The World Baseball Classic is going on right now

Hey there everyone.  I'm going to take a minute to talk about sports, which are games.  Specifically Baseball, my personal favorite of sports.  For those of you who see video and card games as a refuge from the wide world of sports - I don't blame you, and please don't worry:  this post doesn't represent a tidal shift in the content of my writing.  I just want to be able to talk about sports sometimes, which, as I mentioned, are games after all.  

So, there's this thing going on, it's called the World Baseball Classic.  I found out about it because an Android application I have called Bleacher Report - has been mentioning it a bunch.  At first I responded with: 'who cares?'  Something about it just didn't seem genuine.  I think it was an example of: 'well I've never heard of it, so it must not be good (or important).'  This is an attitude I'm not proud of, but I do demonstrate it sometimes.  When I realize this, I usually feel a sense of irony, because I actually have an interest in showing people things they may not have heard of ie:  Independent Games.

What caused me to give the World Baseball Classic a second look is when I realized how many American Major League Baseball stars were going to be playing in it - but not for America.   Teams from Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico and even Canada each have MLB stars on their teams.  This I found interesting - not only does the American MLB employ a great number of international players, but some of those players are really good, and they present a real threat to America's ability to win this tournament.

So, about the World Baseball Classic.  This is the third such 'classic' - so the name may seem premature.  But it was originally associated with Olympic Baseball and the World Cup of Baseball.  I didn't know there was a World Cup of Baseball, but my experience following the FIFA World Cup (Soccer) in 2010 was very exciting, and I am happy to see my favorite sport is participating on the world stage.  The World Baseball classic is small - 16 teams, four divisions of four teams apiece.  Fully half the size of the last FIFA World Cup.  But I have hope that it will expand.  Another bit of information:  Japan won the first two tournaments, and is the favorite to win this one as well.  One more bit;  the US has not gotten any medals yet.  This last piece, I enjoy greatly.  

There is a certain sort of dominant attitude, I have found associated with sports in the US, that really bothers me.   A sort of American Exceptionalism that makes me feel like a jerk just by association.  I get a smug joy out of seeing the US struggle in the FIFA World Cup. This feeling is a combination of light disdain, at what I perceive as a bullying attitude from US sports enthusiasts,  and satisfaction that resting on those laurels does not win the US any medals. In addition, there is a distant feeling that a thing that must be worked for will be that much more satisfying when it is earned. 

I get a similar feeling knowing that the US has not gotten any medals in the World Baseball Classic.  But this time it is couched in the fact that Baseball itself is an original American sport.  And it happens to be my favorite of sports.  And the US is home for the biggest and most lucrative baseball association in the world, the MLB.  So, in a sense, the US is always playing the role of 'host' to the World Baseball Classic, because the very existence of said tournament means that there are other countries - at least 15 other countries, around the world that are serious about playing Baseball.  

It is at this point that the warm fuzzies start to set in.  I am happy that the country in which I live is sharing this game that I love with the rest of the world.  It's like throwing a successful party.  People show up, and they like the snacks, and the activities, and they mingle and everyone is happy.  The US team doesn't need to dominate, I am content that the game is popular enough to have a competitive international tournament.  

So, for this reason, 'for love of the game,'  I want to see the World Baseball Classic get some press and viewership.  Currently, it competes with MLB spring training, which perhaps isn't so good.  It is still a young tournament, and I hope that the WBC will grow and thrive, and be a source of entertainment, inspiration and joy for many.  

-D

Demo Time: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate (3DS)

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate was released for the Nintedo 3DS three days ago on March 5th, 2013.  I recently had a chance to play the demo, which was available through Nintendo's eShop.  After spending 37 minutes on a single play through of the demo, I feel like it did it's job.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect having only watched the trailer that was released during the 2012 E3 and while there wasn't a whole lot of game play footage, I was still very excited about a new Castlevania game.  The biggest downside for me though, was that this is a sequel to a Castlevania game that I have never played.  I'm assuming that the "Lords of Shadow" tagline will be present in all the subsequent re-boots that began in December 2010 with Castlevania: Lords of Shadow released exclusively on PS3 and XBox 360.  And as it turns out, the development company of the Castlevania reboot series is not specifically Konami, but Spain based MercurySteam, so kudos to them first off for not only creating a reboot of a Japanese standard, but apparently doing it successfully enough to warrant more than one game.

I still find it interesting and on some levels annoying that a series will have different games available only on certain systems.  Take this Castlevania series for example.  C:LoS was released on PS3 and 360, C:Los-MoF will only be released on the 3DS and later this year, C:LoS2 will be released on PS3, 360 and for the PC.  It's one thing for a series like Final Fantasy, which do not have connected storylines to have their games on different platforms, but for someone like me who likes continuing stories and to not have a system that a game is on, it just makes me sad.  And, at the moment, I'm not so hard up to play Lords of Shadow to go out and buy a PS3 or 360.

Anyway!  The Mirror of Fate demo, that's why we're here.  Upon downloading, the demo lets you know that you have 30 play-throughs, which is quite a lot when you consider that it took me 37 minutes to complete a single play-through.  There wasn't any lead in, intro or explanation as to who you were or what you were doing and where.  But let's be honest, you don't always need that in a Castlevania game.  The demo consisted of four areas and two boss type characters that reminded me a lot of the original NES Castlevania game: start outside of the castle, cross a drawbridge, go through a church, go underground then battle outside of the main castle.  There were skeletons throwing bones, knights wielding axes what I might suspect to be Flea Men although they didn't attack, but were just there. 

The music too seemed very Castlevania-y, although it didn't sound like Michiru Yamane, the frequently used composer for the Castlevania series.  The tone of the music was more "background" although it did a great job in setting a dark, semi-serious tone.  I can't think of the music though at the moment, meaning I wasn't memorable as "Vampire Killer," but that's that.   the composer for the games in the Lords of Shadow series has been Oscar Araujo and from what music is "available" in the demo, it fits very well.

The game play itself reminded me a lot of God of War, in that you had a basic whip attack, a slightly slower whip attack and when you combined those with the jump ability, you could perform different types of attacks.  For instance, when you jumped and power attacked, you would flip with your whip out and hit whatever it is that is under you mid jump; when you power attacked then jumped, you would spin in a circle creating a cyclone-like whip attack.  Other Castlevania-y type things that went on were using your whip Indiana Jones style to swing across gaps and special sub-weapons, which included in the demo was a boomerang-type blade reminiscent of something from Blade II.  That in mind, the demo played very much like any other Castlevania 2D side scrolling platformer, which while it is not entirely new or inventive, it is still fun and familiar with just enough new elements to keep the game interesting.

Now onto the 3D aspect of the game.  Overall, the 3Dness of the game was very well done and looked great, although there were some times when the 3D blurred a bit, possibly from the rotating camera and I wasn't properly adjusting, or I was just being too excited and kept moving the screen closer or farther away.  During both of the boss fights though, I turned the 3D slider "off" so that I could focus on trying to kill the creature and not dying.

All-in-all, the demo was a lot of fun and even though I died frequently figuring out the controls, the weapons, the enemies and such, it definitely got the point across and has made me eager to purchase the game, which is the whole point of demos being available.  Success on the Castlevania front from MercurySteam.  Good job all.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

This Music Makes Me Sad, But That's It's Job

Link Post

Time for another link post!  Originally I had this tagged to the back of the TMNT Emulator Hour, but then I thought it was better not to mix the link post with the TMNT post.  Almost no connection between the two. Except that James Nintendo Nerd reviewed TMNT- to which I have linked.  I'm sure many of you have already been to these sites, but I still think it's nice to have them in one place with pretty pictures.  Today's theme is:  Game Reviews.  

Many thanks for image to:  http://therealmcast.com/

Angry Video Game Nerd:

This is a popular series about a guy playing NES games and hating most of them.  He also likes to use really filthy language in his descriptions.  If you like NES and filthy language, you'll probably like this series.  To get you started, here's a link to his review of TMNT for NES.   He covers a lot of the same points I mention.

Tabletop

Wil Wheaton is back, with a clever idea and entertaining dialogue.   Tabletop is the premier place to find out about card games and board games.  It's pretty funny too.  Good going Mr. Crusher! 

Zero Punctuation

Yahtzee's game reviews.  This guy cracks me up.  This series has some of the best image-to-dialogue timing and content I've ever seen.  And of course, plenty of filthy language, but with a British ex-pat twist.  I recommend starting from the earlier shows, when his style was still fresh.  On an related note, I just started playing 6 Days a Sacrifice, the last in the Chzo Mythos.

  Indie Impressions

For a kinder, gentler approach to game reviews, RockLeeSmile's Indie Impressions is a series of videos focusing on Independent games.  The video collection is exhaustive, and the viewpoint can be a refreshing alternative to the vulgar negativity of Yahtzee or JamesNintendoNerd.  RockLeeSmile seems to have a genuine interest in promoting Independent games on a whole.    

Game Scores: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)

Composer: Pseudo-Check
Emulator Hour Review: Check
Music: Checking

The music, composed by whomever it was that actually did it, is very good, considering it came out of  an 1989 era NES music chip, although other note worthy games with great soundtracks were Mega Man 2 and Dragon Warrior (1989 being their North American release).

The three tracks that I want to highlight are the "Overworld," "Mini-Boss Battle" and the "Title" themes.

Overworld:

Aside from the title music, this is the first in game music you hear, but unless you're there to listen to the music, you're only going to hear snip its of it in the first level as you're mainly in the sewers and not above ground a lot until the third level.  It's a great little ditty that got stuck in my head when I first played the game.  I've always wanted to drive around town in a van with this blaring.  It doesn't have to be in New York or with three other dudes (mutated or not), just a van and this music, because that doesn't sound shady at all.  Although Conklederp has a pseudo-van, so we might have to make this happen.

Mini-Boss Battle:

I actually like this piece of music better than the "Main Boss" music.  There's just something more driving about it.  And even though the song itself is only 20 seconds long, I feel it's one of those songs that can be repeated indefinitely and I just don't care.  And I think it's an easy song to sing/hum/whistle.  However, due to Youtube not wanting to allow me to embed the video I want, I will then just have to link it here: TMNT Mini-Boss Battle Music

Title:

Just listen to that MIDI electric guitar wail!!  I've heard some people (youtube "let's plays" mostly) complain about the music not being directly related to the cartoon, but if the cartoon music had been anything like this intro music, damn that'd be hot.  But, like I said, there's a riff that sounds an awful lot like the main riff to Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy."  That's one of the reasons why I wanted to know who the composer was to see if I could find out if they were influenced by Queen to properly attribute that one riff during the beginning of both songs to Queen.

With all of that in mind, I leave you with only three of 15 sound clips and songs from Konami's (pain in the ass) 1989 release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  However, because I like all of you who read our blog, I leave you with the best cover of the music that I've found.  It's by the NESkimos off their album "NESkimo Bloodshed" and the track is simply titled, TMNT.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Now Go And Scoop Your Brains Back Up.

Emulator Hour: TMNT (nes)

Friggin' sweet, right?

Jaconian's previous post- about the elusive composers of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES game-- got me thinking about how bloody hard that game was.  Specifically this playthrough that he linked, for the purpose of showing off the thrilling dialogue, and more importantly: that there are no credits (you know, because 'fuck you' for beating this super-hard game?) Before watching that video, I had never before seen anyone beat this game.

Who Dunnit?: Music from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)

First off, I'm referring to the 1989 NES game from Konami here.  And apparently, a guitar riff by Queen, but I'll get to that in the next post.  First, we'll go into a bit about the composer.

If you do a Google search for Keizo Nakamura, you'll find a great deal of seemingly mixed information.  The Video Game Music Database, which I will look at frequently for verification on early NES game composers, doesn't have anything for Keizo Nakamura before 1993, despite the fact that TMNT was released in 1989.  They do have a link to his Facebook profile though, whatever that ultimately means.  Another frequently reliable source, the Video Game Music Preservation Foundation has Keizo Nakamura's only credit as being Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game which came out in 1990.  Then there is a disclaimer that says Kiezo Nakamura is not to be confused with fellow Konami music composer Kozo Nakamura.

If you do a Google search of Kozo Nakamura, you'll find a great deal of seemingly mixed information.  Woah.  The VGMdb doesn't have anything for Kozo Nakamura before 1999.  The VGMPF does have Kozo Nakamura as the composer for TMNT (1989) as well as Monster in My Pocket (1992) and TMNT IV: Turtles in Time (1992).  

And now!, (now as in a week after initially writing this, parts of the TMNT article from VGMPF have been changed/updated) there has been a third name to enter the arena.  VGMPF now has it listed that Jun Funahashi composed half of the games music, but for as to who composed the other half of the music, "because it has been such a long time, he doesn't remember."

IMdb and Wikipedia both have Keizo listed as the composer while IMdb lists Kozo as the composer for TMNT IV and MiMP, but not TMNT.  I have not found anything else internet-wise regarding Jun Funahashi being the composer for TMNT, but that doens't mean that he didn't do it.  The game doesn't even have a credit sequence to tell us anything about the creators of the game.  VGMPF says/ previously said that "it has become known that Kozo Nakamura is responsible for the Ninja Turtles NES soundtrack," although that sentence has been since taken down and replaced with "The game lacks credits, but Jun Funahashi has confirmed that he composed half of the games music."

So who is the composer for the NES game TMNT that was released in 1989 by Konami?  Based on Jun Funahashi's statement, it was him and some other people, which could very well mean that Kozo Nakamura and/or Keizo Nakamura were associated with the game's music.  I've sent messages to Jun and Keizo two weeks and a month ago respectively and have not heard back from either, possibly for obvious reasons.  For the time being however, we'll have to settle and accept the information at hand and be thankful that at least there are some people who care.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Catasrophe

Proteus: Graphics and Exploration

I'd like to start off with a nice video walkthrough/commentary on Proteus.  Just in case my gushing and images aren't enough, this walk-through will give you some idea of what it is like to play Proteus.  That said, this video is basically one big spoiler.  So if you haven't yet played Proteus... maybe just ignore me until it goes on sale (I'll let you know), and then buy it and then play it.  

RockLeeSmile highlights indie games in a series of videos called 'Indie Impressions.'

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I've played Proteus through a couple times now, and I think I've made some basic determinations about this game:  Proteus is an easter-egg hunt.  No one is keeping score - and there is a complete lack of achievements.  The purpose of the game is to play it and enjoy it, the player decides how much they enjoy it.  I am one who has decided to love it.  There are others who decided not to.  That is ok with me.  But if you choose to play, you can spend your time looking around, and you will find some things that may catch your attention and interest, and possibly provide you with some delight.  

Actually, funny thing--  I have been thinking about making a game based on the causeway which connects Sacramento to Davis.   I ride over this causeway on the train all the time, and when I'm looking out the window, I have observed a lot of beauty and subtle differences.  Because I love games and thinking about gaming, I've wanted to depict this environment through gaming.

My initial idea was to make a minecraft of the causeway.  This I still may do if I come into a boatload of time and patience.  The things that I observe from out the train window are mostly:  the weather and the animals.  The causeway is sometimes foggy, sometimes clear, sometimes flooded.  Sometimes I see egrets and ducks floating in the water, sometimes I see geese in the air, and little swarms of tiny birds.  Sometimes I can see the mountains in the distance and snow on top.  Sometimes the fields are full of wheat or squash or some other plants.  The colors can be many shades of brown, or contrasting shades of bright green, blue mountains, stark-white farm buildings and bright blue sky.

As I've observed the world of the causeway through the window of a train, I've wanted to share this form of peaceful joy with the world.  And as I imagine an artistic rendering of this landscape, I've thought of doing so with a video game.  This video game would need to pay special attention to the landscape, animals and weather.  The purpose of the game would be to travel through and observe a world of beautiful sights and sounds.

Proteus has done just that.  My playing experience is akin to looking out the window at the causeway, imagining what it would be like to wander around there and take in the sights, sounds and smells.  It really is amazing to me, to capture such a sublime experience, and I am very glad I found this game. Sorry to gush.  

Two of the most outstanding features of Proteus are: the practiced restraint on the part of programmers, and the synchronization of the sound and visual space.  There are musical cues triggered by the environment in a variety of ways.  Some triggers come from being near something: the hoot of an owl, the croak of a frog.  Some are triggered by looking at something, such as the sun on a hot summer day, or a shooting star.  

Sometimes I think that Proteus is too sparse, and could use more of everything.  More birds, more bugs, more trees, more weather.  But one thing it does wonderfully is to balance what it does have into a consistently interesting gaming experience.  I believe it is through restraint on the part of the game designers, that this balance is achieved.  I would be very sad if there was a sequel or expansion to Proteus that, perhaps with a zeal to improve and expand on the game play, was to disrupt the balance so that the sense of wonder and joy were lost or significantly diminished.    

It is possible that this game can be so much more than it is, but it is also possible that what Proteus is - is the best thing it can be, and that this feeling I've gotten from playing, of so much more, is best for me to hold, and relish and used for inspiration to create something beautiful myself, rather than to demand it from the creators of Proteus or the industry in general.

I think it may be that the very sparseness of Proteus lends itself to the need for a player to explore.  For example, if I'm feeling aimless while playing, I find a good strategy is to chase a frog until I find something that catches my interest.  Sometimes this leads to finding something unexpected.  

Full Review: The World Ends With You (DS) / Part II: Music

So once again, I've finally gotten off my ass and now I'm at it.  Finishing up watching The Oscars.  I've told The Kid and I'll stand by it, the 2013 Oscars have been fairly lackluster and ". . .eh. . ."  Seth McFarlane has been not that great of a host of a show that hasn't been all that great, although far be if from me to critique a job that I would never be able to do, nor want to do.  I don't even like talking on the phone, let alone to a group (more than one) of people.

On that note, finally finishing this review.  It's been an odd challenge that I can't fully explain.  But this time, I'm hear to talk about the music from The World Ends With You, primarily composed by Takeharu Ishimoto.

Madd 'shoppin' skills yo!

I'm going to try and not make this sound like the Wikipedia article or like an article on Wikipedia and will probably be more like some of the other Game Scores articles that I've written, except that this has a corresponding article about the content of the game.  So why does TWEWY deserve it's own full article for the music?  For one, there are four separate releases.  There's the The World Ends With You Original Soundtrack, the Subarashiki Konosekai + The World Ends With You EP and full length album and The World Ends With You - Crossover.  The fact that Square Enix had enough faith in both the game and the music to warrant this kind of a musical release for a stand alone original game, that wasn't part of a franchise is pretty awesome.

Granted Takeharu Ishimoto had previously worked with Square Enix before as both a synth programmer and composer since the 1999 release of The Legend of Mana.  That being said, I am only familiar with Ishimoto's compositions for Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and Dissidia: Final Fantasy, both of which I have very much enjoyed.

In my Initial Review I said that the music was somewhat remeniscent of the music that you might find in Atlus' Shin Megami Tensei Persona series and, now having listened to the TWEWY soundtrack more extensively, I feel that that initial compassion was made because I was not very familiar with contemporary music in an RPG, let alone in a game from Square Enix.  It was very much welcome and I am very glad that the music remained the same from the Japan release to the North American release as it very easily could have been inundated or ever replaced with current popular artists from North America or other English speaking countries.  I do not really care that I can't understand seven eighths of what is beings sung since the majority of the the "sung" music is played during battles which last maybe 30 seconds.  The game even makes it a point to award higher points the faster you can complete a battle, so the music you do hear is only a very brief snip-it.  It wets your pallet for more and I often found myself letting the post battle score screen play for an extra minute to listen to the songs.

So the music.  The music is a very eclectic mix of hip hop, electronica, rock, hip rock hop, and a half dozen other genres that I don't think I'm very familiar with.  J-Pop most likely.  I don't really know, but that's not the point.  The point is, is that the majority of the music is very good and even if I wouldn't normally listen to Japanese hip hop, I like to listen to this soundtrack.  And like almost any soundtrack or compilation album, I don't like every song, but I don't hate any of them.

So now let me highlight a couple of my favorite songs off of the various soundtracks.

Déjà Vu (feat. Joanna Koike) from Subarashiki Konosekai + The World Ends With You full length album & EP:

This is one of the songs that plays while you're not in a battle, although like the battle music, you'll only hear snip-its of it unless you don't progress to another area and thus, another song.  

Hybrid from The World Ends With You Original Soundtrack:

Battle music and if you're lucky (or slow), you'll get to at least the first chorus by the end of the scoring screen after a battle, if it's the song that's playing during your last battle that is.

Transformation [Feat. Andy from Sixpin] from Subarashiki Konosekai + The World Ends With You full length album & EP:

This was probably my favorite battle music and although I have no idea who Andy or Sixpin is (although after an iminint Google search, I kind of now know), it's one of the tracks that falls more in a pseudo-rock genre than some of other songs on the both the album and the in-game soundtrack.

Some other songs that I won't link to, but that I really like are: 
"Calling"
"Someday"
"No Name [Secret Track]"
"Someday (Unplugged) Feat. Sawa"
"Twister Gang-Mix [Bonus Track]"
"Three Minutes Clapping Feat. J.D. Camaro"

I'm sure it will come as no surprise that I highly recommend the original soundtrack as well as the Subarashiki Konosekai + The World Ends With You full length album, the two which I have.  You don't even have to have played the game, the music is great on it's own.  Just peruse youtube for a while if you like what I've posted here.  I would recommend purchasing from the iTunes store as buying physical copies from Amazon will put you back ~$60-70 and there aren't any MP3 albums available.  I don't often endorse iTunes, but in this case, I couldn't justify to my bank account the expense to own the physical copy rather than the MP3 downloads.  I know, to some people I'm a very bad person, but that doesn't make the music any less awesome.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Any Earlier And It'd Be Too Late