Gamertell

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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In this dual interview, Chistopher interviews Burning Man Studios two composers, Nathan Pinard and Eike Steffe. Find out how two professional composers living in different countries manage make beautiful videogame music together…

Click through to download an exclusive MP3 ("Arkady") from the game!

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One of the problems in game design that I find is, that production has a lot of surprises, and I hate surprises. Thankfully, when it has come to our music and sounds, the work has been consistently outstanding.

I count Burning Man Studios very lucky to have found some amazing talent in the fields of music and sound design. Each of the people working on the music are very professional, not only in their work and background, but in their attitudes and drive for making the music for Conquest of Heroes truly unique and original…

Also click through to download an exclusive MP3 ("This is Our Story") from the game!

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On page 42 of the April 2008 issue of Wired magazine is a photo featuring six stereotypical Geeks: a Fanboy, Music Geek, Gamer, Gadget Guy, Hacker and Otaku. Each over-generalized category is exemplified by a person modeling what Wired deems appropriate garb and a brief description that includes disposition, beliefs and turn-ons.

Here’s the unusually derogatory description Wired writer/contributor, Troy Brownfield, writes of Gamers…

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After Gibson Guitars sued Guitar Hero’s publisher Activision and some major game retailers, alleging that the game infringes upon one of its patents (related to technology required for simulating a musical performance). It has realized that the other leading game in the music genre, Rock Band, is also in violation of its patent. Now Gibson Guitars is suing Rock Band’s developer Harmonix, its parent company MTV Networks and the game’s distributor, Electronic Arts…

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Rock Band has got 1.5 million PS3, Xbox 360 and PS2 owners off their seats and forced them to shed all their shyness. Very soon, Wii gamers can also join in the fun as the Wii version of Rock Band is scheduled for a June 22, 2008, release.

The game’s developer, Harmonix, announced…

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As the April release date for the hotly anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV nears, Rockstar has revealed 2 of the 18 radio stations that will be featured in the game.

According to IGN, the first new station is “IF99”, which will be the home for “International Funk”. IF99 will be hosted by none other then Femi Kuti, who is the son of the late Fela Kuti, a pioneering force behind Afrobeat, which is a combination of Yoruba, jazz, highlife and funk rhythms, and mixed with African percussion and vocal styles music. 

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