price? Should they be? Will any new content offered be made available to owners of the original games?

On the one hand, giving Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat another chance at life makes it seem like Nintendo loves you. Adding new levels makes it seem like they really, really love you. Yoshiaki Koizumi and EAD Tokyo’s debut platformer, the game that led to their making Super Mario Galaxy, is one of the Gamecube’s best. A tricky game of skill with gorgeous aesthetics, it was the showcase for the woefully underutilized bongo controllers. Like many Wii games, the controller made the game utterly unique. Of course, the fact that Nintendo is completely redesigning the controls for the re-release, and not confirming that game will remain compatible with the bongos, would imply that Nintendo might hate you. Not having the internal memory on the Wii to allow for a software update letting current owners of Jungle Beat enjoy the new levels and controls would also seem to indicate that Nintendo hates you.

What do you make of this, dear reader? Does stripping Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat of its tactile personality offend you or is it not that big a deal? Let me know in the comments.

(Link: Famitsu via IGN)

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Brave New Super Mario World

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:20:00 GMT

A couple of days ago I posted my own ideas for "freshening up" the Zelda franchise. They were minor suggestions, at least compared to some other ideas I've seen 'round the fandom (how do you feel about Zelda steampunk?), but even minor suggestions are necessary. A collect-a-thon while you're wearing a wolf pelt is still a collect-a-thon.

Miyamoto knows he needs to give Zelda a bit of a spit-shine, and he said the same about Super Mario Galaxy. It's true that Twilight Princess was a bit close to Ocarina of Time in ways, but Super Mario Galaxy was, for me, a pretty unique experience--or if there's some game out there that lets you relive anything close to the space-faring adventures of The Little Prince, by all means please let me know.

That said, how do we get more "original" than forcing Mario to stomp Koopas while he's hanging upside-down?

By special request, I am going to stand up and yell my opinion once again. I personally would like to see the elimination of the "level hub". In Mario 64, you had to reach levels by jumping through paintings situated around Princess Peach's castle. At the time, it gave us a real sense of exploration and freedom. In Super Mario Sunshine, the sunny Delphino Square served as a level hub and it was less thrilling--especially since Mario was somehow travelling to other parts of the island by jumping through appointed walls instead of visiting new worlds within a world.

Super Mario Galaxy's space station hub didn't feel nearly as sloppy. It makes sense that we'd visit other planets from a space station, right? Even a space station made of gingersnaps and candy?

Alas, it was still a hub, thus pulling me out of the world I had chosen to explore and forcing my groove to change direction. That, and it was also kind disappointed that Mario accessed planets through Princess Rosalina's kitchen and bedroom, but we never got to see her bathroom. I'm not a pervert, I just wanted to see if her toilet was made of marshmallows.

It'd be interesting if Mario returned to a progression of levels within world maps, not unlike Super Mario Bros 3. Then again, Super Mario World used the same idea, as did New Super Mario Bros. We'd rejoice the return, then get tired of it within a couple of games.

Maybe Nintendo should switch its methods of world navigation. Gamers wouldn't notice the pattern: we have short attention spans. Bunny bunny bunny...

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Not Quite 4D, But Close: The History of 3D Gaming

John Constantine — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Videogames were born into a flat, two-dimensional perspective and they are bound to an inherently two-dimensional delivery system, but, from their inception half a century ago, they have been trying their damndest to simulate a bonafide world of depth. For half their lifetime, games have let us move into a world instead of just on it and, today, the simulation can be almost unsettlingly real. The racing tracks of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, the jungles and glaciers of Crysis, not to mention Far Cry 2’s African savannah, all feel like our world, even when they don’t behave exactly like it. After all, cars tend to crumple when they run into other cars, and grass tends to bend and warp when you step on it. (Not to mention the lack of robots and aliens in real life. Oh, and getting shot will kill you, not force you to hunt for a medpack.) But even full fantasy landscapes like the lush solar-systems-in-miniature of Super Mario Galaxy create a familiar sense of space. It has been a long, difficult journey to get to this point, though. Edge Online is running a fascinating, densely technical, history of 3D in games and it’s an eye-opening read. The only thing missing from the overview is a footnote in gaming history, but is important all the same.

Rick Dyer, the designer behind Don Bluth’s lushly animated Dragon’s Lair, made Hologram Time Traveler in 1991. Time Traveler sucked. Its timed button presses meant to be gameplay were unforgiving to say the least. But the technology created some impressive three-dimensional illusions. An FMV game with actors playing cowboys, Indians, and all sorts of baddies, it was projected through a CRT television surrounded by an enormous half-dome mirror that turned the characters into mock-holographic objects. Why was this crappy little curiosity an important moment in 3D game design? Because if Miyamoto has his way, holograms will be back in a big way come Wii3.

Check out the article right here.

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Whatcha Playing: de Blob

Cole Stryker — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Just a few short days ago, I was "Whatcha Playing" Secret of Evermore. That is, until de Blob arrived in my mailbox. It's a delightful romp through an increasingly complex and challenging environment, where just a few basic skills are utilized in clever ways. In short, this game is everything that Super Mario Galaxy should have been, but wasn't.

If there were any justice in the world, this game would outsell that old plumber's celestial adventure, because it's much more approachable, smart, and rewarding. Sadly, with that goofy French-sounding title (What were they thinking?), it will likely be lumped in with the dozens of colorful also-ran platformers vying for your holiday dollars. It's a shame, because I think it's the Best Wii Game Yet.

It's like Katamari Damacy meets Jet Grind Radio. Roll and bounce around, paint all the gray surfaces different colors. It appeals to one's OCD like nothing since Diablo. You won't be able to put it down until you've made sure every inch of gray has been splashed with color. If you have a Wii than you'd better buy this. Otherwise it's time to turn in your Serious Gamer card.

No Alternate Soundtrack: de Blob

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:00:00 GMT

I can't stop playing de Blob. I've tried, honestly I have, but I'm convinced that de Blob will maintain control of my home console gaming time until LittleBigPlanet arrives and is likely for a powerful comeback even after that. Yes, as an art school graduate, I find a certain nostalgic rush in a game where the story involves splattering paint around a sprawling metropolis in order to take down an overbearing corporation with a military dictatorship over the land, and yes, the game's bright and enthusiastic roll-into-everything gameplay brings back the charm of the original Katamari Damacy, and yes, this game has easily the best art direction I've seen on the Wii since Super Mario Galaxy, but I'm not sure that those are what keep me coming back every day (though that is certainly enough, I imagine). No, what keeps me coming back, oddly enough, is the music.

In true "fight the power" fashion, bringing color to the world of Chroma City also brings music. Each color of paint is a different voice in the song, so the more purple in an area of town, the more electric guitar you'll hear. As you paint the town, the soundtrack grows and swells in perfect harmony. Each restored landmark brings with it another enthusiastic section of the orchestra, and each ink stain muffles the glorious light and sound in its vignetted black chokehold. About halfway through any given stage I find myself tapping my foot and shifting my hips to the beat (I always play Wii standing up, I have no idea why). It's really an aspect of the game that needs to be experienced. Here's a little demo courtesy of the cool kids over at GoNintendo of just the first section (of three) of the second area in the game (please feel free to skip around, as its a bit slow-going):

Notice how vibrantly the soundtrack changed from beginning to end. Need I reiterate, that's just the first third of the stage. Imagine how lively this can get by the time you've reached the exit pool. The music integration is a truly compelling element to the gameplay that drives me to complete every challenge I can and paint every surface I can in as many colors as I can on a daily basis. I cannot imagine this game being half as much fun without the music and sounds. If you have a Wii, go get de Blob, and play it with the volume cranked up.

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Top Ten: Favorite Bosses part 2

Amber Ahlborn — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:00:00 GMT

The first arcade game to sport a boss fight was Phoenix, which was released in 1980. While most people were probably playing Space Invaders, I was playing Phoenix on my Atari 2600. Boss encounters have come a long way since the days of yore, displaying wonderful variety and imagination. The last five on my list go far to demonstrate just how unusual these encounters can be.

!! Spoilers Ahoy !!

5. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus – Ms. Ruby: And now for something totally different. The bosses in Sly Cooper are mostly of the indirect or puzzle kind, each requiring a different approach. Ms. Ruby, the Voodoo Priestess Alligator is especially unique, mixing a rhythm game into a boss encounter. It's a load of fun to “Dig that Voo doo”.

4. Shadow of the Colossus – Phalanx: I would be remiss to create a list of favorite bosses and make no mention of a game that consists of nothing but grand scale boss fights. Phalanx is a gigantic flying serpent, held aloft by sacs filled with lighter than air gas. Since it doesn't attack, it takes well fired arrows, frantic riding, and well aimed jumps on your part just to get a hold of the thing. Frankly, I always felt like a jerk knocking this graceful beast out of the skies. Of course, being a jerk didn't stop my loving every minute of it.

3. Pikmin 2 – Empress Bulblax: We go from normal sized dude fighting giant enemies to tiny dudes fighting, er, giant enemies. Both Pikmin titles have great boss fights but I picked the Empress to represent. I'm not sure why she sticks in my mind other than I think “Termite Queen” every time I see her. This grotesquely bloated and pulsating monster is one bad momma, sending waves of her own offspring after you. But what kind of mother squishes her own kids?

2. Metroid Prime 2 Echoes – Quadraxis: If you know anything about me, you knew this one was coming. Both Echoes and Prime overflow with high caliber bosses that are challenging, fun, and require thought to take down but Quadraxis takes it to the limit. I have a real soft spot for this mechanical monstrosity. Quadraxis demands that you really work Samus' arsenal of weapons and tools to destroy it. Besides, it just looks dern cool.

Of course, this guy makes it look so easy :P

1. Super Mario Galaxy – Bowser: Bowser is all grown up for his second appearance on my list. Frankly, he's not a tough guy to beat but the Bowser fights in Super Mario Galaxy are a blast to play and the music is fantastic. Actually, it's the music that really seals the deal for me on my choice of Bowser on this list. That epic track adds so much to the aura of grandiose combat that it deserves its own mention. Now that's the way to score a battle.

Related Links:

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No Alternate Soundtrack: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Nearly a full year before the first Guitar Hero introduced gamers to the now all-too familiar concept of game controllers shaped like musical instruments, Nintendo released Donkey Kong Jungle Beat for the Gamecube worldwide. The game was a platformer in the vein of Donkey Kong Country that overlooked the Gamecube controller in favor of the DK Bongo peripheral used earlier for Donkey Konga, a rhythm game that aped (oh god, sorry about that) its own development team's Taiko Drum Master series of games. Rather than come off as gimmicky as a result of this peripheral use, though, Jungle Beat felt fresh and intuitive and was praised by critics for its innovation. Years before the Wii would get gamers off their butts, Jungle Beat was moving players and causing them to work up a sweat, all while playing a traditional platformer.

It couldn't have been much simpler. To move DK left, you tapped the left bongo. To move right, tap right. Hit both the jump. Clap or hit the sides of the bongos to cause DK to pound his chest, which sent out powerful vibrations. That was pretty much it, with a few more specialized moves taught along the way. Incredibly easy to learn, and so thoroughly well designed that there was never a dry well of possibility in the adventure. The music in the game itself was typical Donkey Kong Country fair, but none of that mattered because the sounds of the game were utterly muffled by the slaps, pounds and claps of yourself, the player, getting downright primal in your control of the hairy hero. Yes, the bongo controls were merely remapped Gamecube controller button presses, so you could play more quietly with a standard controller, but that defeated the entire purpose of the game, and sucked a huge chunk of the fun out.

If your palms aren't sore watching that video, you obviously haven't played this game yet.

Three reasons to pick up Donkey Kong Jungle Beat:

1 - It was the first game developed by Nintendo's EAD Software Group Tokyo development team. Their second game? Super Mario Galaxy.

2 - It's a workout. Your muscles will be more sore after three kingdoms of Jungle Beat than several hours of intense Wii Sports. The only other video game to make me sweat this much has been Wii Fit, specifically the long runs around the island. Plus, as it's actually a traditional game and not a casual sports/fitness simulation, you'll feel like you're actually accomplishing something.

3 - As a Gamecube game (which still plays on your Wii just fine), it's dirt cheap these days. I was able to get both the bongos and the game brand-new for under twenty dollars total.

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The Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Soundtrack - An Inside Look

Peter Smith — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:00:00 GMT

In this exclusive follow-up to our interview with Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix soundtrack producers David "djpretzel" Lloyd and Larry "Liontamer" Oji, djpretzel himself gives us a breakdown of four tracks from the game:

E. Honda 'Dosu-Koi'
djpretzel

"This was the track that I set my sights on early in the process. McVaffe has had an excellent mix of this track on OCR for a long while, modeled after Madonna's song 'Music,' but Capcom weren't feeling it for in-game usage, so I decided to take a shot. My initial version was way too aggressive, and got the hundred-hand slapdown itself, but I went back to the drawing board and did something mellower, with more of an emphasis on Asian instrumentation. There's shamisen, koto, shakuhachi, AND taiko in there, so it's got the 'big four' of Japanese instruments (more or less) and is more appropriate to the sumo bath house setting."

Guile 'Combat and Service'
Big Giant Circles, Justin R. Coleman

"Jimmy Hinson, alias Big Giant Circles, put together a really kicking take on Guile's theme, which is definitely one of the classics off the soundtrack. Capcom generally dug what he was doing, but were iffy on the lead synthesizer sound, and wanted something different. Jimmy got Justin to lay down an electric guitar lead that added some rock edge to the more electronic backdrop, achieving a good blend that Capcom gave the green light."

Ken / Online Menu 'Clamato Fever'
AE, Prozax

"While Sixto Sounds did the version of Ken's stage that's actually used in the game, Capcom wanted something special just for the online menus and the title screen, since users spend a good amount of time setting up matches, checking rankings, and tweaking options. Alex Esquivel (AE) and Dan Orosz (Prozax) put together an alternate take on the Ken theme that works perfectly for this context. The first time I fired up the beta and heard it, I just smiled — they nailed it! As an interesting side note, AE learned about the game through other channels and contacted Capcom directly, and was a little surprised to be redirected to Shael, Malcos and I to coordinate his involvement. Everything worked out, though, and I'm glad Alex and Dan were included in the long lineup of OC ReMix artists."

Zangief 'Red Cyclone'
The Grammar Club

"Shael Riley's been mixing humor, VGM, rock, and anything else he cares to throw in for a long time now, and his latest project is The Grammar Club, a band that's been making waves with their album Bremelanotide. The fellows put together a rock arrangement of Zangief's theme that's unique on the soundtrack for being a little less refined and more in-your-face, New York garage style. When I think Zangief, I certainly don't think 'refined,' so this ballsier type of production worked really well."

61FPS Q&A: David Lloyd and Larry Oji of OC ReMix on the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Soundtrack (Part 2)

Peter Smith — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:00:00 GMT

What are some of your favorite game soundtracks? Favorite composers?
djpretzel: Yuzo Koshiro, Dave Wise, Yasunori Mitsuda, Tokuhiko Uwabo, and Koji Kondo are all amazing... Super Castlevania IV, Revenge of Shinobi, Lunar (Sega CD version!!), Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, Final Fantasy VI , Mega Man II, and Super Mario Galaxy are my favorite game scores at the moment.

Larry Oji: Favorite soundtracks and composers tend to go hand in hand. I'm a big fan of Koji Kondo's work on the Super Mario series, Masato Nakamura's on the Sonic the Hedgehog series (Sonic 3 & Knuckles, though not his, was excellent too), Alph Lyra for the Street Fighter II series, David Wise for Donkey Kong Country and Battletoads, Kazunaka Yamane for the Double Dragon series, and Yuzo Koshiro for the Streets of Rage series. That covers a lot of the games I played as a kid. Since learning more about the history of game music, I love so much stuff now, I can't even rattle it off. But my second-favorite composer, little known in the States, is Yasuhisa "Yack" Watanabe. His stuff is a lot more known in Japan, including as a member of Taito's Zuntata group, but almost no one tries to arrange his material; it's pretty far out there, so I can understand why. Sometimes his stuff doesn't resonate with me, but he's put out some incredible compositions. Then my personal favorite is British composer Tim Follin, whose nearly two-decade career composing for games was unparalleled, as far as what I've personally enjoyed. Check out his compositions for Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Solstice, Spider-Man and the X-Men: Arcade's Revenge and Silver Surfer. He always strove for creative techniques and cool textures with his chiptunes. Plus, his modern soundtracks like Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future and Lemmings for the PSP were equally impressive. I've been slowly plugging away at a small OC ReMix album project paying tribute to his work, so before the end of this year, Dirge for the Follin should finally be out there, lamenting the fact that he retired from the industry.

Do you prefer the old-school chiptune style, or are you more into the CD-audio present?
djpretzel: I prefer the melodies and compositional approach of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras coupled with more modern production aesthetics; in other words, I like slick production, but only when it's paired up with a great melody. Which is not to say that game composers of today aren't writing great melodies, just that the limitations of earlier consoles meant that almost every piece needed to survive on compositional strength as opposed to production values.

Larry Oji: I've got no major preference. The only bias I have is that I grew up with chiptunes, so there's going to be some nostalgia pushing me to those. But modern stuff holds up a lot better to active listening. Either way. [pauses] Was that a cop out? ... All right, let's go with modern stuff. I actually prefer the melodies that were written in the chiptune days. But modern music has the potential for great writing as well, combined with higher quality sounds. Some fans feel there's an inherent compositional quality trade-off in newer videogame music compared to the older stuff, but I believe the best of the modern stuff is simply more elusive. Besides, people tend to gloss over the fact that not every chiptune was amazing back then either.

What do you think of the recent trend towards contextual music? In old Zelda, you'd just have a melody looping for the whole time you were in a dungeon. Now, you often just have ambient effects and then an "action" motif when you approach an enemy.
djpretzel: Well, I think most good game music, even very old stuff, is still contextual on some level — it still makes sense for the environment. But more recently the focus/buzz has been on making that contextuality of a more real-time, responsive nature, as opposed to the loops you mention. In essence, this makes the experience more cinematic, with the score reacting to players' actions just like a well-cued Hollywood soundtrack would. For FMV sequences in games, obviously, this is nothing new and has been the standard for years. The challenge is in maintaining that very polished interactivity once a user's actions become unpredictable. There are different ways of accomplishing this, including triggered motifs like you mention. I think it's all very interesting and exciting, but I also think we need to take a step back once in awhile and remember that games are a different medium from movies, and that emulating them is an option, but not the only option. Who's to say that looped melodies a la Zelda and older 8-bit titles don't make complete sense for certain games or genres? Game creators are creating interactive worlds... those worlds can resemble a film experience, and if that's the goal, then responsive, interactive scores are perfect. But the true art of game creation, to me, is remembering that there aren't any limits, that conventions of all other mediums can and should be bent or broken, and thus I think too much emphasis on targeting a cinematic experience could be dangerous. In essence, I think this trend is very positive, so long as it expands the arsenal of approaches to music in games, rather than narrows it.

How about the shift from short melodies to more expanded or moodier compositions? The difference between, y'know, Zelda II's Palace theme and Ocarina of Time's Forest Temple theme?
djpretzel: This is totally natural; audio and music have progressed alongside graphics and other technical aspects of console hardware and gaming, and more ornate and varied compositions flow from those progressions. With Ocarina, you've no longer got a limited palette of bright colors on screen, you've got a fully 3D world, and it'd be odd if the music didn't match. This sometimes means the number of "hummable" tracks on a game soundtrack is reduced in favor of more ambient, atmospheric fare, but it's usually right for the game, and composers like Koji Kondo in particular can almost always hit a balance between "song" or theme tracks and more environmental, BGM stuff.

How did you meet up with Capcom on Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix?
djpretzel: OCR is mostly about individual mixes, but every once in awhile we release album projects, where artists get together and focus on a specific game, composer, etc. We've released albums for Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country and most notably Final Fantasy VII with our Voices of the Lifestream album in 2007. Shael Riley and Stephen Malcom-Howell (a.k.a. Malcos), two veteran OC ReMixers, put together an album of Super Street Fighter II Turbo mixes called Blood on the Asphalt back in 2006. Capcom found the album online and contacted Shael, who in turn referred them to me. At first we were actually suspicious of being Punk'd or something, since it was such an amazing opportunity, but once we confirmed it was legit, we obviously jumped at the chance.

The HD Remix soundtrack is based on Blood on the Asphalt, but it's not exactly the same. What are some of the changes?
Larry Oji: Firstly, I definitely need to stress that the remixers didn't do any mere drag-and-drop jobs on these. A lot of the pre-existing arrangements selected for inclusion on HD Remix were full-on, four-to-five-minute arrangements with original sections, solos and so forth, which doesn't fly in Street Fighter II. So everything's been edited down to a more standard sixty-to-ninety seconds and looped, focusing on the core of each theme to work like the old-school themes did. Dave had to handle relaying all of the desired modifications handed down by Capcom to the artists and got a variety of requests. This is where he gets music-nerdy!

djpretzel: In addition to length and formatting requirements, Capcom had some very specific feedback, and some comments that were more general in nature. In certain instances they wanted individual instruments changed out, tempo increased by a few beats per minute, or other modifications to production that were very easy for artists to implement. Other times, they were looking more for a different feel, or more subjective changes to texture, which were more challenging. We were blessed with a pretty long development cycle, so we had a lot of time to present different versions/permutations of each track and go through an iterative process.

Where are you getting the themes that aren't originally from the album? Are these all new remixes?
Larry Oji: Along with eight edits of mixes from Blood on the Asphalt, three of the seventeen character themes are modified versions of other OC ReMixes. That left six themes with all-new takes, as well as nearly all new material for the fast versions of all the character themes, character endings and other assorted themes, with everything provided by our crew of remixers. Gotta give props to José E. Felix (a.k.a. José the Bronx Rican) for coming through in a big way with nearly every ending theme besides providing both the Dee Jay and Vega themes!

What've your production duties been like on the soundtrack?
Larry Oji: I'm a detail-oriented person, more behind the scenes. Dave functioned as the lead producer and director for the soundtrack, serving as the point of contact with game producer Rey Jimenez and Capcom to keep things streamlined on the communications side. He handled the legal stuff, as well as ensuring Capcom had all of the remixers' latest work as things progressed. I handled contacting remixers that were difficult to get a hold of in order to secure some pre-existing tracks, recruited and provided critique for some of the new music, and helped keep track of smaller details with all of our personnel. Even stuff like preparing our credits list for the game and getting new track titles for all of the remixed themes, I enjoy making sure the finer things are in place at the ground level, while Dave works with the big picture. If you had told me back when I played Street Fighter II in my friend's basement that I'd be in the credits of a game in the series nearly two decades later, I wouldn't believe it. It's an honor to help coordinate something that will always be a part of a historic franchise, especially Street Fighter, the one that truly pulled me into game music beyond being a casual fan.

djpretzel: Working with Capcom was truly awesome. We brought our fandom — the way we express ourselves through mixing/arrangement — full circle, right back to a commercial product that is itself a remix of an absolutely classic game... it's very meta, when you think about it. I think it's something that could only have happened in a post-internet environment, with a company that was groovy enough to realize their fans could play a meaningful role. Mods, user-generated content, etc. have been around awhile, but I think there's often an artificial wall — "this is the official content, this is the fan stuff" — that segregates things. This project tears down that wall, at least for game music, and integrates the two, without emphasizing the distinction. I think that's a fantastic precedent to be setting, and I'm proud OverClocked ReMix was involved!

Click here for Part 1! And check back tomorrow for a detailed look at the four all-new themes on the SSF2THD soundtrack!

61FPS Q&A: David Lloyd and Larry Oji of OC ReMix on the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Soundtrack (Part 1)

Peter Smith — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Here at 61FPS, we couldn't be more excited about the upcoming Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. So it's with great pleasure that we present our in-depth Q&A with David "djpretzel" Lloyd and Larry "Liontamer" Oji, of the definitive game-music remix site, OC ReMix. In a deliciously fan-friendly turn of events, OC ReMix was tapped to produce the music for SSF2THD — and we've got the inside scoop on this glorious reimagining of one of the greatest game soundtracks ever. We also took the opportunity to chat with these gurus on a wide range of game-music-related topics. Enjoy!

David, can you tell us about founding OC ReMix?
David W. Lloyd (djpretzel): Way back in 1999, I was making a 3D comic strip dedicated to the emulation scene called "OverClocked" — a few episodes were actually pretty funny, and it played a part in popularizing the whole "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" craze, but it was also a way for me to get better at Photoshop and 3D Studio MAX. I wanted something I could work on for music as well, to get better at composing, arranging and producing; I had this idea to do videogame arrangements of my own, but also to open it up to others. At the time, there were sites which were specific to Commodore 64 games, and which focused on techno mixes, but nothing that was more open-ended. I wanted a website that encouraged jazz, classical, rap, rock and anything else, in addition to electronica genres, and which allowed arrangements from computer games, console games, handheld games and arcade games alike. There was nothing like that in existence, so I figured I'd start something myself. "OverClocked ReMix" started as a side-project to "OverClocked" the comic strip, but eventually became a hundred times bigger. In the early days, I was like a door-to-door salesman, emailing people asking for their permission to post their mixes on the site, but once it grew large enough, people started sending us stuff. Eventually there were so many submissions that we needed to create a judges panel and more official guidelines/standards, which really helped clarify what we're all about — interpretive arrangements, not just the original with drum loops on top. The rest, as they say, is history!

Larry, how did you get involved with the OC ReMix community?
Larry Oji (Liontamer): I love hearing stories on how people have found the site, and I share mine when I can in order to encourage people to check out everything OCR has. I did college radio at Emory University 's WMRE in Atlanta, where I loved playing video game music on my shows alongside mainstream music, mostly Britpop stuff. A friend of mind as well as a casual gamer and fellow DJ, Matt Kertz, saw that I played videogame music and recommended that I check out what was then remix.overclocked.org in early 2002. That was my first exposure to the site. The site was only two years old at the time and had more than 500 mixes by that point; I downloaded about thirty, sticking only with the few games I grew up with, and was extremely happy. But I didn't follow the site closely or try anything from games I had no history with, which was a huge mistake.

Luckily for me, I told my best friend Joe Mauri about the site and he downloaded everything OC ReMix had. If he hadn't done that, I wouldn't be where I am today. That summer, I sat down at his computer, listened to all the free remixes one by one over three days, and was simply amazed at how creative everything was. Even the games I wasn't familiar with had some amazing themes that were being remixed, and I ended up doing the research and downloading chiptunes of the original tracks to better understand what inspired the remixes. So it was a great crash course in the history of videogame music, and from that point on I was hooked. I shifted my radio show's format to videogame music exclusively, and volunteered for the site by filling in the database with info on remixers, composers and songs. I also grew as a music critic to the point where I was invited to join the site's judges panel in July 2004, where I help evaluate submitted material. Listening to music and spreading the word on OCR is one of the most enjoyable jobs I can think of.

Let's talk about game music in general. What got you into game music?
djpretzel: My earliest VGM memory would be the happy little tunes in Smurfs for the Colecovision and Dream House for the C64. The use of the Peter Gunn theme in Spy Hunter, also for the C64, was pretty classic as well. But it was really the Sega Master System that got me hooked — I loved the music from Alex Kidd, Shinobi and Space Harrier so much that I recorded the output of the console to tape and, sadly, did my own lame seven-year-old's version of DJing between tracks. To the best of my knowledge, those tapes are long gone, which I'm more than okay with from a human-dignity perspective, but they nevertheless represented my first steps into actually interacting with VGM.

Larry Oji: My earliest days of gaming were with the NES with a tiny bit of Master System. The SNES and Sega Genesis came a little later, so all of those systems planted the seeds. I didn't own too many titles, but I loved a lot of the soundtracks I heard. Super Mario Bros. 3 was the epitome of an excellent game and Koji Kondo's music from it was no exception. The first Donkey Kong Country on the SNES was amazing to me as well, and I loved the Streets of Rage and Sonic the Hedgehog series on the Genesis side. I can't forget Street Fighter II either. That was first in a long line of Street Fighter games that stuck with me, even when I didn't realize how immersed in game music I'd be down the line. It goes without saying, but the best games truly have a synergy going on between the gameplay and soundtrack that provides the total package.

What do you love about game music?
Larry Oji: The music from the games I grew up with had some of the best melodies and hooks imaginable. And the tunes had such range in terms of genres. As a kid, I obviously didn't think about it on a scholarly level, but I subconsciously latched onto the depth that videogame music possessed. Think about the range when you compare the soundtracks of Super Mario Bros. to Double Dragon to Road Rash. The 16-bit era, especially the SNES, was a big step up in realizing game music's potential, thanks to the wider array of sounds and more complex textures. The best composers really didn't put those extra resources to waste. The thing I love most is that game music is a medium and not a genre; game music can, and often does, involve any and all genres, so you get a flavor for all sorts of styles if you keep your ears and mind open. The fact that many game themes are malleable and can be reinterpreted makes me love game music that much more. Every time I hear an OC ReMixer take a theme and transform it into something fresh that I wouldn't expect, it validates being a fan of the medium.

djpretzel: ...what he said. It's worth mentioning that I'm a big fan of soundtracks in general — film, television, anime, etc. — and that contextual music that's part of a larger work always has a certain appeal for me. With almost all other mediums, though, it's a linear, non-interactive experience, so you only hear certain themes once or twice. With game music, because it's interactive, and because you can end up hearing the same piece ad infinitum, I think there's a much stronger mental association between the music and what it represents. A classic example for me would be the first town theme from Lunar for the Sega CD — every time I hear it, I can envision the town layout in great detail and feel like I'm there. You can get that type of strong association with film scores and even non-soundtrack material, sure, but I find it happens more often with VGM. This of course requires that you've actually played the game the music is from, though, which isn't necessary at all just to enjoy the music at face value!

Click here for Part 2!

Sonic Unleashed Wii: Should Dimps Be Trying Harder?

Nadia Oxford — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Sonic the Hedgehog has the pull of a train wreck: no matter how tired you think you are of his lacklustre 3D adventures, you can't help but take a good long stare whenever one is announced.

Sonic Unleashed, for example, exists only as a handful of screenshots and a couple of trailers, but gamers who insist they're thoroughly tired of the hedgehog are still finding plenty to mouth off about. The August issue of Nintendo Power created a stir with some new screenshots for the Wii version of the game. When compared to the preview material for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions, Sonic Unleashed for the Wii looks very...well, last gen.

Dimps, the company responsible for modern 2D Sonic titles like Sonic Rush Adventure, will be handling the level design for the Playstation 2 and Wii adaptations of Sonic Unleashed. Dimps' track record is pretty excellent; it's co-developing Street Fighter IV and it also developed a game called Rumble Fish (I've never played it, but any reference to S.E. Hinton is a-okay by me). I don't doubt that if Sonic Unleashed turns out decent, it'll turn out decent all across the board. But going by screenshot comparisons, it looks as if Dimps is doing the usual Wii phone-in, which involves one part Playstation 2 port and one part waggle.

This is especially disappointing considering Sonic and the Secret Rings not only looked good, it was developed around the Wii, not hammered into it. The Wii might not have the power of the Playstation 3 or 360, but let's face it, Super Mario Galaxy was not a bad looking game.

Regardless, screenshots tell very little about a game these days. Something that looks unimpressive in still-frame is wholly capable of blowing away the world when in motion. Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, anyone?

We'll just have to see how things go.

Related links:

Trailer Review: Sonic Unleashed
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
Alternate Soundtrack: Sonic the Hedgehog vs. Ratatat