matt hackmann - web developer - artist - nerd

Some time ago, video game news site Joystiq began a weekly series of posts highlighting video game music as performed by the YouTube community. For some reason unbeknownst to me they no longer do this. So in the spirit of all things game and music related, I bring you Game Music Friday. Every week I will select a theme or game and show three videos from YouTube pertaining to said topic. The only stipulation being that the music must be performed or arranged by the community. That means AMVs are out. If you have any suggestions for videos or a topic, please leave a comment below and I'll be sure to check it out.

Without further ado, I bring to you the first Game Music Friday, the topic of choice being Dr. Mario. Enjoy!

I had the great fortune of being able to attend a Video Games Live (VGL) concert. For the uninitiated, VGL is a concert where game music is played. Some people may think it's nerdy, however, but I see it as something that can be appreciated by gamers and non-gamers alike.

People see the words "video game music" and probably automatically think of the bleeps and bloops (more accurately, triangle and square waves) of the Atari and NES days of yore. These may not have sounded great, but because of the limitations more effort was placed on making themes easily recognizable and pronounced (i.e. Mario, Zelda, Metroid). However, since the days of the SNES, video game music has been approached more like a movie score. At the forefront of this movement was Nobuo Uematsu and his work in the Final Fantasy series.

Final Fantasy serves as an excellent demonstration of the similarities between game and movie music. Final Fantasy VI, and SNES game mind you, has one of the best scores of any game. Each character has their own theme, or leitmotif, and these themes are woven throughout every piece of music in the game. The same went for FFX, though the motifs weren't character specific, but specific to certain cultural elements. Star Wars takes this kind of approach: the Empire has a theme, the Force has a theme, etc. It's this kind of music that has the ability to evoke emotions in the listener and, at its core, that's what music is all about.

Of course, not all game scores are orchestral. Koji Kondo dabbles in a little bit of everything, and there are rock and techno type stuff out there. I lean towards the orchestral myself because I find it to be more powerful. I will admit that most of my childhood was spent listening the classical music and John Williams and as such I have a soft spot for this kind of music, but I know die hard fans of vastly different genres who appreciate the vocals of Halo or the trumpet heavy Zelda. Even my mom, a dedicated 80s gal, enjoys much of my game music library.

So, there you have it. The conception that game music is various beeps and just for nerds is a complete fallacy. Video game music these days can be just as powerful, if not more so, than latest blockbuster. At that, it can be appreciated by all walks of life. And I think it should be.

Oh, the concert was awesome (I scream before the rest of the crowd at about 0:31).

(Like the bumper at the top? I'm going to start including these in more of my posts as a design challenge for myself.)

Firstly, today's comic.

I'm not sure if I've said or not, but I'm currently in the middle of my two week hiatus from Wal-Mart (unpaid, sadly, but I'm not one to quibble when it means two weeks of care free goodness). One of the things I vowed to do in my two weeks of freedom was teach myself how to play piano. Overall I'd say it's going pretty well and having a keyboard that totally rocks helps ;-). But don't take my word for it, here's me playing a little piece of Zelda music (actually, I've been passively working on learning this piece for over a year :-P):

I'm hoping that by next summer I'll be proficient enough to play the song in its entirety (without screwing up) along with some others (Final Fantasy X's To Zanarkand being of them).

Speaking of FFX, I am currently enjoying being beaten by the game. The story started off kind of slow (almost to the point of me deciding never to play again), but it's picked up to the point of having me completely sucked in. So I've been playing a bit lately (excluding all my annihilations I believe my play time is somewhere around 26 hours) and hopefully I'll have beaten the stupid thing before I have to go back to work (at which point I'll start playing FFX-2).

I've started on a DS game. That's all I'll say because I tend to make these announcements with all sorts of grandiose promises and give up after about five minutes of coding. Yeah... it's dumb.

Okay, now you're all caught up for the next several months. I'll probably post something again before I go to college next fall.

In what could be marked as a pardigm shift for me I have purchased my first "real" song off of iTunes, meaning it is a modern rock song. Now the song, which I will name, I've heard plenty of times at Wal-Mart (as much as one can hear it over *beep* *beep* *beep* and all the chatter), but I suppose I have devusb to thank for it in the end. Using some iTunes VPN thingy I was digging through his music this morn and I was able to listen to the entire song and found, horror of horrors, I actually liked it. This leads me to wonder if I shouldn't broaden my musical horizons just a hair.... But anyhoo, you're probably wondering what song could cause such a cataclysmic shift in such a humble being as myself. It's "Dirty Little Secret" by the All-American Rejects.

In job news I am going to be blunt and to the point: the deptartment managing specialist job SUCKS! That said I am going to beg to have my cashier job back by May. I can't stand this job anymore. The hours (and lack thereof) stink, the lack of human interaction is driving me insane and a couple of other reasons I will leave unsaid (to save my job and reputation). Had I realized that this is how things were going to be I would have stopped complaining about my cashier job and been happy. We'll see how things go down, though.

Well, that's enough for now. In about fifteen minutes I have to be at the eye doctor's for an appointment. Stay tuned for my next post where I'll do a little bit of ranting again (yay! ;-)).

PS - Gold stars to anybody who can name the quotes I've been stuffing into my posts lately.

Twas some days before Christmas and all through the house,

not a creature was stirring except for the dudeon his laptop.

Doesn't rhyme, but I don't care. I'm sitting here in our new living room lit up tree in front of me and a fireplace full of stockings to my right (picture coming soon). Now this in and of itself is a nice feeling but having my laptop and posting here while doing it makes the feeling cooler ;-). But anyhoo...

Christmas is is coming and we've been doing all the usual: making cookies, listening to Christmas music (even while I'm at work :-D), buying gifts, etc. I'd say that we're pretty much ready. The only bad thing is that Dad found the key to the freezer and I must go cookieless until Christmas Eve :-(.

Things in layaway have slowed down considerably. Thursday and Friday were a nightmare but since I couold count on my hands and toes how many people have come through to get stuff. Sunday night I began learning the how to operate the register and I'm pretty sure I don't want to do that (for reasons I don't want to go into again :-P). On Monday I'll be discussing my future at Wal-Mart with a manager and depending on if there's any other spots open or not I'll either be a cashier or a cart pusher. If I could do cashiering back in electronics I'd probably leap on it, otherwise I'll probably push carts (unless overnight socker is available). But anyways, it looks like I'm not even going to get laid off before coming back (I must have made a good impression).

But now I must go and make another attempt at finding the freezer key (or something :-P). Merry Christmas :-D