Mario – Page 15

100% completion

I bought the final issue of Nintendo Power this week, and began flipping through it an hour ago. You know how they say that when you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes? Well, I had a feeling that I can only describe like that: going through the pages, looking at the features on the history of Nintendo Power, scanning the included poster that features the cover of every issue, it was like looking back through a summary of my entire life. It was beautiful and chilling at the same time.

Is it sad that I can trace my life through a series of 285 magazines? I haven’t even read them all, but you could pick almost any point in my life and I could tell you what I was reading about in Nintendo Power at that time, within roughly two months. I haven’t been a subscriber for a few years now, but I always made a point to pick up an issue every few months for the sake of tradition, if nothing else. the worst part of it all is that a couple years ago I actually offloaded my entire NP collection, and now that the nostalgia bug is biting, it’s killing me that I don’t have them to go back to and reminisce with. I’d kill for a complete set, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t think it would be the same if it wasn’t my collection. Sure, pretty much every issue I had before volume 92 (Yes, I know that specifically. It’s the Shadows of the Empire issue. I got the Dash Rendar cover.) was in tatters, but I guess that’s part of what made them so special to me, weird as it may be. All the articles would be the same, but it just wouldn’t be the same. You know what I mean?

And now that I’m thinking about it, I actually have Amazon open in another tab, seeing how much people are charging for their old issues. As long as you’re not looking for mint copies, the average asking price seems to be around $3, which would cost me roughly… $855. Before Shipping. Yeah, I need to get away from Amazon. Now. Not to mention the time it would take to order each one individually… Also issue #1 doesn’t go for any less than $200. Drat. I certainly don’t have that kind of cash.

Anyway, reading this magazine has simultaneously made me sad and filled me with warm fuzzies. I kind of hate nostalgia because it affects me so strongly. I’m going to be mopey about the loss of Nintendo Power for weeks now. The worst part is that recent Nintendo Power hasn’t really been the Nintendo Power that I grew up with. It’s a completely different magazine than it was even midway through its run, but I still loved it dearly. Checking the mail every single day when a new month rolled around. Absorbing each and every word printed between the covers -twice- the day it finally arrived. Reading that three-part Secret of Mana feature over and over and over again. Poring over the maps and strategies so that I knew games inside and out before even playing them. There are a handful of games to this day that I’ve never played but vividly remember because I soaked in so much information about them via the pages of Nintendo Power. It was a huge part of my ~~childhood~~ life, but I suppose all good things have to come to an end eventually.

I’m just glad that they did up one final Nester comic for the last issue. It’s the best sendoff the magazine could have hoped for.

I’ve got a friend, her name is Boxcar

Guys, Wii U. Oh man, Wii U.

For a thing I wasn’t entirely sold on before launch, it has very handily dominated the last week-plus of my life. And I’m okay with that, because man is it ever fun. I’m not even talking about the games there! The system is just fun to play with. It’s a little on the slow side; everything takes a good five to ten seconds to load, but I don’t find it nearly as annoying as some. Just sitting on the main menu, with all the Miis milling about, it’s kinda hypnotizing. And then the Miiverse posts start popping up.

Miiverse is… What’s the best way to describe it? I finally get how people can get addicted to Twitter. It’s like Nintentwitter: made up of tens of thousands of Nintendo Power envelope artist wannabes and infinitely easier to parse than actual Twitter. It’s plenty of fun to sift through Miiverse posts to look at the funny screenshots and beautiful drawings that people have posted to it, and it’s very fulfilling to help people out who have posted about how they’re stuck somewhere in a game. Currently only Nintendo Land and New Super Mario Bros U are completely integrated, but once more developers make their games with it in mind, I think that Miiverse is going to be a real game-changer. I’ve been on Facebook for years now, but have never enjoyed the experience as much as I have with the last week with Miiverse.

Also of note is that the Wii U internet browser is excellent. Nothing beats an actual computer for surfing the webs, but as far as game console/handhelds go, the Wii U’s internets browser is leaps and bounds beyond the rest. The YouTube app that comes installed on the system is nowhere near as good as simply using the browser for your YouTubing. This comes as a great relief to me, as my TV’s YouTube app is garbage, and only really usable when linked up with my iPhone. Now I just boot up the Wii U and I’ve got a perfect YouTube experience on my gigantic television. There are fewer things that could make me happier.

Where the games are concerned… Mario U is pretty damn great. People have been referring to it as New Super Mario World, but it’s not quite that good. If you’re in it for the single-player experience, Super Mario World or even Super Talking Time Bros 2 will leave you more fulfilled. Fortunately, Mario U features a multiplayer experience that is almost completely unique and an absolute blast. Yes, it’s essentially the same as New Super Mario Bros Wii, but it’s bigger, better, and in glorious HD.

I haven’t given Darksiders 2 a spin yet, because I intend to complete ZombiU first. ZombiU is an intricate game that deserves a whole post to itself, so that’s what I’m going to do somewhere down the line.

Nintendo Land ~~may be~~ is the best pack-in game ever. In a completely unexpected twist, it’s the game I’ve spent the most time with by far. It’s not at all the tired mini-game collection I assumed it would be. It’s an essential party game for Nintendo fans, and has an impressively robust single-player experience tucked away in there to boot. It’s already provided two weekends of riotous three-player fun, and I look forward to spending much more time in Nintendo Land, the new Funnest Place on Earth. Full review to follow on this one, because there’s so much there!

I only got to play a little bit of Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, but my brother stands firm that it’s better than Mario Kart. Not as strong a statement as it might have been years ago, because Mario Kart is starting to get a little long in the tooth, but a pretty clear indication of quality no less. I liked what I saw, and the inclusion of Wreck-It Ralph as a playable character is simultaneously pleasing and perplexing. Ralph is the only element of his movie in the game, despite the fact that he never really drove in the movie. Oh well. It seems like a solid game, and an excellent candidate for an Xmas gift.

For some reason that I cannot explain, Little Inferno has wiggled its way into my head and won’t get out. I don’t think it’d be something I would get a lot of use out of, and the $15 price tag is awfully steep for a creepy fireplace simulator. Oh well. I’m sure I’ll get over it eventually. As soon as a more enticing eShop game comes along, I think. Hopefully there’s some new software available this Thursday. It was nice that Wii U launched with a shop at all, but it’s nowhere as great as the bounty of Virtual Console games that OG Wii had available on launch day.

I guess that’s all for today. I really think I’d get more enjoyment from actually playing with my new toy than writing about it, so I’mma go do that now. Ciao.

Closing the gap

I was looking over my 2011 backlog list yesterday and was a little surprised to see that I had the goal of replaying Luigi’s Mansion on there. I actually did that recently! Yay! That’s another one to stroke off, and one I didn’t actually expect to get around to.

I was originally looking at the list to try to formulate a game plan for the weekend, but then I remembered that my youngest bro had asked to come over and play Spelunky, so that’s probably all I’ll be doing for the bulk of today. It’s nice that I’ve managed to hook someone else on Spelunky, because I love it, and it’s a big exception in that I actually much prefer to play multiplayer. I find the game a lot harder with a second person (especially in the very rare case where both people are wielding shotguns), but it’s a game that’s still pretty fun even when you’re dying repeatedly. I find the process of dying over and over to learn the game a lot more fun in action-platformer form than RPG. Probably because a winning Spelunky run takes an average of 15 minutes, whereas finishing the main dungeon in Shiren the Wanderer will generally take a lot longer. I love the idea behind roguelikes, but find it difficult to make the time investment required to learn them well enough to win.

Sunday will likely be devoted to The Last Story, but I’m thinking that if I really dedicate myself I could rush through what’s left of Master Quest in Ocarina of Time 3D. I christened my 3DS XL by getting up to the Master Sword, so I’ve really only got the best parts of the game in front of me. Well, except for the Fire Temple. It’s kind of dull, but at least the MQ version will mix it up a bit so it doesn’t just feel like I’m going through the motions.

I’ve also been doing a really poor job of wrangling up the last few ‘mons I need to fill out the Unova Dex in Pokémon White. I want it done before Black 2 and White 2 hit, so that leaves me…two weeks. The dumb thing about this is that it’s mostly just evolving that needs to be done, and it seems like the Unova Pokémn have a considerably higher average evolution level than monsters of previous generations. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t know as much about Pokémon as I used to. It’s a lot harder to keep track of the 600+ creatures than it was when there were only 151. In any case, a lot of Audinos are going to be beaten upon over the next two weeks. I need to fill that Pokédex!

So notice how there isn’t even a passing mention of maybe drawing a comic or going outside there? I think my hobby may have crossed the line into full-on addiction at this point. I probably won’t even take the time to blog anymore once I get Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. Especially since saves are transferrable between the Wii U and 3DS versions! Yay obsession!

Genre mashup

A few creative-types at Talking Time have gone and decided that it’s time to forge an expansion pack for Super Talking Time Bros 2. Because I’m always happy to be a part of awesome things, as soon as I was able I went about painstakingly crafting a new stage for the “Super Squad Goes to SPACE” expansion.

Because I have no good original ideas however, I decided just to take another game and stick it into Mario.

I’m not the only one who did that! But so far I think I’m the only one who’s stuck Mario in a falling-block puzzle game. Of course, this is just the beginning of the stage. It gets a lot more complex once you leave the Tetris tube, and while I kind of hated it when I first completed it, it’s really grown on me and I’m pretty darn proud of it now!

If you want to check in on development and play-test some stages before the game is finished, come on over to the STTB2 thread. Sign up and give your feedback! The more people testing and helping to smooth these stages out, the better the end game will be! STTB2 was incredibly well-received, so the bar is set fairly high here. Otherwise, here are some more links.

Download STTB 1+2

STTB2 expansion wiki

Some jerk Let’s Playing STTB2

Countdown to U-Day

What have I had, three posts about Wii U so far? Definitely out of character for me. I guess I must be growing up, because a younger me would have themed the blog here with all sorts of Wii U stuff. Woulda made up a Wii U banner anyway. Oh, wait. The blog has been Wii themed since… 2007? Wow, past me really was good at that future planning stuff!

As it is, I’m barely excited enough about having gotten my pre-order last weekend. And that’s with only two months left to go! I should be bouncing off the walls and yakking everyone’s ear off about how excited I am for my new console. Alas, I am much more subdued this time around. It’s probably because I can’t afford to buy any games to play on the stupid thing. Gone are the Wii days where I could just throw my paychecks away on as many vidja games as I could handle.

It’s too bad too, because it suddenly seems that I want them all. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement, but I’m certainly a lot more confliced about which Day One title I’m going to bring home with me on launch day than I was just a week ago. Since these megaposts are kind of what I do these days, let’s have a look-see…

Darksiders II – This was my original choice, and it had no competition, save perhaps Pikmin 3, but that’s been pushed back so it’s out of the running. I had a great time with the original Darksiders and little interest in any other Wii U launch day games, but now I’m having to think about it. Also, I’ve heard rumblings that maybe Darksiders II isn’t as good as the original, so that’s causing some hesitation. It’s still number one, but two months from now anything could happen.

New Super Mario Bros U – Since finances are tight, I have to consider that maybe The Wife would like to play with my our new toy too. Considering that NSMBU is probably the only launch title she’ll get any mileage out of. It’s not that I don’t think I’d like it, it’s just that I’m smack in the middle of New Super Mario Bros 2 on 3DS right now, and I don’t feel like I need another Mario game yet. We also had an absolute blast with the original Wii game, and that’s certainly helping this one’s case along. The real issue here is that I don’t find the New Mario games quite as fun to replay as say, Super Mario World.

ZombiU – You’d think this would be right up my alley, what with the zombies ‘n all. Truth is, I wasn’t really taken with it until I started reading impressions from last week’s Nintendo event in New York. Now I’m very much leaning towards the idea of picking ZombiU over Darksiders. If nothing else, I’d like to have a game that really makes use of the gamepad, and doesn’t just delegate maps and inventory management to it. I mean, ZombiU does that, but in a more interesting way. Or so it seems. I’ll need to keep reading up on this one. I can’t help but remember the mediocrity of Dead Island though.

Rayman Legends – I wasn’t sold on Rayman Origins until last Friday, despite the fact that everyone and their dog has been raving about it since it came out. But then I played a few stages with my youngest bro, including the unbeleivably difficult Secret Final Level, and had an absolute blast. I’d played the demo, but I guess I did it wrong by playing solo. So now the question of the sequel comes up. Do I pick this one up at launch, or do I satisfy my newfound interest with the cheaper original?

Assassin’s Creed III – I haven’t played a singe other game in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, and I didn’t ever plan to. However, I’m very much into the American Revolution setting of this one. That is all.

Scribblenauts Unlimited – I couldn’t get into the first Scribblenauts game no matter how hard I tried. But the promise of a game with better controls, huge environments to explore, and the ability to creat things has stuck the Scribblenauts hooks right back into me. I can’t see myself actually buying it, but stranger things have happened.

Tank! Tank! Tank! – I haven’t read anything about this since E3, but damn does it look like fun! I’m also a big supporter of the odd-duck games that come out when a new game system is released. Admittedly this doesn’t seem quite as gimmicky or odd as, say, Feel The Magic XY/XX or Rayman Raving Rabbids. Another one that I’m really going to have to look into before taking the plunge.

Okay, so there are only seven launch titles I’m interested in. But it’s still really hard when you can only choose one! Luckily, most of the other games (Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101, Runner 2) I want are looking like they’re going to come out around March, so that’s time to sock away a little cash. The fact of the matter is though, that Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is slated for March, so at that point I won’t need any other games. It would be really rad if that had been a launch title, but what can you do?

The numbers game

So one of the fellas over at Game|Life posted a story today about how Nintendo product sales make up roughly 70% of the Japanese video game market. Whether these numbers are skewed or not, this makes me very happy, being a big fat Nintendo fanboy and all.

Now we just need to find a way to make those numbers happen over here, and all will be right in the world again. Also then we might get Dragon Quest X, the first traditional MMO I actually want to play.

It also makes me happy that New Super Mario Bros 2 is selling really well, and that people are enjoying it. If you hadn’t been keeping up, the internet didn’t seem to be looking forward to it. To put it nicely.

One of the things that stood out to me is that Nintendo platforms make up roughly 75% of console sales in Japan, and Sony has approximately 23 of the other percents. I’m going to go ahead and assume that the Xbox 360 has the other 2%, and all the other lesser consoles combined account for less than a percent. Also of note is that the only 360 game whose sales are worth mentioning is Monster Hunter Frontier.

So let’s have a look-see at the facts here. MH Frontier is the most popular Xbox game in Japan. Xbox is the most popular console in North America. So why, Capcom, do you not bring Frontier to North America? I don’t have a lot of disposable income, but I would gladly fork over a little bit of what I have each month to have the opportunity to play a big, fancy, HD version of Monster Hunter. I know there’s more to it that that, but seriously. Capcom’s got peanut butter and chocolate here, but they refuse to mash them together.

I kind of hate Capcom right now. Or I would if Dragon’s Dogma wasn’t so rad.

StartSelect Saga

I’ve somewhat randomly decided to start playing Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga again, partly because I had some strange desire to actually use my Game Boy Micro, and partly because I wanted a bus game. By that, I mean a game which I play exclusively whilst riding the bus. Since I spend at least 80 minutes on the bus each day, it seemed like a pretty good idea.

Only problem here is that I seem to have some kind of mental block when it comes to playing video games on the bus. I have no idea why, but I have a terribly difficult time even pulling a handheld out of my pocket, never mind turning it on and actually playing the stupid thing. Totally inverse of where I was when the first DS debuted, when I’d take any opportunity to whip that baby out and get some portable gaming done. Maybe I’m subconsciously ashamed of being an adult playing video games in public. I blame my location. I generally don’t even get StreetPass tags when I walk around with my 3DS, never mind actually see other people play video games in public. Roughly 50% of the bus riders I see have got their noses in iPads, but not a one has ever been playing a game. Never, have I seen anyone over 10 years of age brandishing a DS or PSP when not at Comic-Con.

I should move to Japan.

But the thing I originally wanted to post about is that Superstar Saga is driving me crazy. And it’s not really the game itself that I have a problem with. No, it’s just as enjoyable as it was (almost) a decade ago. It’s the controls that are getting to me.

You know how every game that’s ever been made by Nintendo uses the Start button (in Wii’s case, the + button) to pause? Not this game. In Superstar Saga, the Select button is the pause/menu button. And Start is the button you use to swap between the Mario bros. There is a lot of swapping required, and because of the silly button reversal, I end up going into the menu every few seconds. It’s so incredibly frustrating that I kind of want to stop playing.

But I won’t, because Superstar Saga still hits all the right notes where buttons aren’t concerned. It’s a fun, breezy romp with a battle system that keeps you engaged. The music is wonderful (but who would expect any less from Yoko Shimomura?) and I still have to stifle my laughter at the often humorous dialogue. If I can get past this silly Start/Select inversion, I’m sure it’ll be a wonderful time for everyone involved.

So me. It’ll be a wonderful time for me.

Not symmetrical

Nintendo’s been going on and on for about a year now about the “asymmetrical gameplay” experiences that the Wii U will foster. It does look neat, and I think the little demos that they’ve provided seem like they’ll be fun for a while, but I wonder if there are any long-term applications for this style? Having an extra player play a support role in games like New Super Mario Bros U and Rayman Legends is a decent way to start, but I hope that somebody can do something really compelling with this bold new idea.

Oh, did I say “new”? I meant “thing that Nintendo has been doing intermittently and nobody cares about.”

Asymmetrical gameplay isn’t a new concept. It’s not even just a Nintendo thing. All it really means is that the two (or more) people are playing the same game and doing a different thing. Mario Party alone has been doing it for over a decade with the 3-vs-1 mini-games. Hell, Gyromite on the NES can be (and works considerably better as) an asymmetrical multiplayer game if you ditch ROB and have a friend use his controller instead. And that’s all the way from the 80’s.

I suppose those ones kind of make a point for the style though. Referencing the “nobody cares about” part of my statement earlier, let’s take a look at Super Mario Galaxy‘s multiplayer mode. Well, multiplayer in the sense that two people have controllers in their hands, anyway. All the second person does is wave around the pointer to collect star bits and stun enemies. Sure, you can point novice players in the right direction, but there’s a hole on my face that could accomplish the same thing more efficiently. New Super Mario Bros U’s “Boost Mode” is pretty much the same thing, and I can’t imagine it’s going to be much more compelling.

Why this is one of the big selling points of the Wii U, I don’t know. I suppose it’s because of the GamePad and the ability to give opposing players different views of what’s going on. That is what makes it truly asymmetrical, after all. But even that”s not new. Do you remember connectivity? That Nintendo buzzword from 2003 that never took off?

I may be misremembering, but the first example of GameCube-GameBoy Advance connectivity was Pac-Man Vs. This was a great idea. One player is Pac-Man, and he sees the entire maze on his GBA. The other players are the ghosts, and can only see a small area around themselves on the TV screen. So what you have is a multiplayer Pac-Man, but in a way that the ghost team doesn’t have such an overwhelming advantage. It’s brilliant, but was unfortunately much too hard to actually find, because it was given away as a limited free sample. It was also included in the GC versions of a handful of Namco games, but they weren’t of much interest to me and Pac-Man Vs, despite its brilliance, was not worth the price of a full retail game.

On the other hand, you have The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. It featured a really cool multiplayer mode that most people probably didn’t even know existed. When you encounter Tingle in the game, he gives you a device called the Tingle Tuner, which you can use to summon him through a GBA. Here, a second player (using said GBA) is given a radar and several actions that they can use to help or hinder Link. The problem is that once the Tingle player gets bored of dropping bombs on Link, the whole experience is pretty shallow. Maybe some people like watching a radar and occasionally telling Link where a secret is hidden, but I sure couldn’t get my brother to commit to the role. I usually just had my GBA connected and sitting next to me so I could find the hidden items that are only visible through the GBA.

This mode can also become infuriating for the Link player, because every one of Tingle’s actions costs rupees, and those rupees come straight out of Link’s wallet. It’s especially bad in The Wind Waker, because it’s easily the most commerce-driven Zelda game. Also, the bomb thing.

If you really want to stretch, you could probably consider the first Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles to have asymmetrical gameplay. Not because each player had a different radar on their GBA screen or anything, but because the game sucked for whoever had to be the Bucket Bitch and was fun for everyone else.

I’ve never used them, but a couple of the Wii Guitar Hero games have a mode called “Roadie Battle” where two guitarists compete. Each of those guitarists is paired with another player who has a DS that allows them to send power-ups to their teammate or try to sabotage the opposing guitarist. It’s a spin on the “support player” idea that Wind Waker and Mario Galaxy use, but they do it right by keeping that support player engaged at all times, whereas the other games end up leaving the support player with nothing to do quite often. Maybe the game itself isn’t as compelling as a Mario or Zelda title, but at least you’re not bored.

So yeah. I’ve got just a few examples here (and most of them are a stretch at best), but I think I’ve made a decent case that asymmetrical game experiences probably won’t hold up as a Wii U back-of-the-box bullet point. Developers are really going to have to step up if they want to make asymmetrical experiences that will matter. Nintendo Land has at least two variants on Pac-Man Vs, but you’re going to need something with a little more depth than that if you want people to care.

CD Review: The Greatest Video Game Music

Foreword: Just so nobody gets the wrong impression, I really like this CD. I just want to share my thoughts on it. Not all of them are nice. Thanks for understanding.

Among the many, many wonderful things Stephanie bought me that were amalgamated into my wedding gift (that girl spoils me rotten) was a compact disc entitled The Greatest Video Game Music. I can’t help but feel like maybe the London Philharmonic Orchestra was trying to start something with me there.

Calling your compilation The Greatest Video Game Music is setting the bar pretty high, as we video game nerds love us some video game musics. A cursory glance at the back of the cover confirmed my suspicions that it was something more akin to The Most Marketable Video Game Music. More evidence of this is that the image on the cover is a soldier with a cello on fire and a helicopter in the background. VIDEO GAMES ARE NOT ALL CALL OF DUTY. Goddammit. Stupid Sony and Activision ruined everything.

Anyway, that’s starting to deviate from my point. Or is it? I don’t know, I’m confused about where I was taking this. I guess something about how many games are represented on here that I didn’t even know had music, nevermind music that anybody bight consider to be the greatest. Oh, sure, you’ve got representation for the mainstays like Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, and Final Fantasy. There are a few you might not not think of off the cuff but definitely belong there, like the Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Tetris themes (more on the latter in a bit). Then there’s… the rest.

“I didn’t even know ____ had music.” You can fill in that blank with any of the following games that are represented on this CD: Splinter Cell: Conviction, Fallout 3, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 2, and Battlefield 2. There are a couple others in there that puzzled me, most notably Bioshock, Oblivion, and Mass Effect. I know that all of these games had music, but none of them had memorable music. Chalk that up to the games being so immersive that I didn’t notice music in the background if you must, but I couldn’t hum you a single tune from any of those titles. The tracks from these games didn’t even seem familiar to me when I listened to them, so that.

Back to that contingent of FPSs though. Is it really necessary to include tracks from both Modern Warfares and Battlefield 2? I can’t imagine that anyone who plays those games cares at all about the music in them. Same thing with Splinter Cell. They probably could have replaced at least two of those entries with something a little more fitting, say a track each from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and MegaMan 2? You know, games with music that people actually care about. Maybe even too much in some cases. Halo 3‘s inclusion I give a pass because it’s just not a personal interest; I’ve heard many people laud the Halo soundtracks.

The two that really make me scratch my head are the tracks from Advent Rising and Angry Birds. I’ve never even heard of Advent Rising. And Angry Birds. Angry. Birds. Nobody but nobody who is going to buy this particular CD is in the Angry Birds demographic. Yes, I played it. But that was before I downloaded real games onto my phone. Is there even any music in Angry Birds past the title screen?

Uncharted, Grand Theft Auto IV, and World of Warcraft also seemed a little out of place to me. But at least those are gamers’ games and not paint-by-numbers FPSs.

So maybe I think the track selection could have used a little fine tuning. Of course I do. Every single (real) gamer who looks at this CD will have a whole lotta corrections to make. There are so many games out there with fantastic music that it would be impossible to pare it down to a mere 20ish tracks, even if you didn’t double-dip for a few franchises. The real question here is if the compilation that the London Philharmonic Orchestra chose works. The short answer is “Yes.”

The long answer, if you’re up for a few more paragraphs, is just a lot more music/game nerd over-analysis and picking. And the first thing that I want to say is that I hit the nail on the nose: the two Modern Warfare tracks and the Battlefield 2 theme are ultimately forgettable. Generic war-sounding tunes, mainly to a marching drum beat with some technoey stuff thrown in to try to differentiate them. Sorry, LPO, you shot too wide. Reign it in and play for the people who love video games, not the people who play shooting games because that’s the fad right now. Gamers love video game music, Bros do not. Not a single Bro will buy this album, and that is the hard truth of it.

The Advent Rising, Oblivion, Splinter Cell, Fallout 3 and Uncharted tracks didn’t make a mark on me. Its not that they were bad, it’s just that they didn’t stand out in any special way. They sound nice in my ears, but not so much that I’m ever going to have them buzzing through my head when my earbuds are out. The track included from Bioshock made me wonder why it was there, because it was more moody ambiance, and not actual music you might listen to independently. I can see why fans of the games might get into any of these tracks though.

You know, what? No. The Splinter Cell track wasn’t forgettable, it actually sounded kind of like it came out of Metal Gear Solid, just less grandiose. I consider that a compliment; MGS games usually have pretty solid soundtracks.

I was impressed by how much I enjoyed the Grand Theft Auto IV and World of Warcraft tracks. The GTAIV inclusion (“Soviet Connection”) isn’t particularly elaborate, but it’s got a punchy percussion line and some beautifully deep horns. The strings throughout lend the piece a real sense of gravitas and tie the whole thing tegether in a neat little bow. The WOW track (“Seasons of War”) works in a strong but not overstated vocal group, and works up from a very slow, somber start into an almost victorious melody before rolling back down into more of a battle theme that makes brief use of an almost tribal-sounding drum phrase. Again, it’s not big and flashy, but that’s probably what makes it so great.

The MGS2 theme is practically untouched, which is great because that track’s official form is perfect. The same goes for “Liberi Fatali” from Final Fantasy VIII. I guess the orchestral version varies a bit, but it hews quite closely to the original and that is just the way I like it. I was honestly a little disappointed that they didn’t do much in the was of arranging for Super Mario Galaxy‘s “Gusty Garden Galaxy,” because since it was recorded by an orchestra to begin with, a more elaborate arrangement would have been the best way to make it stand out. I love the song though; the string chorus alone is enough to put a big smile on my face.

That brings me to the set of songs that sit in a strange limbo between my opinion poles. “Super Mario Bros Themes”, “The Legend of Zelda Suite” and “Final Fantasy Main Theme” are all fantastic songs. So why was I kind of disappointed with their showing here? These are where the legacy of video game music really begins. These are the big three. It is not my place to question them.

I don’t know why, but I have a hard time appreciating hi-fi versions of the SMB theme. It just sounds wrong when played on anything more advanced than maybe a SNES sound chip. The LPO does a fine job with what they’ve got, but I guess I’d just rather they’d taken a piece from a more recent game. Nintendo doesn’t even re-use the original Mario theme all that often (in the main series), and when they do it’s in its natural state or heavily arranged so that it sounds okay without the blippity-bloopities. The underwater part sounds beautiful on strings, but the rest of the song was not meant for real instruments.

I’ve heard this particular Legend of Zelda suite before. I was sad because I wasn’t expecting a repeat. It’s still great though!

The Final Fantasy theme is a stirring string-based piece with some faint horns to give it a little body. It is the most beautiful track on the album. It is so deeply ingrained in my soul that sometimes I get a little misty-eyes when I hear it in a new FF game. What could I possibly have against it? I was secretly hoping it would be the Final Fantasy IV version of “Prelude”, which I like just a little bit more.

The most surprising tracks on the disc, I found, were those from Halo 3 and Mass Effect. Mass Effect especially because I’ve played through the game twice and never noticed the music at all. But if “Suicide Mission” can speak for the rest of the soundtrack, it must be amazing! The track starts of with a fairly simple beat, and then layers on instruments one by one, until it builds into an incredible “here we go to save the world” kind of thing. It’s deathly serious, but keeps your spirits up by mixing in some uplifting phrases into the generally foreboding melody. It’s perfectly suited to the atmosphere of Mass Effect, and I feel like I should give the game another round so that I can stop to appreciate its musical accompaniment.

As I said before, I expected pretty good things from the Halo 3 song, “One Final Effort,” and I was not at all disappointed. I thought it was really weird how much praise the Halo soundtracks get, but if the rest is as good as this single example, I might have to look into actually listening to the full soundtracks.

The brightest spot on this disc, however, comes totally out of left field both in the fact that I wasn’t expecting it to be my favourite track, and also because it starts way off from the source material. The Tetris theme, of all things, is apparently where the LPO decided to really show their stuff. It opens up with a peppy drum line, onto which other instruments gradually join, and then finally launches into a brief piano solo of the main riff. A horn comes in, and the drums return, then things just go out of control with the melodies and beats changing almost as much as the instrumentation. About three quarters of the way it slows down into a horn-driven waltz, and gradually picks up steam again in layered repetitions of the tune until the end.

Oddly enough, it kind of ends up sounding like it was arranged to fit into the Kirby’s Air Ride soundtrack.

Understandably, you kind of have to work with the Tetris theme to make it compelling. In its natural state, it’s repetitive and basic, not unlike Tetris itself. So it stands to reason that if you were going to have an orchestra play it, they’d probably want to do a little arranging. And this is great! The end product is marvelous! I’m just a little disappointed that the rest of the CD (or at least what I’m familiar with) didn’t take nearly as much creative license as this single song did. Granted, you might also argue that gamers want to hear the music they love in a format that they recognize, but there are entire communities based around remixing video game music. I really think it could work.

Anyway, I’ll stop talking about how this CD could be “better” now. It’s great the way it is. Maybe I haven’t gotten that through enough. It’s wonderful. I really like it. Big props to the London Philharmonic Orchestra for this one. If you’re going to buy an album of video game music as played by a major orchestra… well, I’ve never seen another one, but I’m sure this one measures up nicely to any others that could theoretically exist. There are certainly far worse ways to spend twentyish bucks.

I think if I’d seen it live I would have complained a lot less.

“Enough is enough!” Or “MF green stars on MF green plane”

It’s over, they’re done. I have captured all 120 green stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2, and I’m not all that happy about it. Considering how perfect the first half of the game is, it’s a real shame the Nintendo went back and boondoggled the back half. I mean, really, a game-spanning fetch quest isn’t entirely new for the developer (See The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker), but man, there’s never been one quite this intense. If you’ve forgotten between here and the last time I talked about it, once you complete Galaxy 2, each level’s star count is doubled by two or three green stars that are somewhat arbitrarily hidden around somewhere. They don’t have hints or names or anything; it’s all you can to do prowl around every corner of every level until you find them all.

At first, they’re usually just tucked behind a wall or something, and this trend persists right to the end. Eventually some are placed off the edge of the stage boundary, so that if you manage to miss it after hopping off the ledge, you die. The last kind are the ones that are way, way out of the stage boundaries, and require some amazing jumps or powerup use to get. These are obviously the most fulfilling to earn, but it’s still a matter of “you miss and you die”. Not a great design hook.

Anyway, once you haul in the fun 120 power stars and the stupid 120 green stars, you’re awarded with one final special stage called the Grandmaster Galaxy. It’s a big, long gauntlet of most of the obstacles you’ve had to overcome to get this far. And it’s pretty fun! It took me a while to make it to the end, but I did it! I was satisfied with my accomplishment, but a little taken aback that there was no more than the standard “Star GET!” fanfare once I’d won. I was expecting maybe a picture of a cake and a “thank you for playing”, maybe?

Nope. Instead, there’s more game. A little birdie informed me that if you collect and bank 9,999 star bits, you gain access to the Daredevil version of Grandmaster Galaxy. For those who don’t speak video game: one-hit death, no checkpoints. I threw up my hands and declared it a wash. I’m fairly sure that I could do it, but I don’t really have the patience to try yet. After hunting down all those green stars, I’m over the bullspit. I have like 9,500 star bits banked too, so it’s not like I have to grind my way there or anything. Ten years ago I would have been on this challenge like it was nobody’s business, but these days I just don’t have it in me.

I never finished the super-secret final stage in Super Mario 3D Land either. To think people used to identify me by my video game prowess. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

PS: Guy who designed Rolling Coaster Galaxy? We hate you, please die.