Gamertell

Halo fans may have another item to add to their holiday wishlist - the Halo Trilogy - The Complete Original Soundtracks boxed set. Sumthing Else Music Works’ has just announced that the five disc release, which also comes with four tracks from Halo Wars will be available both in stores and for download on December 2, 2008. Amazon‘s currently listing the set for $26.99. If you search for Halo at Sumthing Digital, the Halo soundtracks are $9.99 each, so the boxed set ends up being a pretty good deal.

The Halo Wars special DVD that’s included with this set may be the most appealing to fans. It not only has four unspecified tracks from the forthcoming Xbox 360 real-time strategy game set in the Halo universe, but it also shows the recording session where the Halo Wars theme was created and the opening “Five Long Years” movie that will appear in Halo Wars.

The contents of the pack are pretty standard, aside from the Halo Wars special DVD. There are four CDs…

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While I am fully aware that Rock Band and Guitar Hero are each separate games, the music selections that each title offers make me wonder whether or not they should just cease the competition and join forces to release a singular musical instrument-based game.

Yesterday, Activision announced that The Killers would be releasing their musical wares onto Guitar Hero World Tour’s musical store as downloadable content on Tuesday, November 25, 2008.  Not content to be left out of this party, MTV made it known that Rock Band would be receiving music from this group as well, on the very same day.

The songs that will be

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There were many games available for play at this year’s Namco Bandai booth but there were a particular few that caught my eye: Fragile: Sayonara Tsuki no Haikyo, Taiko no Tatsujin, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2, and The Idolmaster SP.

Click through for a hands-on look at all four games…

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Remember the halcyon days of the ‘80s and ‘90s, when games were great? Yeah, hate to burst your bubble, but a metric ton of crap came out in those days too. And a lot of them were licensed shlock, quick-cash-ins, or inept cartoon garbage.

But the worst offenders of all? Games that “starred” celebrities. Remember Shaq-Fu? Hudson Hawk? Or even better - games starring musicians. The Neilman has an amazing list of the worst musician cash-in games ever made, including the terminall stupid 50 Cent: Bulletproof, the inane Journey/Journey Escape games, the comically ridiculous Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, the obnoxiously dumb Revolution X and finally - the worst of the worst: the Make My Video titles.

There’s so much bad (comically bad) in this list that you can’t resist. Check it out for a laugh or six.

Read [The Neilman ]

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Activision has just announced the on-disc track listing for Guitar Hero World Tour for the PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360. 86 songs will initially be available, and each song will be a master recording. No need to worry about bad covers, come October 26, 2008. So rockers should be sure to save up $189.99 so you can purchase the game with the full band kit when it comes out.

The official Guitar Hero World Tour songs listed in the press release are as follows…

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Christian rockers who may not have been satisfied with the Guitar Hero and Rock Band tracklists will have an alternative by the end of September, 2008. Digitial Praise has announced that Guitar Praise, a Christian version of Guitar Hero is on the way. Guitar Praise is designed specifically for computers and features over 50 Christian rock songs from artists like Casting Crowns, David Crowder Band, dc Talk, Flyleaf, Reliant K and Newsboys. The game will also come with a specially created guitar controller which plugs into any USB drive.

Click through for the official Guitar Praise song list…

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Title: Video Games Live: Volume One
Price: $16.98 ($0.99 per song download)
Release Date: July 22, 2008
Publisher: EMI Records Ltd. (Angel Records)
Pros: An excellent collections of impressive performances. Often well-orchestrated collections and homages to game music with an honest air of respectability that even non-gamers can appreciate. The name implies there will be a Volume Two.
Cons: A few segments are a bit slow and some of the instrumentation plainly mimics or masks the vocals.
Overall Score: Two thumbs up; 91/100; A-; * * * * out of five.

No matter where you fall in the games as art spectrum there’s no denying that plenty of artistic efforts are put into many games’ production. Case in point is the Video Games Live tour which offers orchestral performances of video game music that would be difficult for any music snob to scoff at.

The CD (and digital download) release of Video Games Live: Volume One offers selected studio and live performances featuring the Slovak Symphony Orchestra, Crouch End Festival Chorus and various soloists as conducted by Jack Wall.

Click through for a track-by-track review…

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Check out the gallery: Video Games Live: Volume One CD art

Where TV killed the radio star, video games are helping to revive them. With the success of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, it is fairly interesting to look at the effect these games are having on the credibility of the gaming industry as an intrinsic part of the entertainment industry. An example of this the planned September 2008 re-emergence of the band Guns N’ Roses through releasing a new song in Rock Band 2, one prospectively from fabled and constantly delayed album Chinese Democracy that fans have been anticipating for more than a decade.

It has taken a while for the game industry to be…

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As any Japanese video game fan knows, video games and popular music have very close ties in Japan. Singers will have their songs featured in the games. They will be used in advertising campaigns. They may even be called upon for character modeling.

Two weeks ago Important Importables talked about Hikaru Utada, one of the most popular female singers in Japan and her video game connections. This week Important Importables looks at yet another Japanese superstar, Gackt Camui. Gackt is well known for his music, his acting and his contributions to the gaming worldwide. (He’s also incredibly pretty, multilingual and one of my favorite singers.)

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Recording artists From First To Last (FFTL) will be featured in the upcoming boxing game Facebreaker. The game is still under development at EA Canada but when it’s released for the Playstation 3, XBox 360 and Wii systems, FFTL’s tracks will knock you out.

I spoke with Derek Bloom, drummer for FFTL, about the upcoming release of Facebreaker and he was excited about being featured on the game.

“We have three songs in that game. I’m not sure exactly which songs,“ Bloom admitted. “As far as Facebreaker goes ... I really don’t know much about the game other than it’s a boxing game. We’re pretty much into gaming. And it’s funny too, everyone is trying to be in their own class of games. Like our singer [Matt Good] is into World of Warcraft, guitarist [Travis Richter] who loves playing on the Wii and then I’m into first-person games. The first one I got into was…

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