General gaming

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• SimCity Social's Addictive Fun Buried Underneath Facebook Game Cliches
• Rhythm Thief Reinvents the Character-driven Music Game
• Interview: The Evolving Sounds of Kingdom Hearts 3D
• Cover Story: Video Game Music Festival
• Theatrhythm Final Fantasy D.I.Y.
• Interview: Stealing Back the Music Crown with Rhythm Thief
• Penny Arcade Episode 3 Review: On the Economy of Design

SimCity Social's Addictive Fun Buried Underneath Facebook Game Cliches Posted: 25 Jun 2012 08:48 PM PDT SimCity Social is a frustrating game. I want to love it, and in many ways I do. I've spent the better part of the day playing it and I would absolutely love to be making my way through more quests right this second, only I'm unable to do so as this is a Facebook game through and through. That means you're very much limited in terms of how much you can do and how you can proceed. It's not a unique situation, but unlike most games that suffer from these same sorts of issues, I still feel compelled to continue playing. If you've played Zynga's CityVille, you'll already have a feel for the basic gameplay. You build up a city with homes, businesses, and so on, and you'll routinely check in to collect the resources generated at factories, businesses, farms, et al. Every action requires energy, which regenerates over time and puts a limit on how much you can do any one time without relying on either support from friends or real-world money. (More on that in a bit.)

Rhythm Thief Reinvents the Character-driven Music Game Posted: 25 Jun 2012 06:37 PM PDT 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 25 | VIDEO GAME MUSIC FESTIVAL Rhythm Thief Reinvents the Character-driven Music Game Cover Story: Sega's latest could help bring character-driven music game back into vogue. T he rhythm music genre of video games has gone through a lot in the past seven years; at least enough for a tumultuous VH1 Behind-the-Music special to call its very own. If such a program were recorded, it would go something like this: While the genre happily existed for a long time with occasional character-driven hits like Parappa the Rapper and Gitaroo Man, after 2005 everything changed. That year, co-developers Red Octane and Harmonix engineered Guitar Hero and gave players a fun, skill-focused way to interact with their favorite rock music. Their work became an instant success; one that drew both mainstream attention and record profits. While it expanded an existing subset of rhythm-based video games, Guitar Hero quickly overshadowed everything else available in the genre at the time. Although character-driven rhythm titles continued to exist in some form, efforts like the excellent Elite Beat Agents simply couldn't compete with the guitar-shredding popularity found in their instrument-based counterparts and slowly dissolved from the public eye. However, a funny thing happened by 2010: Thanks to market saturation, the sun would set on the world of instrument-based games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. While we were sad to see the biggest hitter in music video games slowly fade away, it's also set the stage for a character-driven music comeback.

Interview: The Evolving Sounds of Kingdom Hearts 3D Posted: 25 Jun 2012 06:10 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 25 | VIDEO GAME MUSIC FESTIVAL Interview: The Evolving Sounds of Kingdom Hearts 3D Cover Story: Composer Yoko Shimomura explains how history influences the music in the KH series. R egardless of our thoughts on the series as a whole, we here at 1UP have come to a general consensus that Kingdom Heats 3D: Dream Drop Distance soundtrack is all sorts of great. Throughout Sora's most robust handheld adventure, you'll be privy to a suite of music that pulls from both Square and Disney's past, while simultaneously providing sounds that pave the way for the future of the series. It was with this love and appreciation that we approached series composer Yoko Shimomura and asked her about all things musical in KH3D. I came up with musical phrases that were sort of fun, out of the ordinary, and fluffy. 1UP: Nearly every element of Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance deals with the concept of dreams in some way. How did this theme influence the composition of music in the game?

Cover Story: Video Game Music Festival Posted: 25 Jun 2012 04:38 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 25 | VIDEO GAME MUSIC FESTIVAL Cover Story: Video Game Music Festival Join 1UP all week for a tribute performance in honor of game music, music games, and the people who create them. Music in video games has a way of becoming the very first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions a title. It's nigh-impossible to think of Tetris without immediately hearing the whimsical Russian folk tune "Korobeiniki" as it continually reminds you that flow of blocks will never end. Furthermore, these tunes have become iconic enough to transcend the medium and simple exist as elements of the collective pop culture consciousness. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who can't identify Koji Kondo's iconic melody from World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros., no matter how many years it's been since they've picked up a controller. Of course, one can't talk about music in video games without mentioning titles where the music is the game. Innovative classics like PaRappa the Rapper and Rez delivered some of the most unique experiences to be had on their respective consoles, and there have been few titles as ubiquitous in living rooms as Guitar Hero and Rock Band were throughout the aughts. And while many people labeled the rhythm genre dead after the flash-in-the-pan success of these plastic instrument games faded, a quick look at our Best of E3 Awards from just a few weeks ago shows that the genre's finest hour may be head of us.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy D.I.Y. Posted: 25 Jun 2012 04:35 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 25 | VIDEO GAME MUSIC FESTIVAL Theatrhythm Final Fantasy D.I.Y. Cover Story: We build our perfect set list for Square's upcoming Final Fantasy music game. I t's musical, it's charming, it's kind of an RPG: Yes, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy is many things. But what it is not is a perfect collection of the best Final Fantasy music. Yeah, it features plenty of great tracks drawn from the series' quarter-century of history, all represented with tinny 8-bit samples where appropriate, and even more tunes are on the way as downloadable content. Still, it's missing some essentials. Far be it for us to act like we know the Final Fantasy music catalog better than the curators who put Theatrhythm together, but... well, we kind of do. In a perfect world, these tracks would be presented front-and-center. Final Fantasy VII: "J-E-N-O-V-A"

Interview: Stealing Back the Music Crown with Rhythm Thief Posted: 25 Jun 2012 04:34 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 25 | VIDEO GAME MUSIC FESTIVAL Interview: Stealing Back the Music Crown with Rhythm Thief Cover Story: We speak to Sega's Shun Nakamura about this fresh new musical blast from the past. S ega's upcoming Rhythm Thief hasn't created many waves in the gaming community, which seems strange to us: Its whimsical blend of classic follow-and-response music mechanics and puzzle-adventure play gives it a wholly unique approach to a genre that's hardly seen a peep since the fan-favorite Elite Beat Agents. Still, we're intrigued, and so we reached out to producer Shun Nakamura to learn more about the genesis of and philosophy behind this upcoming music adventure. 1UP: Can you tell us about the genesis (creation) of Rhythm Thief? What was the motivation behind creating the game? What did you want to accomplish with it?

Penny Arcade Episode 3 Review: On the Economy of Design Posted: 25 Jun 2012 08:36 AM PDT Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 3 takes the series back to the early days of the genre, exchanging the slick cel-shaded graphics of the first two episodes for 16-bit sprites in the process. It's not a bad move. While the previous chapters were solid enough in their own right, they definitely suffered from a sense of diminishing returns. The retro look offers a feeling of refreshment the series probably needed. Among the positives is that the new look puts an increased emphasis on the dialogue between Tycho and Gabe, which is a good thing given that their interplay is the source of much of the comic's humor (in addition to oddities like the Deep Crow). It also gives new developer Zeboyd an opportunity to utilize their own trademark brand of humor, which is heavily dependent on classic RPG humor. One of the game's best moments come when the group is opening vaults in the "Bank of Money" to discover a rendition of the original Final Fantasy -- complete with classic 8-bit sprite work.

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