Tag: Playstation 3

#WeeklyGameMusic: Whetfahrt Cheesefunk (Bit.Trip Presents…Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

You’d think a jazzy composition wouldn’t work too well on a game that requires paying close attention to the music’s rhythm, but the auto-runner Bit.Trip Presents…Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (phew!), developed by Choice Provisions, throws away all common sense and just makes it happen. Whetfahrt Cheesefunk, composed by Matthew Harwood, takes a nice, soft swinging beat, and crescendos it to a deliciously chaotic composition. An interesting decision for a game that demands every single fiber of the player’s attention, lest they get hit, and be forced to replay from the beginning of the level.

The game’s album is available on Bandcamp, by the way: choiceprovisions.bandcamp.com/track/whetfahrt-cheesefunk

Runner2 is a bizarre side-story the happens between two Bit.Trip series entries, Runner and Fate. In short, series villain Mingrawn Timbletot fires a laser at Commander Video, thus whisking him away into a new dimension…the 3D realm! Tired plot point aside, this leaves Commander Video doing what he already does best in Bit.Trip Runner: keep running right in hopes of finding an exit out of this world.

While an auto-runner in the same vain as Canabult, Runner2 has multiple levels with a clear ending, collectibles, and even boss battles. Naturally as the music would imply, the audio design is the primary highlight of Runner2, making it a stand-out among other games in the same genre. Obstacles and collectibles are deliberately placed to create a sense of rhythm and memorization one would expect from music games. On top of this, each successful action is awarded with a note that, stung together, creates a procedurally generated music matching with the composition already playing in the background. In essence, the player gets to feel like they’re composing music.

Runner2 is available on Windows, OS X, and Linux via Steam; Playstation Vita, 3, and 4; iOS, Xbox 360, and finally, Wii U.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: A Floral Creation (El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Need a little bit of mystery and whimsy in your day? This week’s #WeeklyGameMusic has you covered with this track from…an action game? A Floral Creation by Masato Kouda and Kento Hasegawa starts cute and innocent, but gradually builds to a more tense composition. A fittingly bizarre track to an equally strange but visually stunning game, El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron.

Roughly (one might say, poorly) retelling the Hebrew Book of Enoch, El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron stars the scribe Enoch, tasked by God to punish seven fallen angels for taking a liking of humans and transforming Earth to their own image. To aid with Enoch’s travels, Lucifel — yes, that Lucifel, although in this case prior to him betraying God — also follows along, primarily acting as a save point by keeping God up-to-date with Enoch’s progress via a handy flip-phone. The two heroes travel to lands with wildly different, and absolutely gorgeous visuals, going from what appears to be a serene but mostly monochromatic world, to one that’s vibrant and neon colored like Vegas, to even one that’s clearly inspired by cyberpunk.

As an action game, El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron involves Enoch hacking-and-slashing fallen angel goons, first by literally stealing their weapon, then purifying it to be used against them. There are three weapons to master, and interestingly enough, each provide not only different controls in combat, but also a unique utility when it comes to light platforming. Highlight of the game, of course, are the bosses, which each use their own tricky combos to challenge the player’s reaction.

El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron was released on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. No other ports exist.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Opala (Two Worlds)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Sometimes, this #WeeklyGameMusic post series likes to look into tracks from unexpected places. Take, for example, Two Worlds by Reality Pump: a game touted as the Oblivion/Skyrim-killer…then fall into complete obscurity as rapidly as it came in. It once returned back to fame in 2016’s Summer Games Done Quick…where a speedrunner beats it in less than 3 minutes. Well, surprise, surprise, the game has a really beautiful soundtrack! Opala, in particular is a stand-out composition from Harold Faltemeyer.

(Psst! You can buy the soundtrack on iTunes! music.apple.com/at/album/two-worlds/699269326)

Two Worlds opens with the hero’s sister getting kidnapped and held for ransom. It turns out the kidnappers are planning nefariously to unseal Aziraal, the god of fire, from its tomb. It’s up to you to rescue your beloved family member…by taking on a huge number of quests factions give you.

As one would expect of a game dubbed Oblivion-killer, Two Worlds is an open-world WRPG. Customization and freedom is the key goal of the game, as the hero’s individual attributes and skills can be incremented per level-up in any way the player pleases. Naturally, the player can gain favors from the game’s 7 factions by taking on quests each one gives, thus changing their alliances. And of course, if you really want to, you can outright kill villagers if you so desire. Normally a bad choice, but said mechanic can be taken advantage of…such as the aforementioned 3-minute-long speed run.

Two Worlds was released on Xbox 360 and PC. A sequel for the game was released as well, this time on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC, and Mac OSX.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Planet Novalis: Tobruk Crater (Ratchet & Clank)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Back to them classics! This week’s #WeeklyGameMusic is from Insomniac Games’ classic, Ratchet & Clank. Planet Novalis: Tobruk Crater, composed by David Bergeaud, merges together action, thrills, and a little bit of swing to create a unique track like no other. Come take a listen:

Ratchet & Clank stars a humanoid feline creature named Ratchet, and his robot buddy, Clank. The story begins with Clank crash-landing onto Rachet’s home planet. Fortunately, Ratchet is a very handy repair-creature, and fixes up Clank in no time. Thankful, Clank informs Ratchet that a greedy race of aliens are planning on overtaking Ratchet’s planet to use up all its resources. The two agree to team up and defend their home from these incoming forces, which of course meant they’ll have to up their…arsenal.

Ratchet & Clank is a third-person collectathon, much in the same vein as Banjo-Kazooie. Platforming and swinging wrenches will be one of the early moves the player will be learning when starting this game series. That said, perhaps the most stand-out feature the series has is its creative library of long-range weapons. That’s right, that raunchy pun in the prior paragraph isn’t just for show (or a reference to a subtitle in one of the series entries): these games are all about guns, and lots of it! Get ready to pummel aliens in sci-fi city environments, all bundled with wonderfully smooth and expressive animations that really adds to the cartoon-factor.

The first Ratchet & Clank was originally released on Playstation 2. It has been re-released for Playstation 3, Vita, and 4.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Blue Chair (Cloudberry Kingdom)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Let’s get those blood pumping with this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic! Blue Chair, composed by Blind Digital, is one of the many fantastic themes composed for Pwnee Studios’ procedurally generated platformer game, Cloudberry Kingdom. The indie game’s extraordinary algorithm can generate both reasonable Super Mario-like stages, and Kaizo-level, controller-breaking ridiculousness.

Oh no! The evil king, Kobbler, has kidnapped the fair (…and sarcastic) Princess! And to add to the insult, he stole the infinite level generator orb as well! It’s up to a brave…tired…middle-aged hero named Bob to save her.

You know…

That same, bland, sexist plot again.

Obviously poking fun at the usual paper-thin Super Mario plot, Cloudberry Kingdom plays like the Nintendo classic, but with more focus on flow rather than precision. The platformer’s algorithm always calculates at least one plausible path, meaning a lot of the levels are generated with constant movement in mind. To further add variation to the play, the game provides many different control variations, including inclusion of double-jump, jetpacks, Sonic-like momentum-based movement, no-gravity, always-bouncing, etc.

Another innovation the game provides is actually having a demo-mode where an AI demonstrates how to complete a level. This is particularly impressive when one drastically ramps up the complexity of the game to generate levels that are absurdly difficult. One would think like Nintendo’s assist mode, this would help the player to understand the level better, but…

Cloudberry Kingdom is available on Windows via Steam, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and the Wii U

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Lone Survivor (Lone Survivor)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

It’s been a couple of weeks now since you’ve locked down in your own apartment. How long can you go like this? To ease your mind, you turn on your favorite music collection, “#WeeklyGameMusic.” Superflat Games’ melancholic theme song for their game, Lone Survivor, plays. A fitting theme by composer and game designer, Jasper Byrne.

As you settle down, you think to yourself, where does it all begin? It started with a contagious infection. At first, it was just on the news. But you then hear a friend of a friend catch it. Then your neighbors. And now it’s just you. You, a lone man with a surgeon mask on at all times so as to not catch the virus. All of your friends, now violent monsters…

You snap yourself out. No! Focus on surviving through this terrifying apocalypse! What do I need to do? Well, obviously, you need to collect some food. With monsters infesting your neighborhood, that’ll mean stealthily crawling through every nook and cranny to find what limited resources you can find. Fortunately, you have a pistol to incapacitate the monsters. It’s not much, since you’re a bit short on bullets…and said monsters are probably your friends…and you’ll probably lose your sanity shooting them…but it should help.

Well, you have to start somewhere. Saving at the bed all day isn’t going to get you anywhere. Time to open the door, to the sanity-slipping outside world…

Lone Survivor is available on PC and Mac via Steam. It’s also downloadable on Playstation 3, 4, Vita, and Wii U.

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