The Music of Video Games

These past few months I have talked about very many aspects of video games; art, graphics, revamps, and much more. But one thing that I have failed to mention is one of the most important aspects of video games- the music. Gaming soundtracks have changed so much from the classic 8-bit tracks from Mario to the “barbaric choir” of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. There are many different soundtracks to many different games, and there is something for every single gamer.

A lot of gaming developers believe that the music makes the game. Composer Akira Yamaoka was hired to write the soundtrack for the Silent Hill series. This is what he said when asked in an interview about how his sound differs from other gaming composers:

When I make music for Silent Hill, I don’t really think about making music for games. Silent Hill is a horror game, and I want people to be scared. But at the same time I like to convey the message. So I don’t really think about making this music for this stage… I try to think about what message we want to convey to the players.

I am a HUGE Akira Yamaoka fan. Before ever reading this article I was able to clearly receive and understand the message that he was trying to convey. His style of music was intended for a survival horror series involving situations of terror, the ultimate nightmare that captures you on a psychological sense and shakes your inner core. He does is by combining some of the most interesting instruments. If you listen to a piece of his work you can hear the electric guitar, the scrapping of metal, the beat on the side of a trash can. It all combines to leave a terrifying piece of music. Here is Devil’s Laughter from Silent Hill: Shattered Memories…

While he can create pieces like this he also does a fantastic job at the more subtle, slower pieces. There is not much banging or grinding, or horrific laughter. Instead there is the sweet sound of a piano. In certain cases I find this to be more terrifying than the previous song. I suppose it is that psychological factor that playing in. You listen to this slow piece expecting for something loud and scary to jump out. Sometimes it does, and sometimes not. Here is Promise (Reprise) from Silent Hill 2…

The soundtrack makes the game. Without it the game can be flat and emotionless.

 

The Video Game Awards of 2011 are approaching!

Spike TV is to premiere the next installment of the Video Game Awards on December 10th at  8p ET/5p PT. The award show first premiered in 2003 on Spike TV. It is a highly anticipated event that all gamers look forward to. The award show has categories such as Studio of the Year, Best Shooter, Best RPG, Best Graphics, Most Addictive Video Game, and of course, Game of the Year. Last year’s Game of the Year was Red Dead Redemption. Nominations for this year’s Game of the Year is:

• Batman: Arkham City
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
• Portal 2
• Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

Study shows that playing violent video games alters brain activity

The Indiana University School of Medicine has concluded that violent video games do in fact damage the brain. However less that 30 men were tested in this study which shows that these results are not entirely accurate. The study does show though that those who played the violent game had less activation in the left inferior frontal lobe than those who did not. Other studies show that if you want to have a healthy brain, eat fish.

But is this still enough to prove that violent video games are mad for children and influence violent behavior? There have been many other studies that show that they don’t. The book “Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do” seems to point out that it doesn’t.

There are many different books, studies, opinions out there that say that violent games DO cause behavior, and then that say they don’t. I guess it will take many more studies to find out the truth… if there is one.

Popular Video Games For The Holiday Season

It’s approaching that time of year when gaming stores alike blow up with the many customers coming in shopping for the hottest games for their kids and other family members. So what are some of the hottest games of the season?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the most popular game. 27% of the 5000 gamers surveyed said they were looking forward to this under their tree. CVG says that Zelda: The Skyward Sword for the Wii is to be a popular pick. And to top it off the anticipated wait of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is finally over and already many people have picked up their copy. I’m sure that Santa will still find many more copies is his big velvet bag.

The World of Video Gaming and SOPA/Protect IP

Today, November 16th, 2011 has been named American Censorship Day. Congress is trying to have two bills passed today, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and Protect IP (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011), which are laws much like those in China and Iran. The passing of these bills would mean that thousands of websites would be blocked from the internet. If you post lyrics to your favorite song on Facebook you’ve committed a crime. People all over America are currently calling congress to ask them to not pass this bill. So how is this affecting the gaming world? Well it actually is. All around the internet there a video posted by gamers called “Let’s Play” or other various video game walkthroughs that can be found on Youtube.com. If this bill is passed then all those videos will be made illegal and the publishers could be convicted for it. Online video game walkthroughs have become very popular across the internet with some of the most popular gamers being Chuggaaconroy, ProtonJonSA, and SlimKirby.

The Wonderful Service of Gamefly

This past month I finally decided to give Gamefly a try. Gamefly is a video game rental service similar to Netflix, being that rentals are sent through the mail. There is a monthly charge for the service, which includes free shipping, no due dates and no late fees. Gamefly was founded in 2002 and has since then grown into a popular business. The end of the year report for 2010 shows that Gamefly’s total revenue had increased 32.2% to $85.5 million from $64.4 million 2008. Their total subscribers in 2010 was 328,000.

My experience with Gamefly was a good one. I had received an email from them offering an extended free trial of 30 days. Normally the trial is 10 days. I signed up for it and picked out from a wide variety of PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, and even older console games. The trial was for their 2 games out at a time service. I chose Catherine and L.A. Noire as my first two choices. Now here is where I ran into a problem. I provided them with a shipping address which was for my college P.O. Box. I had received an email from customer service saying there was a problem with the address and to contact them. I replied to the email and almost a week later I had not heard from them. I discovered that Gamefly customer service has a live chat available. I don’t believe that it is widely known therefore the wait time is only less than a minute usually. The first person I spoke to I explained that my P.O. Box address was correct and that I will receive their envelopes. The employee told me that she forced the address into the system and that it would work. About a week and half later I still had not received anything in the mail and my account still told me that I needed to contact customer service. At this point I was frustrated. I had lost about 2 weeks of my free trial waiting for games that hadn’t even shipped yet. So I signed back into the live chat and spoke to another employee. I explained my ordeal yet again and that the address would work. He apologized for the inconvenience, gave me back my 2 weeks I had lost, and said that he would personally monitor my account to make sure that I would have games shipped to me. He was very nice and knowledgeable about his job. A couple days later I received my two games.

Catherine was the first game I played, and I didn’t even think to check that L.A. Noire would work. After playing Catherine, I discovered that L.A. Noire was damaged and would not work in my console. Yet again, I signed into live chat, explained my ordeal, and the employee apologized and immediately sent me another copy, which did work. The only bad part was that L.A. Noire counted as my second game in both transactions so I only got 3. In a period of about 20 days I had received and completed 3 games.  I had another week to order more games, but due to school I stopped at 3.

Despite the fact that I had a couple of issues with shipping addresses, and damaged games, I did enjoy my time using Gamefly’s service. The customer service was very good, the shipping time was very fast, their selection of games is very extensive. I would very much love to subscribe to them again possibly during the summer when there is more time. Gamefly’s prices per month run:

• 1 game out at a time-$15.95 per month
• 2 games out at a time-$22.95 per month

Video Game Piracy

It has been reported that video game piracy in the UK has cost £1 billion per year. That has gone up 20% in the last 5 years. Gaming companies have said that gaming piracy threatens the future of gaming consoles because they are not gaining the money needed to produce the console. A popular form of gaming piracy is the use of an emulator. People can download practically any gaming console as an emulator on the internet, and then download practically any game straight to their computer. Statistics show that 73 percent of global revenue for the video game industry is lost due to piracy. So this leaves us with the question of when will video game companies start going out of business due to piracy?

Heavy Rain – A Review

These past couple of days I played Quantic Dream’s interactive psychological thriller, Heavy Rain. The game was released in 2010 and was highly anticipated. It tells the story of the hunt for the Origami Killer. A murderer who kills young boys by drowning them in rain water and then disposes of their bodies and leaves a origami in their hands. Ethan Mars’ son, Shaun, is one of the latest victims. He has only a certain amount of time to find his son before he will be killed. There are 3 other characters involved in the story, a photographer named Madison, an FBI agent named Norman Jayden, and a private investigator named Shelby. The game centers around Ethan’s search for his son, and how the other characters get involved in the story.

The game has overall, a very interesting story. One of the most intriguing stories in a game ever. While there are 4 different characters to play all their stories seem to go in sync with one another so there is never any confusion. As far as knowing what is going on that is. After completing one part of the story players will play as another character. When you return back to a certain character their story will fall inline from where the player last left off. During the loading process of the next part players will be shown a closeup of the character they are about to play.

The graphics in the game are amazing. The characters are all very well defined. My only complaint is that their facial emotions aren’t that distinct. The use of mocap was used for capturing facial movement, unlike L.A. Noire which used MotionScan. The environment is very well detailed. Throughout the game players will have to look at other objects in order to gain knowledge about the current quest, such as clocks, cabinets, dressers, and so forth.

The gameplay is interesting. It’s not the best gameplay in the history of gaming. The game makes you hit one to several different buttons at a time in order to do one action. In fact, while I was playing it seemed to remind me of another game that I had played years ago, Indigo Prophecy. Come to find out that Quantic Dream did both of that game and Heavy Rain. Throughout the whole game different buttons will appear in the screen that correspond to what the player has to push. In the beginning it seems like a cool concept, but after awhile it got kind of ridiculous. Sometimes 5 different buttons had to be pushed at once in order to get through the action. If the buttons are not hit in the right order and held down then the action is failed and has to start over. The one thing that makes video games interesting is the fact that the player can control the character. However, this is way too much control. Some of the actions seemed pretty pointless such as taking of the character’s coat, or opening a car door, starting it, putting it into gear, and driving away in it. Overall the game is pretty short. I was able to finish it in a 24 hour period of time with breaks. And I wasn’t slacking on sleep in order to play it. Initially it takes 8-10 hours to play. Of course, if someone is wanting to complete 100% then it will take longer to find everything and of course will take longer to play. If the developers had spent less time on the button commands and more time on other ways to explore a scene then I could see the game being better.

Overall the game was a good play. Something that everyone should play and complete to the max. I hope to purchase it to keep someday. I give Heavy Rain an 8/10.

Heavy Rain is rated M for Blood, Intense Violence, Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Drugs.

Video Games as Art – Jewelry

In addition to tattoos and paintings that I talked about a few weeks ago, video games come in another form of art- jewelry. Gamers can find all sorts of video game related jewelry on the internet. Here are a few of my favorites…

Here is a handmade Shrinky Dink charm of Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2 which can be found on the popular craft website Etsy.com.

Pac-Man Necklace also from Etsy.com

Video Game Controller cufflinks from Ebay.com

Etsy is one of the best places to find great handmade video game jewelry. Now gamers can have fashionable jewelry that matches their personality!

How many hours of video games is too much?

So lately I’ve been on a video gaming binge. I play before class, after class, when I’m supposed to be doing homework, etc. Once I get hooked on a good game I will play it for literally HOURS. During Kingdom Hearts I played it for probably 8-10 hours at a time. During L.A. Noire and Resident Evil 5 I played for 15-17 hours at a time. Yeah, that is pretty overboard. And is it healthy? Of course not! But I get stuck on those binges and I can’t quit. Surprisingly I’m not failing school. I still have a good balance of school, personal life, and video games. But it still isn’t a good excuse to play video games for hours on end. So how many hours are too many?

A 2008 study shows that the average child 8-12 years of age plays 13 hours of video games a per week. Teens 13-18 years old play 14 hours per week. Another study shows that the average gamer plays 18 hours per week. I am playing almost that much in a DAY. An article in the Huffington Post says that an hour a day is the key to success. To me that is crazy to think of because I can’t get much done in a video game in an hour. But it is true that a person should only play that long.