Their repertoire seems to be getting too modern for me.
"All new segments will include music from Final Fantasy, Zelda, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Pokemon, Warcraft, Diablo III, Earthworm Jim, Mass Effect and more"
Also from Youtube it seems like in recent shows, the whole point of the ensemble orchestra has been replaced by the guy on the lead guitar drowning everyone else out.
from the website if its accurate then lots for me to recognize... but I have no idea what to expect, I just think the idea is neat:
Video Games Live™ features the best music and exclusive synchronized video clips from the most popular games from the beginning of video gaming to the present. Game franchises include:
Mario™
Zelda™ Halo®
Final Fantasy®
Warcraft®
StarCraft® Diablo® Sonic™
Metal Gear Solid®
Kingdom Hearts
Chrono Trigger™
Chrono Cross™ Mega Man™ Myst®
Tron
Castlevania® Metroid® Interactive Frogger
Interactive Space Invaders
Interactive Guitar Hero™
Interactive Donkey Kong™ Medal of Honor™
God of War™
BioShock™
Civilization IV
Tomb Raider®
Beyond Good & Evil™
Advent Rising
EverQuest® II Mass Effect™
Shadow of the Colossus
Silent Hill™
Crysis® Monkey Island
Earthworm Jim
End of Nations™ Afrika™ Assassin's Creed™ II
Uncharted™ II Portal™
Lair
Conan
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Headhunter
Splinter Cell®
Ghost Recon™
Rainbow Six®
Jade Empire
Contra
OutRun
Gears of War
Need For Speed®: Undercover Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix™
Classic Arcade Medley featuring over 20+ games from Pong® to Donkey Kong® including such classics as Dragon's Lair, Tetris, Duck Hunt, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Gauntlet, Punch-Out, OutRun and MANY MORE!
If the entire show was the Classic Arcade Medley (seems to be only a few minutes long from their previous shows) + 16-bit era I would go but from the looks of that, the majority of the show is stuff I don't care about or stuff that sounds underwhelming with a small traditional orchestra + electric guitar guy. They need some better videos too. They have clumsy gameplay footage that doesn't match the correct stages and levels with music they are playing or doesn't sync up sometimes which feels totally wrong. This is especially visible in the Street Fighter and Sonic sets for instance where they play the wrong music for the level they are showing on the screen which is horribly disconcerting. That would bug me and I would "let it ruin my fun" as Yeah Baby would say.
I went to one a few years back, it was great fun. People dressed up and everything.
I think there's a lot of pent up desire for people to express their nerdier interests in this city with the Comic Expo and maybe events like this as the only venues to do this. I wonder if there's something else that can be done.
Play! A Video Game Symphony is also coming to Calgary next month. They seem to be very similar. I've been to video games live twice and it's pretty good. The guitar guy isn't used that often thankfully. They had a great vocalist last year too.
If you've been before, there will be repeats, but there was enough different material that it was worth it.
Video Games Live took a really long time to secure their date this year so we're going to check out Play! instead.
Their repertoire seems to be getting too modern for me.
"All new segments will include music from Final Fantasy, Zelda, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Pokemon, Warcraft, Diablo III, Earthworm Jim, Mass Effect and more"
Also from Youtube it seems like in recent shows, the whole point of the ensemble orchestra has been replaced by the guy on the lead guitar drowning everyone else out.
What are you like 50? Half of those games you listed pre-date 1995.
Play! A Video Game Symphony is also coming to Calgary next month. They seem to be very similar. I've been to video games live twice and it's pretty good. The guitar guy isn't used that often thankfully. They had a great vocalist last year too.
If you've been before, there will be repeats, but there was enough different material that it was worth it.
Video Games Live took a really long time to secure their date this year so we're going to check out Play! instead.
Thanks, this actually works better for us with a matinee show.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
Attended the Video Games Live Concert in London, ON this past March. Definitely a lot of fun, lots of cool music was covered. A little too rock and roll-ish for me, but that's what the head guy seems to like and he really encourages that kind of atmosphere.
At this concert, they hit Mario, Chrono, Megaman, Sonic, Zelda, FF, God of War, WoW, Halo, Castlevania, and a few others. Some of the medleys would've been more impressive had they not had the guitar blaring for half of the pieces.
What are you like 50? Half of those games you listed pre-date 1995.
I'm in my 20s but stopped playing console games around the mid-late 90s as I didn't care for the Playstation and up generation and I also feel like there hasn't been much iconic videogame music since then as games (especially in America) started to trend towards generic and more subtle orchestras/rock without creative melodies and interesting lead. That's just me though.
I'm in my 20s but stopped playing console games around the mid-late 90s as I didn't care for the Playstation and up generation and I also feel like there hasn't been much iconic videogame music since then as games (especially in America) started to trend towards generic and more subtle orchestras/rock without creative melodies and interesting lead. That's just me though.
There's tons of things wrong with what you just said, but I'll just suggest one game and you tell me its music is not well done: Shadow of the Colossus.
There's tons of things wrong with what you just said, but I'll just suggest one game and you tell me its music is not well done: Shadow of the Colossus.
The music may be "well-done" in terms of production quality but in terms of creativity, it is an absolutely mind-numbing boring and generic orchestra score, like what you might hear on Xena: Warrior Princess or some generic Hollywood sword and sandal fantasy movie like Clash of the Titans or something. It is not memorable to me and it's not something I might want to put on a CD to listen to in the car or when you are jogging or relaxing or anything much less anything I would want to hear played by another orchestra live inside an auditorium unless I wanted to goto sleep.
The problem is endemic in the entire entertainment industry with most movies having unmemorable, generic scores. Ask someone to hum the tune from an average 2000s era action or adventure or fantasy flick and they can't. Ask someone to hum the tune of Star Wars, Terminator 2, Forrest Gump, etc. and they can. That's because they have memorable and highly individualistic lead scores just like videogames used to have before the modern era.
Try to remember the theme to Batman (1989) and you can. Try to remember the theme to The Dark Knight (2008). Bet you can't. Hans Zimmer (did the modern Batman scores) is one of my favorite composers but my favorite works of his are Black Rain (1988) and Regarding Henry (1991) which had strong lead melodies and thematic focus with more variety in instrumentation (Asian instruments, jazz-fusion) than your standard boring orchestra.
Same things apply to games. Taking two games from the same type of genre (fantasy-action), can you hum the tunes from Golden Axe right now off the top of your head? Can you do the same with any Shadow of the Colossus track? If you can, then it's simply the case of music enjoyment being a subjective taste individual to each person as usual. I played Golden Axe 20 years ago and I can still remember the music. I played Shadow of the Colossus 2 months ago and it might as well have been on mute.
I suppose I should have more carefully worded that I know it's your opinion, but I wanted to disagree with you on that there is no redeeming music in modern games. I guess if you can tell me straight up that the music in Shadow of the Colossus doesn't add a ton to the atmosphere of the game, then I suppose you're entitled to that.
I don't know the theme to Batman (1989) even though I've seen the movie a dozen times or more. I do know the theme to Jurassic Park though.
I think the music really helped make the game what it is though, and I think the few dozen people at Video Games Live last year who cheered loudly when the first first two bars of the Prologue music for Shadow of the Colossus started up would agree with me.
I would say one of the more recognizable theme songs of this generation of systems could be the Uncharted theme song, since it's the same in each game and has a lot of power in it. It doesn't sit in the background, it does its thing and does it well.
You are right. Music always boils down to personal opinion but but some things stick better in cultural memory than others (Jurassic Park did have a good theme) and the trend in videogames has gone from having those in almost every game to a more subtle and atmospheric approach as you say. The consequence is that the games might be more intelligent and mature as an experience but they are nevertheless not memorable for me in terms of anything I would want to pay money to hear again.
For those in the under-30 crowd, tickets to the Friday Play! A Video Game Symphony concert are available in cpossibilities program (free membership). $14 each, max 2 tickets. Good deal if you're within the age bracket.
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Video Games Live Concert
