Weekly Game Music: To The Ends (Small Worlds)


New week, new music.  A while back, I mentioned a flash game called Small Worlds in Strange Free Games.  It’s music, it turns out, are from Kevin MacLeod‘s collection of Creative Commons compositions.  The one below is called To the Ends, a mysterious music that slowly draws you in.

Small Worlds can be played in your browser here.

“There is too much noise.”  An odd beginning for a game. As a 3-pixel high character, you traverse through each world, heavy under a dark fog.  By traveling farther, however, the fog slowly gives away, providing an after-math of a certain event. Since the story lacks any other narrative, however, the player must come up with their own conclusion in what the game meant, and what each landscape stood for.

Despite this ambiguity, it’s atmospheric gameplay is intriguing.  Nothing can kill the 3-pixel character, so you can explore at your own pace, at your own leisure. The character can merely move and jump, but by doing so, your width of vision increases. As a consequence, the game begs for exploration, even to dead-ends, as more and more of the stage is revealed.
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Weekly Game Music: Some Like it Red Hot (Viewtiful Joe)


New week, new music. This week’s music is Some Like it Red Hot, baby!  Two cool dudes, Masakazu Sugimori and Masami Ueda, manage to capture the exciting and flashy nature of a city.  It best fits the rad superhero action game, Viewtiful Joe.

Viewtiful Joe, is, like, an action game about a stupid nobody named Joe.  The loser is such a hopeless fanboy of Captain Blue, man!  Even ends up being the only audience in a movie re-run, with his, you know, hot girlfriend Silvia.  Poor girl.  Anyway, Silvia totally gets kidnapped into the movie world, and Joe gets sucked into it by force.  But wait, it gets better!  Joe gets this rad V-Watch, turning him into a red-suited action hero.  Man, those pants are tight!

Anyhoo, Viewtiful Joe is this action-packed 2.5D beat’em-up all the cool kids are talking about.  To spice up his action, Joe can make time run slower or faster, allowing him to solve puzzles, cream enemies, or just look plain wicked.  On top of that, the game has this sweet cell-shaded graphics that totally makes it look like a cartoon.  It’s just how Joe rolls.

Viewtiful Joe was originally released on the Gamecube in 2009. It has also been ported to the PS2 as well.  It’s hardcore, dude!
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Weekly Game Music: Around the World (The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift)


New week, new music.  This week: a music track from a game based off of a movie. Around the World, composed by Atlus Plug, provides a speed-inducing experience using Asian instrumentals.  A fitting composition for the frankly titled game, The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift.

As expected from the title, The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift is a simple racing game that takes place on Japanese highways.  Apart from your own rival you’re driving against, you have to swerve around non-racing cars, lest you spin out inappropriately.  As with the movie, Tokyo Drift opts for realism, using real-world models for racing.

The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift was released on the Playstation 2 in 2006.
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Weekly Game Music: Gameboy Tune (Machinarium)


New week, new music. This week’s music is Gameboy Tune by Tomas Dvorak. Despite it’s overly-optimistic beeps and bloops, it’s a surprisingly mellow tune. It best accents the neon game arcade room in an otherwise old-and-rusty game, Machinarium.

Machinarium is a no-text, all visual point-and-click adventure of a weak but determined robot to get his kidnapped girlfriend back. During his travels, he learns the kidnappers has caused a ton of mayhem to the townsfolk, and even hung a time-bomb on a tall tower for a good measure. Frantically working to find a way to diffuse the bomb, our hero must…slowly help remedy each denizen’s misfortunes. Point-and-click at its finest.

Sarcasm aside, Machinarium is a rare game that successfully tells a story without a single use of text or voice acting. It’s puzzles — which ranges from distracting the guard to slip by him, to unlocking a door using a Rubik’s cube — can sometimes veer towards nonsensical and frustrating. Fortunately, there’s a consistent and easy way to find the solution of every puzzle in-game. The minor usability improvements helps guarantee that anyone can play this game.

Machinarium was originally released on the PC, Mac, and Linux in 2009. It has also been ported to iPad and Android as well.


Extra!

Title: The End [Prague Radio]
Game: Machinarium
Composer: Vojtech Zelinsky


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Weekly Game Music: Me and My Little War (Elebits)


New week, new music. We’re at war. A war composed by Naoyuki Sato and Michiru Yamane. Me and My Little War is a fitting title for Elebits hero, Kai. The music’s exciting outbursts, followed by a childish melody, best depicts Kai’s selfish attempts at getting his parent’s attention, even in a middle of a crisis.

Elebits is told through the eyes of Kai, a seemingly neglected child. Kai’s parents, both Elebits researchers, rushes out one night on an emergency blackout. Disgruntled, Kai attempts to create his own power by collecting wild Elebits — power-generating spirits — using his father’s trusty gravity gun.

Elebits is a physics toybox that utilizes Wii’s motion controls to grab and throw nearly everything in the game. The game begins with a rather under-powered gun: you can only lift small things, like boxes and toys. As you collect the Elebits hiding behind objects, though, your gun grows gradually stronger, eventually letting you throw trucks and buildings with ease.

Elebits was originally released on the Wii in 2006. It’s sequel, which plays nothing like the original, was released on the Nintendo DS.
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Weekly Game Music: Dissociative Identity (Killer7)


New week, new music. I haven’t posted that many sad music, so here’s one from the surreal noir game, Killer7. It’s Dissociative Identity by Masafumi Takada. The music plays during a sudden revelation when Garcian Smith (in the video below) discovers his real identity.

Killer7 story follows a group of assassins with the same name, hired to take on several targets directed by the US government. A group of terrorists calledHeavenly Smiles are literally destroying the peaceful foundation created by the US, and Killer7 are the only group of people who can see and kill Heavenly Smiles. Killer7, of course, aren’t normal people either. In fact, they’re actually one person with 8 different bodies, personalities, and abilities. Since each mission takes place at different time and places, the story is frequently disjointed and difficult to follow.

Killer7 is a bloody, controversial game that does everything in its power to make you feel uncomfortable, without being frustrating. It’s controls are a great example: instead of allowing you to run and kill whenever you want to, your character is forced to walk on a specific track forwards and back. Killing enemies, of course, involves first listening for a disturbing laugh (Heavenly Smiles are invisible, remember), then aiming towards the sound in first person (you stationary at this position), and scanning the area to make the enemies visible. The game’s distinct gameplay allows it to use dramatic — and again, uncomfortable — camera angles to highlight either the character or area in interest. Almost all puzzles are in point-and-click affair, adding the disjointedness to the game.

Killer7 was originally released on the Gamecube in 2005. It has been ported to PS2.


Extra!

Title: Rave On
Game: Killer7
Composer: Masafumi Takada


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