Monday, August 27, 2012

Everything Reminds Me of Videogames 08

It occurred to me that every time I hear this Iphone Ringtone:





It makes me think about the beginning to this Megaman X song:



Don't you think?

Allow me to complete the illusion for you:



Thursday, August 23, 2012

A Taste of Truths

     You know, it just wouldn't be a blog if I didn't just generally write something in it every now and again other than the usual fun topics I'm going for.  Since this is technically also a journal of trials and tribulations as a person trying and learning his way into the field of audio, I feel that this is relevant. There are times I have doubts, there are times I feel like my audio will get nowhere and there's a chance it will not improve with no real direction or hope.  
Sometimes I wondered if I wasted several years of my life trying to learn, get motivated and be inspired by audio and if there is even a place for me.  The strive for inner peace begins.

     Being a lover of philosophy, I tend to look for stories and quotes to come in terms with the feelings I'm trying to overcome. 

I think I found a good one:

"My grandfather was a painter ... was looking at me and he said "Harry, there are two kinds of tired, there's good-tired, and there's bad-tired. Ironically enough, bad-tired can be a day that you won. But you won other people's battles, you lived other people's days, other peoples agendas, other people's dreams - and when it was all over there was very little "you" in there, and when you hit the hay at night, somehow you toss and turn, you don't settle easy. Good-tired, ironically enough, can be a day that you lost. But you don't have to tell yourself, because you knew you fought your battles, you chased your dreams, you lived your days, and when you hit the hay at night, you settle easy - you sleep the sleep of the just, and you can say "take me away". Now, Harry, all my life I've painted... God I would've loved to be more successful, but I have painted and I have painted, and I am good-tired, and they can take me away."
--from Harry Chapin's Gold Medal collection

     Basically, as long I am here, as long as I am doing something I love, be it playing the games I love to play, learning about the sounds I love to hear, tinkering with the instruments and tools designed by people who love their work, and as long as it is entertaining to create the audio, be it horrible nonsensical gibberish or not, it is still worth pursuing.  Even as I type this I know that I have been losing sleep coming in terms with this truth, and I will continue to polish my resolve until my actions finally reflect this along with new found discipline and perseverance in this field.

As a Street Fighter III Alpha Narrator once said:



I won't give it up, narrator guy.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The Small Stuff

    I'd like to share a thought about the subliminal importance of sound design in a game. 
Though very feint, there are small little reminders that one can pick up on to show that when audio is designed for a game, it is intentional. 
For this example I will use a pretty recent game's menu screen.


    When you are at this particular screen, you hear this piece of music:


    There is much praise and admiration towards the audio in Mass Effect 3, starting right at the beginning of the game with the song titled "We Face Our Enemy Together" by Sam Hulick...with traces of the original theme echoing through the start menu later in the song in particular, which coincide with the game's important connection to its previous games.

 When you press start, you hear this confirmation sound:


People have also given this particular sound praise as well.

    So you hear the music, and you hear the confirmation sound, but I ask you: Can you hear the connection between the two?  To put it simply, the sound actually is a part of the song. 
You'll notice the pitch matches the song, they are even in the same key:

The song is playing like this:



Confirmation sound is playing this:



Together they sound like this:


   I conclude that this was done intentionally in order not just to make a smooth transition from the start screen to the main menu of the game, but also to leave a lasting impression on the player.  No matter where you press that start button, being the player, you hold the power to press start and contribute playing along with the start screen.  This kind of method is a great way to set the tone of the game and the player feels it.  The player controls everything in this game, including the start screen and its musical tones.




There are many games (from what I've seen, a lot if RPGs or Action/Adventure) that seem to have this connection, and use the menu screen to prove that point.  This is very important to arcades as well, since most arcade machines are all about presentation, from dropping the quarters to pressing the start button.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Everything Reminds Me Of Videogames 07


Picture taken at: The Iron Hill Brewery

Reminds me of:  Fallout 3

Everything Reminds Me Of Videogames 06

While I was searching around in Barnes & Noble for something to read, I came across this one book in particular.  The first thought that popped into my head instantly was:


"Why is there a Chocobo picking on Mario on his day off?"

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Everything Reminds Me of Videogames 05

Everyday or so since I was young I would walk out in backyard, go swim in the pool, sit on the swing outside, anything really, I would always walk by my fence: And every time I walk up to this fence, I can't help but examine the neat little tops that come off.  For some odd reason, they reminded me of some other object from a game I used to play on my PC. Ladies and gentleman:
 This:
 
 Reminds me of This:
 
 I don't know why but I am reminded of Dirk the Daring's helmet from Dragon's Lair.

 Relevance:    Who knows? Maybe it's just me, but it will make you think about it.

Everything Reminds Me of Videogames 04

This time it will be a movie comparison. I'm going to make this very clear, ready?
And yes, I played Rhapsody a long time ago and am not ashamed of it.

Everything Reminds Me Of Videogames 03

Okay Okay, so bear with me on this one, I got a song for you to listen to.



Yes this is Emotion's "Best of My Love".  Yes, you continue to wonder how this is game related...well every time I hear that song. 


This would be the song "Life's A Beach" from Breath of Fire III.
This is when you enter the Port Town of Rhapala.

 Now why is that?  Can you hear it?  Am I crazy? Maybe I just played the game too much. (that would be very very true.)

So let's experiment to get to the bottom of this:
I made the Best of My Love song a little faster to match the Rhapala song's tempo to find the connection, didn't do too much: 


My conclusion is it is all about the bass.


It might be in a different key, but they are very similar to each other and the bass really backs up the whole of the song.  And it's because of that I constantly think about that game.

End Result:
  It's a Longshot.

Everything Reminds Me Of Videogames 02

So far, I'm going to play it as I see it, upon watching a TV series, it struck me to list the games I wanted to play as I watch it. Currently, I finally got around to watching Spartacus. Here is the list of games I wanted to play while watching: 1. Colosseum: Road to Freedom for Playstation 2, that became Gladiator Begins for PSP.

If they combined any UFC game's mechanics with a lot of the good ideas from Colosseum, and backed it with a the theatrics and story ideas from Spartacus, it would make an even better game than it already is.   This proud game that I believe in doesn't get noticed enough.  The Playstation 2 version had much more depth than the PSP, it inspired training and roleplaying with your character.  How I would play is if my character fell and died instead of being wounded, I would start over with a new character.  There was much weight to the character's life, and many chances to never see him again. This game matches the TV series quite well. 2. God of War, respectively.  Mostly due to the "graphic violence". 3. If you happen to watch it as well (or again, is isn't new), you might find that the blood or the graphical blood they show look very similar to the Dragon Age Series. Gotta love the blood dragon. I was going to say Capcom's Shadow of Rome....but there's something about it that doesn't strike me the same as the ones mentioned above.  Fun though, nonetheless. That should do for now. Relevance: Hit and Miss, I'd say.  Colosseum is without a doubt the closest, but I am quite bias with my decision.  I'll let you be the judge.

Everything Reminds Me Of Videogames 01


You ever go somewhere, look at something or even experience a moment that makes you say "Hey, I remember this sort of thing happening in a game...wait! Where are you going? Come back! I want to talk about it!"  Well....maybe that was just me but I love connecting all sorts of things in life to games, be it movies, moments, other games and of course sounds effects and music.

Let's say we get things started:

I noticed something a while back that I will now type up today.

There is a song in Grandia called "Snow Town Raynu" which has an interesting theme to it, give it a listen, at least twenty seconds:


Now listen to Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption's "Pub Theme":


Hear anything similar?
Let's have more fun with it shall we? Here I lined it up it so the matching parts play at the same time:




And last but not least, a fun mix and match, I call it the "Pub Raynu Mix":



 Relevance Meter:

 






Bullseye I'd say, both examples match up pretty well.

Summing Up The Past Posts

A while back, I started the whole "Everything Reminds Me of Videogames" on a blogging site with my group of friends.  To make things easier, I'm going to move them all here onto this webpage and repost them, thus continuing those particular posts all here.
But hey, don't forget to check out our website and blog, there's all sorts of things happening over there!

Blog:
http://www.rocketpowereddragon.com/inprogress/

Website:
http://www.rocketpowereddragon.com/

Cheers!

Welcome

Greetings All!


After much hibernation from the world, I will attempt to start up and successfully use a functional blog for all to read and enjoy (hopefully).  My topics?  Well, its going to be a scrap of all sorts of things.  But for the most part, it's going to be about videogames, audio, videogame audio, and the world we live in as a game in itself...which is starting to become how I view the world and connect it to everything I hear.


Enjoy!