Here is a selection from among the highest voted and most read news stories on videogame music posted to the
Nobuooo website during the month of April 2009. Find out what people voted for and commented on during what T.S. Eliot famously dubbed "the cruellest month."
April was not so cruel a month for Nobuooo, as it turned out. The
4.09 Video Update featured game designers and musicians
Baiyon,
Chris Schlarb, Nifflas and Alexander Porechnov. Posted to vimeo, the episode was a massive 15-minutes in length and attracted a record number of views. In addition, over 1200 readers joined the Nobuooo twitter feed to keep up with the latest developments in videogame music.
It was a great month for posts as well. Music videos for Plants vs. Zombies and Goldeneye glitch edition made for some laugh-out-loud funny moments. News of Silent Hill Shattered Memories and 8-bit FM web radio added to the excitement. Here are some of the most popular news items of the month, ranging from music samples, interviews, to VGM-related news.
Video
Nobuooo 4.09: GDC Mosaic
The fourteenth installment of the monthly videogame music series takes place at the 2009 Game Developers Conference. The video feature centers on the sound design of three titles highlighted at the Independent Games Festival Awards: PixelJunk Eden, Musaic Box and Night Game.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5636
PopCap's Plants vs Zombies makes sing-along video debut
Unvoted but highly read, PopCap finally officially announced that their highly anticipated casual tower defense game Plants Vs. Zombies will make its PC debut on May 5th, and the announcement has been made in song. The music video is by videogame composer
Laura Shigihara.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5442
Goldeneye Gets Down: glitch edition
An apparent glitch in Nintendo 64 classic Goldeneye causes in-game characters to freak out when you tilt the cart. The glitch has spawned a new music video craze on Nico Nico Douga.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5449
The PAX 10 (expanded edition)
An expanded edition of the 2008 PAX 10 video is now online with higher visual quality and revised editing. Makers of independent games talk about the music of Audiosurf, The Maw, Sushi Bar Samurai, The Amazing Brain Train, Project Aftermath, Chronotron, Impulse, Polarity, Schizoid and Strange Attractors 2.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5466
Jamming with LittleBigPlanet
See Dominic Cerquetti, organizer of MAGFest, play a LittleBigPlanet arrangement on keyboard. It's part of a new post on the official Playstation Blog on the subject of the title's presence at the Game Developers Conference.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5542
Final Fantasy Versus XIII ACC cut scene
Music by
Yoko Shimomura is featured in a Final Fantasy Versus XIII cut scene found on the Blu-ray release of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete, which centers on characters Noctus and Stella.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5535
NES cover band ‘Power Play’ plays Metroid theme with Hip Tanaka
GoNintendo links to a video of
Hip Tanaka, the composer of Metroid, seen rocking out with Power Play, an NES cover band, at 8bit Cafe in Tokyo.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5543
News
Follow Nobuooo on Twitter
Now there's a new way to stay up to speed with all the videogame music news being posted on Nobuooo: Updates on new Nobuooo posts will be listed on Twitter.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5467
Listen to 8bit FM web radio
A new streaming web radio site dedicated to every type of video game inspired music is now online. The aptly titled 8bitfm is that show, and includes plenty of nerdcore, VG rock, chiptunes, remixes, radio shows and even straight VGM compositions.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5588
Nobuooo 3.09 - Highest Voted Stories
In March Nobuooo saw interviews with
Masaya Matsuura of PaRappa fame,
Takayuki Nakamura of LUMINES, and several OC ReMix artists. New installments of Into the Score and Hey Listen arrived, and
kt2 released "Arrival of Detectives." These and other highest voted stories of March are now on the Nobuooo last.fm group page.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5494
April is Support OverClocked ReMix Month
So I am a bit late to the party, but did you know that April is Support OCR Month? OverClocked ReMix is a video game music rearrangement site that has thousands (THOUSANDS!) of new takes on classic video game songs. From new to old, obscure to famous.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5553
Stranger in a Strange Land: The Intricate World of Brütal Legend
Tim Schafer's heavy metal homage is crammed with references to the genre. This story on Crispy Gamer points out a bunch of them.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5468
Silent Hill remake coming to Wii, PSP, PS2
GoNintendo reports that a remake of the original Silent Hill is headed to the Wii, PS2 and PSP, entitled Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. "The characters play different roles, things don’t necessarily happen in the same order, and the story is taken in lots of new directions." The music is composed by
Akira Yamaoka.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5445
3 new 8bitpeoples releases
Jephso at Game Music 4 All has news on three new releases (Mr. Spastic, glomag, cornbeast) from 8bitpeoples, which is fast approaching installment one hundred in their catalog of chipmusic.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5576
Final Fantasy IV Celtic Moon, Bioshock Score & Crayon OST Review
Three rather excellent soundtracks reviewed by Higher Plain Music, and two of them are free!
http://nobuooo.com/item/5446
Procedurally generated Rock Band from real-time NES audio
Insignificant Studios' 8bitar Hero procedurally generates four Rock Band patterns from the audio of someone playing an emulated NES game, all in real-time.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5465
Two Pianos Moonsong Remix
Sebastian “GermanSeabass” Wolff strikes again, this time with a 4-handed piano arrangement of Cave Story's "Moonsong." The video went out as a birthday present for the freeware game's creator Pixel (Daisuke Amaya).
http://nobuooo.com/item/5630
Duty Cycle Generator - NES Music by Neil Baldwin
Neil Baldwin wrote the NES scores for Lethal Weapon 3, Magician and James Bond Jr. As one of the founders of Eurocom, he offers lengthy liner notes and audio selections from his work in chiptunes on his site Duty Cycle Generator.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5582
8 Bit Weapon Releases Chiptune Loop Library, Floppy Disk Album
Chiptune group 8 Bit Weapon, who you might have heard on Nokia's Reset Generation Soundtrack, just put out a new sample library with sounds recorded from "the most venerated micro-computers and game consoles of the '70s and '80s," including the Apple II, Commodore 64, NES, Gameboy, and the Atari 2600.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5587
Variety: "Video Games: The top music talents"
Variety interviews
Garry Schyman (BioShock, Destroy All Humans!),
Wataru Hokoyama (Afrika),
Jason Graves (Dead Space) and
Inon Zur (Prince of Persia, Crysis).
http://nobuooo.com/item/5575
Like an Opera Singer with a Chastity Belt*
A review of NES title Gumshoe by Kurt Shulenberger, with particular attention being paid to the soundtrack, which may be the work of
Hip Tanaka.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5604
Hidden Song in EarthBound
Many years back, when EarthBound Central first started to hack the game ROM, they discovered a completely unused music track that was clearly meant to be a powered-up version of a Mother cave and dungeon theme.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5495
releases and downloads
Nintendo Korg DS-10 Album From Dominator
Disquiet points out a new, full-length created with the Korg DS-10 software for the DS.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5488
Doctor Octoroc previews TV show themed chiptune album
Game Music 4 All has word that
Doctor Octoroc, creator of the holiday chiptune album 8-bit Jesus, is previewing tracks from his upcoming collection of TV show and cartoon themes, reimagined as NES adaptations. There's also footage of his recent appearance on G4TV with Nerdcore Rising and Get Lofi.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5524
Dawn of War II soundtrack available for free
Steam has the Dawn of War II soundtrack available to download for free. 20 songs are courtesy of Relic Composer,
Doyle W. Donehoo and Audio Lead, Jason Ross with contributions by artist Noah Stacey and Noobie Noobinson.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5627
Celebrate Braid's PC release with original soundtrack, remixes
An official soundtrack of the tracks licensed for the game has gone on sale, posts Braid artist David Hellman, to coincide with the long-awaited release of the title on PC.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5505
Stalin vs. Martians Audio/ Video
The Stalin vs. Martians media page features songs by Hong Kong band
my little airport, Russian glam-rockers
Lady's Man, Moscow-based electronic musician
Ilya Orange and dancer
Joseph Stalin.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5573
Nitro Game Injection #115
In the first of the Nitro Game Injection podcast’s new interview series on videogame music, former NGI co-host Audun “Akumu Audi” Sørlie details his work on the new VGMdb Podcast and other activities in the game music scene.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5631
Interviews
The One-Two Punch of Street Fighter IV's Audio
In this interview with the audio team behind Street Fighter IV, composer
Hideyuki Fukasawa & sound director
Masayuki Endou discuss bringing regional instruments such as bagpipes to the game's themes, taking liberties with the dramatic design of the sound effects, and revisiting the melodies of Street Fighter II.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5451
Unity Interview: Mega Ran's Random
Capcom Unity's s-kill interviews
Random on the subject of the rapper's Blue Bomber hip hop album Mega Ran 9. The two originally met at Comic-Con, where Random was invited to perform live at the Capcom booth.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5540
gentle echo meeting: Revisiting Kenji Ito's RPG Repertoire
GameSetWatch interviews Square Enix RPG composer
Kenji Ito, Super Smash Bros. Brawl director Masahiro Sakurai, and Harmonics International's Koji Suga on the subject of the gentle echo meeting, a live concert and discussion on the theme of Kenji Ito's repertoire. Available in English, French and Japanese.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5482
OCRemix Interview with Christopher Tin
Christopher Tin composed music for strategy game Civilization IV, including "Baba Yetu," winner of the 2006 GANG Award for best original vocal song. Here he talks with OCR about his music and participation in the Video Games Live concert series.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5568
I Am Robot Makes Game - Shaw-Han Liem's VGM
Toronto-based musician Shaw-Han Liem creates electronic music under the heading "
I Am Robot and Proud." Following the release of his most recent album he performed in clubs in Tokyo, Fukuoka, Kyoto, Nagoya and Osaka for his Uphill City tour. While away from the stage, he was participating in the creation of his first game project, a collaboration with Jonathan Mak, the designer of Everyday Shooter.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5523
Auditory Memoirs of a Sushi Bar Samurai
Casey Muratori, designer and composer of PAX 10 recipient Sushi Bar Samurai, discusses the interactive soundtrack of his independent game with GameSetWatch, offering a case study on how his culinary game title was recognized for its unique flavor.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5594
Interview with Eirik “Phlogiston” Suhrke and Rich "DisasterPEACE" Vreeland of II music netlabel
Interview with the two artists, Eirik “Phlogiston” Suhrke and Rich "DisasterPEACE" Vreeland, behind the Pause netlabel for chiptunes and the Plus video game soundtrack netlabel.The interview discusses the history of Pause as well as what is in store for the future of the site.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5600
Rolling with the Sounds of Night Game
Night Game for WiiWare was named a main competition entrant for the 11th Independent Games Festival. Designed by Nifflas of Knytt Stories, it features a score by composer
Chris Schlarb, who joins GameSetWatch for an audio interview.
http://nobuooo.com/item/5560
That's it for 4.09! Join us next month for the highest voted stories of May of 2009 on Nobuooo.com.