General gaming

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• A Scythian Abroad: Superbrothers on Sword & Sworcery's Japanese Remixes
• Symphony Turns Your iTunes Library Into Your Worst Enemy
• Five Underwhelming RPGs with Overwhelming Soundtracks
• OP-ED: Calling Gamers "Insatiable" Ignores Why Nintendo's E3 Disappointed Them
• The Magic of FM Synth
• Professor Sakamoto: Real-Life Game Music Superhero

A Scythian Abroad: Superbrothers on Sword & Sworcery's Japanese Remixes Posted: 27 Jun 2012 06:36 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 25 | VIDEO GAME MUSIC FESTIVAL A Scythian Abroad: Superbrothers on Sword & Sworcery's Japanese Remixes Cover Story: We heard some cool S&S tunes reworked by our favorite composers and we wondered what's up with that. C apybara's Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP grabbed attention (and rave reviews) last year by reinventing the graphical adventure genre for iOS. Its minimalist design and droll sense of humor helped it stand out from countless other competitors on the platform. But what really sold the game was its amazing soundtrack, at once wistful yet epic. For the game's Japanese release, the game's creators have teamed up to push their soundtrack to the next level by collaborating with nearly a dozen big-name Japanese game composers (including Silent Hill's Akira Yamaoka and Castlevania's Michiru Yamane), who have in turn reinterpreted the soundtrack in their own inimitable styles. The results are nothing short of amazing, and Sword & Sworcery co-creators Jim Guthrie and Craig Adams (as well as our friends at 8-4, who localized the game for Japan) have plenty of interesting things to say about the game, its music, and the collaborative nature of localization. 1UP: What was the inspiration for the original music direction in Sword & Sworcery? The soundtrack's ambient/electronic/folk feel isn't really what most people would expect from a game with that sort of 8-bit minimalist look.

Symphony Turns Your iTunes Library Into Your Worst Enemy Posted: 27 Jun 2012 05:45 PM PDT 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 25 | VIDEO GAME MUSIC FESTIVAL Symphony Turns Your iTunes Library Into Your Worst Enemy Cover Story: An interesting new indie shooter promises to pit players against their own taste in music. O nce upon a time, there was a PlayStation game called Vib-Ribbon. The concept behind Vib-Ribbon embodied simplicity: Players controlled a strange-looking rabbit on a journey through a landscape defined by music. The more complex the tune, the more challenging the level design. Best of all, the entire game (with its simple white-on-black vector graphics) fit entirely in the PlayStation's RAM, so once it loaded into memory you could swap the game disc for your choice of audio CD and challenge yourself to complete the game with your own music library. Vib-Ribbon never came to America, because we are not allowed to have nice things. Fortunately, more than a decade later, a team of two working under the name Empty Clip Studios -- Francois Bertrand and Matt Shores -- have translated the D.I.Y. music game spirit of Vib-Ribbon into something that will feel instantly familiar to modern gamers weaned on the likes of Geometry Wars: Symphony.

Five Underwhelming RPGs with Overwhelming Soundtracks Posted: 27 Jun 2012 04:42 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 25 | VIDEO GAME MUSIC FESTIVAL Five Underwhelming RPGs with Overwhelming Soundtracks Cover Story: These games might not have made a critical splash, but their music will be remembered for years to come. S ince the earliest days of console gaming, RPGs have typically featured the best soundtracks of the medium. You can blame Final Fantasy's Nobuo Uematsu and Dragon Quest's Koichi Sugiyama for causing us all to have higher expectations for the musical component of the latest grindy, stat-heavy 60-hour RPG, since their unassuming, initial compositions started a healthy trend that continues to this day. And while a disturbing number of us (at 1UP, anyway) can name our favorite Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy VI songs without so much as looking at a single track listing, some obscure-yet-fantastic compositions exist outside the realm of acclaimed and Square-branded RPG classics. Since video game music composers rarely have control of anything outside of their own work, a solid soundtrack can often get lost amid a sea of negative game reviews and the terrible reputation that follows. You might have been warned away from some of the following games, but their stunning soundtracks should provide just enough of a reason to suffer through an underwhelming experience -- or to hit up a reputable CD import shop. Tales of Legendia 2005 | PlayStation 2 | Composer: Go Shiina

OP-ED: Calling Gamers "Insatiable" Ignores Why Nintendo's E3 Disappointed Them Posted: 27 Jun 2012 04:17 PM PDT Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime thinks gamers are insatiable. He said as much in an interview conducted as this year's E3 came to a close that has only just begun to make the rounds this week. He may have a point, and at times gamers undoubtedly are impossible to please. That being said, this can't be a blanket excuse used any time gamers ask for more. There are times when their appetite is justified, and Nintendo's E3 showing was arguably one of them. "One of the things that, on one hand, I love and, on the other hand, that troubles me tremendously about not only our fanbase but about the gaming community at large is that, whenever you share information, the perspective is, 'Thank you, but I want more.' 'Thank you, but give me more.' I mean, it is insatiable," he told Kotaku. "And so for years this community has been asking, 'Where's Pikmin?' 'Where's Pikmin?' 'Where's Pikmin?' We give them Pikmin. And then they say, 'What else?' For years, this community have said, 'Damnit Reggie, when you launch, you better launch with a Mario game.' So we launch with a Mario game, and they say, 'So what's more?'"

The Magic of FM Synth Posted: 27 Jun 2012 02:28 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 25 | VIDEO GAME MUSIC FESTIVAL The Magic of FM Synth Cover Story: A history of the world's coolest brand of chiptune and its many personalities. B ack before chiptunes were known as chiptunes, video game music came from a couple of primary electronic sources with their own labels. Pulse code modulation (PCM) was the main technique that gave us the sonically simple sounds of the NES and its 8-bit brethren, and indeed was the foundation of electronic sound in computer systems. On the other end of the spectrum was frequency modulation (FM) synthesis, a technique that used the basic concept of FM to create more complex tones than PCM. Synthesized music via analog electronics reached the mainstream in the late 1970s and the 1980s, lending a distinctive science-fictiony sound to pop and rock music, but FM synth was designed to be digital; sound produced through programmable integrated circuits. As you'll find out, as FM synth seeped into consumer electronics, video games saw a brilliant new movement of music creation that transformed the "bleeps and bloops" of PCM into richer compositions that intended to bring game music closer to the stuff at the record store (however slightly), but ended up carving out a wonderful little niche in the world of chiptunes.

Professor Sakamoto: Real-Life Game Music Superhero Posted: 27 Jun 2012 12:39 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 25 | VIDEO GAME MUSIC FESTIVAL Professor Sakamoto: Real-Life Game Music Superhero Cover Story: Japan's most intriguing musical prodigy has built a career around memories of chiptunes. S alaryman by day, part-time musical superhero by night; this is the 8-bit and beyond pitch perfect prodigy known as Professor Sakamoto. You may not have heard of this Japanese underground video game legend, but we're about to change all that. Possessed of superpowers that enable him to sightread/hear/perform any piece of music, he's acquired the staggering ability to perform a nerd's dream library of game music from memory, which he does regularly in nightclubs around Tokyo. But his repertoire isn't just limited to aping other people's tunes; he's released a number of albums, EPs, singles, and even a book, and his fanbase is growing. We recently caught up with the elusive, caped, Famicom-helmet-wearing superhero to take photos of him all around Shibuya, Harajuku, and Omotesando, before settling down for a lengthy chat that explores his origin, inspirations, and influences. We also talk about games. If you love music and you love games, you're going to love Professor Sakamoto.

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