So, I'ma level with you: I love awesome moments in games, and I love game music, but I especially love game music for awesome moments in games. Let's start with an obvious one: the final demon summoning in Bayonetta -- http://youtu.be/dKd-yfQv_Jg That song -- Bayonetta OST disc 2, track 11, "Let's Hit the Climax" -- is far and away… Continue reading Musica Mundana — Dramabomb
Ocelote and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Behavior
Right, so. Today when I popped open the League of Legends client, I saw a link to a video called "Controlling the Beast." It was in a space where, when not promoting in-game stuff like champion spotlights or Summoner Showcases, is usually about promoting LoL as an e-sport. Sometimes that's about what champions pros play, and since Udyr… Continue reading Ocelote and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Behavior
Musica Mundana — Secular Christian Rock
So back when I was first making these posts I joked on Twitter about the silly directions this could go. One of those directions was an explanation of how the soundtrack to Subarashiki Kono Sekai (aka The World Ends With You) is basically Christian rock with the references to God/Jesus/religion removed. Well guess what, internet: I'm bored,… Continue reading Musica Mundana — Secular Christian Rock
The X Factor
Okay so Project X Zone (the 'x' is read 'cross,' as is common in Japanese pop culture loanword-ing) is coming out soon. In fact you can download a demo of it for the 3DS off the Nintendo e-Shop (handy link to a page with a QR code to jump right to it). Now, I am really… Continue reading The X Factor
Musica Mundana — Victory Themes For Real This Time
So as a very brief, quick followup to last night's post on battle music, I'm going to put up a little bit about the way victory fanfares are constructed (in my view) as well. It's not a long post but many YouTube example links, so brave the cut... if you dare. Alright. So victory themes.… Continue reading Musica Mundana — Victory Themes For Real This Time
Musica Mundana — On battle themes
(Edit: I was gonna talk about victory fanfares but that got cut. Maybe next time!) So, I really like game music. My tastes tend to run more toward Japanese game music, if only because most U.S. game soundtracks are, in my opinion, bland atmospheric drones punctuated by loud brassy Hollywood-style action movie riffs. Not that… Continue reading Musica Mundana — On battle themes
Why I’m A Mass-market Sellout Whore
Right, so Aevee Bee wrote a very interesting short blog post on "The Case for Never Talking About AAA Games." I read it and I think in many ways she is spot on, but there's a couple of places where I disagree, and have been urged to do so by various Twitterati I am going… Continue reading Why I’m A Mass-market Sellout Whore
Infinite Regress
I know I probably shouldn't but I'm going to write a thing on Bioshock Infinite since I played it all the way through, and a theme in the game has been gnawing at me. It doesn't hurt that the theme now has echoes/resonances in other arguments going on among the beautiful people of gaming criticism, who… Continue reading Infinite Regress
Sin and Punishment
Okay, I try to keep this blog mostly about games and criticism and scholarship and sometimes games criticism scholarship but I don't really have a personal blog anymore with the demise of Livejournal to our capitalist Russian overlords (now there's a sentence you never expected to hear) and I find Tumblr to be... uh, the word… Continue reading Sin and Punishment
A Slight Followup on “An Open Letter to Riot”
So, a few things happened, and I wanted to bring them up. First, game journo/critic/maven Patricia Hernandez gave my post a write-up on Kotaku which is humbling/gratifying. While I'm not normally a proponent of ignoring comment threads -- I think that sort of sweeps them under the rug as "not real" somehow when I firmly believe… Continue reading A Slight Followup on “An Open Letter to Riot”