J is for Just Released
There are few game characters that amass a huge cult following without having to do anything. The most recent, and one of my favorite (non)characters is simply a box. More specifically, it’s a Weighted Companion Cube. For fans of the game Portal –released as one of the many titles included in Valve’s recent Orange Box– the Weighted Companion Cube is more than just another ordinary cube. It is something to love and cherish. Aside from my beloved, though, there are many things that have happened since my last post.
The biggest news for the site is the new look. I decided to take the site away from a template and build a new look for it. I’m still working out a lot of the bugs for it, so bear with it for a while longer. Also, in site news, I’m looking for writers who are willing to contribute weekly to VGMe. If you are interested, drop me a line at dastafarin@gmail.com using the subject “Writing for VGMe” so that I can find it amongst all the spam.
Now, on a completely random note, I want to bring up something that I was talking about today and that is the complete impatience I find in other players online. Recently I’ve been playing a lot of Gunbound again, after having been away from it since the original version entitled “Thor’s Hammer.” After going back, I’ve found a lot of people on the game are anywhere between somewhat impatient to extremely impatient. It’s disturbing and extremely annoying. As soon as I log into a room, it’s almost guaranteed that at least one person will spam my username about 50 times and tell me to ready up within the first 10 seconds. Now this game is a lot worse than many other online games in those regards, but the same still holds up in some capacity for many online titles. Sometimes telling a person to “Ready up” is warranted and necessary, but 99% of the time it’s simply irritating. I know to get ready, I’ve played the game before. I don’t need someone “yelling” at me to hurry things up and forgo any preparations I may wish to make before entering into a match.
MUSIC
Jet Set Radio garnered a good amount of press and recognition back during its release for its (then) cutting edge use of cel-shading, its unique gameplay and its soundtrack. The game was originally released for Dreamcast, but also made appearances on the Gameboy Advance and the Xbox.
The track selected is the title track from the game. The artist behind the song, Hideki Naganuma also did many of the other tracks for the game along with a collection of licensed music. The song uses a sample from the old BBC Radio comedy Hancock's Half Hour (wikipedia). It is house electronica and is very enjoyable. Although the style is one that garners either love or hate, it is a definite winner for most who enjoy the genre.
Jack Wall - Anthem of the Tyrant Jade Empire Original Soundtrack
While I've used Jade Empire in a previous post (What about the yankees?), it is one more the better soundtracks on the Xbox, and in the J category quite simply.
Unlike the previous song posted, "Anthem of the Tyrant" has almost no Asian influence on the composition. It is fairly straight forward Western Classical, but still quite good. As can be inferred from the name of the song, it is one of the darker, more “epic” tracks from the album. It uses a lot of deep, guttural horns along with almost-screeching strings.
C is for Carpal Tunnel.
I’ve decided to make my next post on the very next day, since I need to make up for all that time I lost. Aside from that, I’ve added something new to the blog which I think will be a nice, welcomed addition. Now, below the mp3 link, will be a flash media player which will allow you to “sample” the track before downloading it. The tracks will play in their entirety, so there is no need to worry about getting only a 30 second teaser. You will hear the full thing. However, due to the nature of the player, there is a chance it may not work with some of the files, as most (if not all the files) I post are VBR. If you have any troubles with the audio playback, please let me know and I’ll see what I can do. The developer of the media player, Jeroen Wijering, warned that VBR would cause issues in playback, but from my testing, I have yet to encounter it, so hopefully everything works as it should. Anyway, on to today’s list.
Update: Since you can now hear the song live, there is no real need to put the genre.
Guido - Outskirts of Time Chrono Trigger The Brink of Time
Satoshi Ise - Theme of GOUKI remix Capcom vs. SNK 2 Millionaire Fighting 2001 Original Soundtrack
Michiru Yamane - Prologue Castlevania Original Soundtrack
B is for back, which is what I am.
After a long delay between posts, I’m back behind the wheel again, and ready to start posting some new songs. A couple changes before I begin though. First off, the layout is new, thanks to WPDesigner and their wonderful themes. Obviously I changed the top banner to make it a bit more VG related. Secondly, I’m going to stop posting the short descriptions of each song for now, as it gets harder and harder to try to describe a song that isn’t that much different from many others I post in a new way, so instead I’ll just post the songs and you can be the judge. I will, however, post the genre that it best fits in below the link. Finally, though I won’t be describing the songs anymore, feel free to post your own descriptions/interpretations/feelings about the songs in the comments.
Now that that is over, on to the music.
Yoshino Aoki - Endings and Beginnings Breath of Fire IV Original Soundtrack
Classical
Misao Senbongi, Shusaku Uchiyama - Final Battle biohazard 4 Original Soundtrack
Classical
Noriko Matsueda & Takahito Eguchi - Volt Krueger The Bouncer Original Video Game Soundtrack
Metal/Electronic
The man has brought me down
Unfortunately, until next Wednesday or so, there won’t be any updates. School and work are double-teaming me and so I’m completely exhausted and just not in the mood to write a real post. However, to make up for it, my next post back will include 6 tracks. How’s that for trying to sooth the wounds with candy.