For what I can only assume is a limited time, PopCap is giving away Peggle Nights (normally $20) for free!
You simply need to sign up for PopCap Passport, the company’s free e-newsletter. Once you do, you will receive the ability to send a free download of Peggle Nights to a friend via e-mail. Now, if that “friend” happens to be an alternate e-mail address of your own…free Peggle Nights!
Wired Magazine listed Peggle Nights as one of the Top 5 Games of 2008, so you know this is a good one. What are you waiting or? Go get it before this deal is gone!
Probably due to some poorly repressed childhood trauma surrounding the inexplicable loss of several of my most prized NES cartridges (where the hell is my copy of Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team?!), one of my favorite adult hobbies is collecting NES games. But what began as a simple interest in reclaiming my former treasures has evolved into a quixotic quest to acquire a complete NES library.
I blame the internet. Once I discovered vintage game collecting communities like Digital Press, I quickly became infected by the contagious enthusiasm of the world’s most obsessed game collectors. This is the same enthusiasm that presumably inspired someone to pay over $13,000 for a Nintendo system and 5 games last week on eBay. So you can understand why my hobby is viewed with suspicion by my normally supportive wife.
Nevertheless, I cannot undo the bite of the collecting bug, which is why I continue to make periodic trips around my home city of Richmond, VA, in search of pawn shops, flea markets, and thrift stores that may be harboring vintage video games. For a couple of years, I have been seeking certain lost relics of my youth, but I am also always on the lookout for interesting games, especially those that remain with their original boxes and/or manuals.
Of particular interest are games that can be classified as Complete in Box (CIB), meaning they retain every item that originally shipped inside their boxes. A CIB game always includes its original instruction manual, black cartridge sleeve, and styrofoam insert. If the game originally shipped with a fold-out poster or additional player guide, then these must be included to qualify as CIB as well. Collecting vintage games is a research-heavy hobby, to say the least. While I may have been (rightfully) accused of being one of the least organized people on earth, even I have been driven to maintaining an Excel file documenting the status of my game collection.
Valentine’s Day weekend was largely (and appropriately) consumed by woo-the-wife activities this year, but I did find time to make a few flea market trips. While eBay will net you anything you want (as long as you can pay) I find it so much more satisfying to browse the flea markets and pawn shops. Not only are the prices lower (and open to negotiation) but shopping online can’t compare to the feeling of walking into a flea market stall, spotting a stack of those familiar gray cartridges, and thumbing through them to discover that elusive copy of Mega Man 6 you have been hunting for months.
On Saturday, I visited one flea market to find three booths selling NES games. The first was dismissed immediately upon my discovery that they were attempting to charge $18.00 for a boxed copy of Donkey Kong Classics. Was it even CIB? Beats me, because it’s so overpriced either way that I didn’t care to investigate further.
The second booth had a small selection, but nothing interesting, and I thought the trip was going to be a bust until I stumbled upon a third booth on my way out the door. The little guy running this place had a surprising selection, at the expected rate of $5/ loose cart. I offered 3 for $10, and came away with…
Saturday's NES finds
A Boy And His Blob – I have the Wii update, but never played the original.
Chip N Dale’s Rescue Rangers – I was most excited about this one, because I loved it as a kid but somehow lost my copy over the years. Score!
The Magic of Scheherezade – I have no idea what this game is about, but I vaguely remember seeing it in Nintendo Power in the late 80′s.
So maybe nothing to write home about, but I was pleased for my $10. I asked the guy where he gets his games and he said he buys them wholesale from a magazine. Ever the opportunist, I have been Googling to discover what magazine he is talking about, but to no avail so far. (Can anybody help me out with this one?)
The next day, I hit two more flea markets. At the first, an outdoor flea market, I found a woman sitting in the cold, selling a number of loose and boxed carts. On the downside, she knew her CIB copies had some sort of inherent value. On the upside, she was pretty willing to bargain from the start. For $20 I came away with…
Kickle Cubicle (CIB) – The best of the lot. My friend had this game when I was a kid and I loved playing it at his house. I’ve had a hard time finding it, and seeing it CIB was too much to pass up.
Firehawk (CIB) – One of those sketchily published Camerica games; the kind that lacks the Nintendo Seal of Approval. I don’t tend to see those with their boxes, let alone CIB, so I had to grab it in spite of its box being pretty sunbleached.
F-15 City Wars (cart) – Never heard of this one…it’s from “American Video Entertainment” (whatever that is/was) and also lacks the Seal of Approval.
Road Runner (cart) – A Tengen release, making this the third cart of questionable legality!
King’s Knight (cart) – I had never heard of this one either, but added it to the pile purely on the basis of its Square Soft logo. C’mon, you know you would have done the same.
I think the woman and I both walked away from this deal feeling like winners. I was originally planning to head home after this, but since I was in a shady part of town, I figured I’d find more flea markets if I kept driving. Five minutes down the road, my theory was validated.
There was a real shortage of video game paraphernalia in this third flea market, but I finally found a guy selling stereo equipment that had a stick on NES carts on the side. He proposed $4/cart, but we agreed on 2 for $6. This proved to be quite the bargain when I found…
Mega Man 6 (loose) – Major find! I already have Mega Man 2,3,4, and 5, so adding this one puts me one shy of a complete NES Mega Man collection.
Tiny Toon Adventures (loose) – Another one that I loved as a kid, but somehow lost. Just like Rescue Rangers, I was really excited to grab this one.
Sunday's NES purchases - Blackberry camera quality
Which put the weekend tally at 10 games (2 CIB, 8 loose) for $36. More than I was expecting to spend this weekend on the collection, but several of the games were just way too exciting for me to leave sitting in the flea markets, unappreciated by all but me.
I’ll have to give these particular locations a rest now to let them (hopefully) replenish their stocks, and in the meantime, continue the hunt!
Swamp Fever is great. Dead Center is mediocre. Dark Carnival grows on you. The Parish is boring (except for the bridge escape). But Hard Rain is the best campaign in Left 4 Dead 2. Why?
1. Retracing Your Steps
Hard Rain is the only L4D2 campaign that sees the survivors journeying from Point A to Point B, and then back to Point A again. When I first heard that I would be playing the level as a loop, I thought, “Groannn…this is going to be boring as hell. Why can’t every level be like Swamp Fever which is AWESOME?!?”
I stand corrected. Seeing the level from the reverse perspective is like being in a state fair fun house, except zombies replace carnies and you’re not worried that the roof might collapse on your head seeing as it was hastily constructed over the weekend BY CARNIES.
Knowing that you will have to retrace your steps also causes you to play the first half of the level differently. Rather than using every health kit in sight in order to frustrate the guy who keeps his voice chat button held down the entire game, you have a good incentive to leave some behind for the return trip. You may be leaving this safe house with only 50 health right now, but you’ll be relieved you did when you stumble back in with 5 health later. Unless that voice chat guy gets it first…damn.
2. The Rain Effects
Hard Rain isn’t truly Hard Rain until the second half of the campaign. Once the survivors find the gas cans they need…cue the chaos.
This ain’t your little sister’s spring shower…it’s HARD RAIN. The torrential downpour not only obscures your vision, it gets so loud it can drown out the voices of your teammates. Hunter got you pinned in the cornfield? Scream all you want into that Logitech headset…no one can hear you cry through all that HARD RAIN.
Where's Ellis? I can't see him through this HARD RAIN!
Unless, of course, your computer can’t handle the shader settings required to see the HARD RAIN. If that’s the case, you’ll probably hear Nick scream, “Here comes the rain!” and wonder what the hell he’s talking about because all you see is a muddy gray filter applied to the sky that looks suspiciously like ass. Probably time to upgrade the rig, champ.
3. The Sugar Cane Field
Some people gripe that Hard Rain’s elevator wait is the campaign’s only crescendo event. Maybe so, but trying to navigate your way through the rain-drenched sugar cane field is like the most intense crescendo event had a baby with the bridge run finale in The Parish. A CRACK BABY.*
Getting through the cane field would be hard enough without any rain. The plants are taller than eye level and they perfectly mask any oncoming zombies until they’re already clawing at your face. Not to mention any Special Infected who are guaranteed to show up and make your life miserable. I’m looking at you, Boomer.
Anywhere else, you can count on me picking off your roly-poly ass from a mile away. But in the cane field? I spin around and there you are, puking green goo all over my screen. Of course, half the time I shoot you before I even realize what you are, and have to suffer through the mocking “Shove boomers before shooting” message on top of the fact that I am currently lying on my back, drowning in a mob of every zombie that spawned since the safe house, and my stupid pistol only shoots 15 FREAKING BULLETS before I have to reload?! FML.
Add in the aforementioned HARD RAIN that conceals every hint of witches until that sinking moment when you realize you just knocked one in the face with your flashlight, and you get the picture.
4. The Wandering Witches
Everyone remembers the first time they played Hard Rain. It looks like this:
Wow, I’ve never seen a witch this early in a level before. Maybe the Director really hates us. Hey…why is she walking around? That’s weird. Just try to run around her anyway. WHOA, back up, she’s coming this way! OK, OK, I think we’re good, just keep running along this fence…wait! How’d she get over here?! Is she teleporting or something?? Watch out! OK, stick together around this corner…GOOD GOD WHY ARE THERE 50 OF THEM AGGGHHHH [death].
Wandering witches are good for 2 reasons:
They keep you on your toes.
They give you an excuse to run ahead of your group like an adrenalin-fueled, shotgun-toting Bruce Campbell. Not only are you a one-man death squad, but you won’t hear a single teammate complain about your hero tactics or your distance from the group, as long as you keep showing witches the best end of your boomstick.
You see this? This...is my boomstick!
5. The Finale
Hopefully you kept the whole “retracing your steps” thing in mind, because Hard Rain’s finale finds you right back where you started: in the Burger Tank restaurant by the river. So unless you threw every pipe bomb, molotov cocktail, and bile jar in the building right before healing yourself four times in a row on your first time through (remember: this IS acceptable behavior if it annoys the voice chat guy), you should have some things to work with here.
You’re going to need them too, because this finale ensures a frantic pace by squeezing you into the tight confines of the Burger Tank. If you have any sense, you’ll get on the roof, where you’ll hopefully find a few extra goodies and stand some chance of spotting Special Infected before they can force you into a horde. A winner’s strategy revolves around watching for Smokers that sneak up from behind, hauling ass back up the ladder after dropping through the hole in the roof to reload, and using whatever you can find to set Tanks on fire as soon as possible.
And, of course, that bastion of self-preservation, adrenalin. Don’t let anything stand in your way of acquiring an adrenalin shot before the whole shakedown starts. Because just like in any finale, no matter how much your teammates may curse, it’s all about getting YOU onto Virgil’s boat.
I don’t care if it’s your mother that’s tied up by a Smoker and you could free her with a single machete swipe; the second you hear that music change, you jam that needle into your leg and book it to the boat. She’ll get a nice “in memory of” message during the credits, and you can tell her I said to stop swearing.
P.S. Bonus Reason #6: The campaign shares a name with this blight on modern cinema. Christian Slater FTL.
Yesterday I opened the latest issue of my beloved-and-exceedingly-expensive-to-import video game periodical, Edge Magazine. Inside I was given pause by this ad for Mass Effect 2:
The advertisement in question
My question is this: Who is that guy in the center?
I understand that it is supposed to be Commander Shepard…but let me tell you: I played Mass Effect, and that guy ain’t Commander Shepard.
Commander Shepard is a bald, black male with a scar running diagonally across his face. And he doesn’t scowl like that; he has a happy face (despite having been dealt a scar-crossed hand by fate). This is, of course, because I created him to look exactly that way. And then I proceeded to spend a brilliant 20+ hours with him exploring and saving the universe. The result is that I am now connected to Commander Shepard as I know him; not to the scowling generic space marine staring at me from my magazine.
Now, I’m not dense. I can put myself in the shoes of BioWare’s advertising team. Knowing full well that every Mass Effect veteran has his or her own personal version of Commander Shepard tucked away on their hard drive, the ad folks were in a pickle. Faced with the question of how to represent a character with a million unique faces, they clearly opted to create a “standard” version of Commander Shepard for use in promotional images, box art, etc. A difficult decision to come to, I’m sure. But was it the right one?
In creating a standardized version of Commander Shepard, BioWare inescapably sends a message to players that this is the “correct” version of the hero. Sure, I have the freedom to create my own Shepard and import him into Mass Effect 2…but he will never be worthy of appearing in magazine ads. In other words, he is not the “real” Commander Shepard.
And if that’s the case, then why should I bother creating my own Shepard at all? In establishing a standard Shepard, Bioware points out that my Commander Shepard is nothing more than a graphic skin, confined to a file that lives in the recesses of my hard drive. My illusion of Commander Shepard’s reality thus shattered, I can find little motivation to spend time on the character creation screen, breathing life into his appearance. Easier to simply accept the default character model, since it’s going to be thrust upon me in the end anyway.
In the end, advertisements depicting a standardized Commander Shepard model suffocate the character by stripping the player of his or her sense of ownership and attachment. Does the ad-depicted Shepard have a standardized morality as well? BioWare might as well tell me what it is up front, so I can avoid the hassle of making my own choices in Mass Effect 2.
What then, would be a better solution? After I explained the situation to my non-gaming wife, she needed about three seconds to generate one: Have the advertisements take place from the perspective of Commander Shepard.
A-ha! Rather than accept the problem of how to represent a character with a million unique faces, challenge the problem itself. Don’t represent him, and let the player fill in the blanks. Not only would my illusions of Shepard’s reality remain intact, but when I viewed the world of Mass Effect 2 through the eyes of the hero, I might even be reminded how much fun I had the first go ’round, and feel doubly compelled to purchase my copy of the sequel today.
Of course, Mass Effect is played from an over-the-shoulder view rather than a first-person perspective, but even this would present a superior alternative to my magazine advertisement’s approach. Show Shepard from behind, just like when playing the game. He could even wear his helmet to cover up any hint of an illusion-shattering face. Personally, I prefer the idea of a first-person perspective advertisement, but either idea would be better than what we’re currently facing.
Would an ad from this perspective be so wrong?
An advertising campaign from either perspective could remain full of character appeal by focusing on Shepard’s new entourage. They are the ones I will be spending time with in Mass Effect 2 anyway – so why not use the advertisements as an opportunity to introduce me to my companions? Doing so would make me feel more like I’m in Shepard’s shoes more than ever.
When I look at the current advertisement, what does BioWare want me to see? The hero of the brilliant first entry in the series? Because right now, all I see is a stranger.
I swung by Blockbuster on my way home tonight, thinking I would rent Punch-Out!! for my Wii this Memorial Day weekend. The game is brand new, so I was a little surprised to find it still available for rent. I plucked it from the shelf and brought it up front, but stopped in my tracks right before I made it to the register. That’s when I caught sight of the prices posted on the wall.
NINE DOLLARS for a 5-day video game rental! It’s fair to say that I haven’t tried to rent a video game in years, but has it really come to this? When I was growing up, renting a video game from the local Movie Time was significantly cheaper than renting a movie, not TWICE THE PRICE. They want me to pay 20% of the retail price just to borrow the game for five lousy days?
I made some loud comments to that effect and marched the game right back to the shelf, against the protests of my fiancee. It was my birthday and she wanted me to not worry about the price and just get the game I wanted. But if I paid that ransom, I knew that visions of Blockbuster executives laughing, smoking cigars, and counting my money would have filled my head for the rest of the weekend, preventing the kind of concentration necessary to ever learn King Hippo’s new moveset. I didn’t even rent the game, and I’m still mad enough to post this rant on my blog!
How much longer til Blockbuster is out of business?
Blizzard announced yesterday that it has hired VP Greg Canessa away from PopCap Games. That’s right: the father of hardcore gaming bastions like World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo has decided it could learn a thing or two from the company that brought Bejeweled to stay-at-home mothers everywhere. Is this the Twilight Zone?
There seems to be an article written about the rise in casual gaming every other day, but until recently, casual gaming has existed in its own quirky bubble, totally separate from any conversations involving the so-called “hardcore gamer.” Even as the casual gaming world scored hits like Diner Dash and Puzzle Pirates, the gaming industry (and media) continued to treat its growing casual audience as something entirely different than its traditionally-held image of a “gamer.” After all, what could Red Bull swilling, twenty-something, male PS3 owners have in common with your Mahjong-loving mom?
Maybe more than we think. Casual game developer PopCap Games has roared into the spotlight recently, riding on the back of hits like Peggle and the recently released Plants vs. Zombies. What separates these games from the throng of competition is a beautifully executed mission statement: to weave hardcore gaming concepts into universally accessible formats. The result? Crossover appeal that has broken entirely new ground.
When it first became clear that Peggle had somehow struck a chord with both casual AND hardcore gamers, Clive Thompson proposed that where casual fans saw a light-hearted game of chance, hardcore gamers recognized a devious challenge of skill. Which audience is right? The answer, which also explains the game’s massive success across platforms, is that both groups are right. On the surface, Peggle appears to be a game of luck (it does look just like Plinko on The Price is Right, after all), and it can be played successfully as such. Once you bounce a ball off your first target, who knows where it will bounce next? And for the casual audience, that mystery just might hold the fun of it all.
But take a deeper look, as hardcore gamers are wont to do, and you begin to realize that the game engine’s physics allow you to predict where the ball will land several bounces down the line. Which is a big implication, because it means that Peggle can also be played as a game of skill. Doing so takes an almost obsessive level of patience, but couldn’t the same be said for reaching level 70 in WoW? PopCap struck audience crossover gold by weaving traditionally hardcore gaming tenets into a casual, non-intimidating format. In other words: simple to learn, difficult to master.
It should come as no surprise then, that PopCap built its latest hit, Plants vs. Zombies, on the same adage. They have upped the ante this time by constructing a casual game with building blocks lifted from one of the most hardcore genres in existence: Real Time Strategy. Plants vs. Zombies is built to pull in your mother with its humor, cartoon graphics, and forgiving learning curve. But before she knows it, she will be harvesting resources, upgrading her weapons, and allocating strategic defensive structures. It’s Command & Conquer in a colorful candy coating.
PopCap isn’t out to reinvent the wheel: Plants vs. Zombies is basically a tower defense game, and these have been done almost to death. What separates this studio from the crowd is its ability to perfectly balance the casual and hardcore aspects of its games. The resulting crossover appeal allows PopCap to do one other thing differently than almost every other casual developer: make lots and lots of money.
Which explains why PopCap’s senior executives are hot commodities. Make no mistake, WoW prints money with its monthly subscription fees, but Blizzard is well aware that its audience is strictly hardcore. After all, how is one supposed to make a level-grinding, fantasy role-playing game about orcs and elves appeal to the Bejeweled crowd? Blizzard doesn’t know the answer either, but it’s betting that if anyone does, it’s the PopCap braintrust. If their bet pans out, then the gaming industry is about to be in for a paradigm shift. You’ll recognize world domination by its first sign: the day your mom calls to see if you’re free for a raid.
Just in time for the looming nuclear apocalypse, Bethesda Studios has delivered a survival training course for our inevitable future, in the guise of Fallout 3. To maximize your chances of survival in the horrific future that is almost upon you, I urge you to play this game immediately. But for those of you who cannot, please take the time to review the following vital lessons you WOULD have learned if you had valued your own life enough to play Fallout 3. Don’t say I never tried to save your life…
1. Might Makes Right
The local ruffians you will encounter outside of tomorrow’s towns may act tough, but you can show ‘em who’s boss by one-upping them at their own game. When the goons whip out their rusty brass knuckles and splintered police batons, simply counter with your sawed off shotgun, .44 magnum, 10mm submachine gun, alien plasma rifle, flamethrower, and cluster-firing nuclear missile launcher. Any weapon known to the townsfolk as a “Man Opener” will also suffice, in a pinch.
Gatling gun > soiled trousers
2. Remember that Abraham Lincoln was a Badass
Honest Abe will probably not be reanimated during the nuclear holocaust, but this doesn’t mean that his bloodthirsty spirit can’t live on through you. If you manage to locate any museums dedicated to Abe during your wasteland travels, be sure to search the displays inside for some of his old weapons. His repeating rifle was the scourge of Stephen Douglas, who once wrote that “the dread firearm wouldst surely explodeth the head of any Super Mutant in one volley.”
Honest Abe Packed Heat
3. Don’t Drink From the Toilet
Of course the urinal water in the subway bathrooms will LOOK delicious, but don’t be fooled: it is almost certain to be critically contaminated with harmful radiation. This same rule of thumb holds true for any mouth-watering urinal cakes that may have survived the apocalypse as well. If you are simply unable to resist the temptation to partake, be sure to check the floor in the toilet stalls for any partially vaporized junkie skeletons that may still be clutching useful anti-radiation pills. Remember: one pill cancels out one tantalizingly irradiated urinal cake!
4. Save those Bottlecaps!
In the event of nuclear holocaust, society will revert to an economy built entirely around the intrinsic and timeless value of shiny objects. Bottlecaps are sure to be the currency of choice, but you would be wise to diversify your portfolio by hoarding any beads, shells, and bits of quartz you may find. Precious metals will have no value, unless you have the engineering credentials to construct some sort of deadly shoulder-mounted debris launcher. In this event, the metals could serve as makeshift ammunition, and therefore be upgraded to the value of a teddy bear, or even a severed limb.
5. Learn a Valuable Skill
You COULD spend your free time learning how to be extra sneaky or a savvy barterer, but before you do, consider the limited value that these skills will return in a post-Armageddon wasteland. Anything you desire can be better gained through more marketable talents, such as lockpicking or computer hacking. Would you rather be the chatterbox trying desperately to negotiate a slight discount with the town merchant, or the guy who’s already behind the counter, opening the safe? Bonus: if the safe contains a gun, you can use it to shoot the other customers who are wasting their time negotiating, then loot their corpses and sell what you find to the shopkeeper yourself! Who’s the savvy one now?
There you have it. Simply remember these five survival tips, and you will drastically increase your odds of survival in post-apocalyptia. Oh, and one last thing: if you’re not a fan of the vocal group The Ink Spots, you may want to bring ear plugs.
OK, so this review is a few months late. I’ve…been busy?
World of Goo
Imagine that you are in charge of a major game studio. Under pressure to meet this year’s budget, you have a choice: take a risk on a brand new IP that may fall flat or churn out the eleventh installment in a franchise that will make a guaranteed buck?
If you chose the guaranteed buck, you’re not alone. We see the results of that decision on store shelves every day, as the studio bosses milk third and fourth sequels out of every reliable cow in their gaming barns. Innovation has stagnated as the gaming industry has grown to look more and more like its Hollywood cousin. Are we doomed to a fate of perpetual sequels?
We might have been, if not for an opposing industry movement that also happens to mimic the evolution of Hollywood: the rise of the independent developer. Compact budgets and streamlined development teams allow these upstarts to take chances on original game ideas that the major studios wouldn’t dare touch. World of Goo is the product of this environment, and with its release, developer 2D Boy has given us a promising representation of the capabilities of these small independent studios. It also happens to be one of the best games of the year.
World of Goo is so simple to understand that it doesn’t even come with an instruction manual. When you boot it up and find your way to the first stage, you will be greeted by a wooden sign that reads, “Drag ‘n’ drop to build to the pipe.” That’s it. You now know how to play the game! OK, almost.
What you will drag and drop throughout your World of Goo adventure are friendly goo balls. They have no minds of their own, beyond happily crawling all over the structures that you will use them to build. You see, the goo balls are actually slimy building blocks good for constructing towers, bridges, ropes and more, all in the name of reaching the stage’s goal: a single pipe. Any goo balls that you don’t use as structural elements will climb their way into the pipe and count toward your captured goo total. Use too many, and you won’t be able to meet the stage’s requirement for captured goo. See the balancing act?
The challenge of the game lies less in goo ball conservation however, and more in simply reaching the pipe at all. You will gain a new respect for architects as you struggle to build swaying skyscrapers that won’t collapse and carefully weighted bridges to span monumental chasms. You will become frustrated with your own inability to reach certain pipes that seem barely out of reach, but rarely with the game itself: the physics engine is pitch-perfect, and it’s immensely satisfying to observe everything in the goo world behaving just like it should. Even more satisfying is finally completing a tricky level by learning to use the world’s physics to your own advantage.
One edge the big studios typically hold over the little guys lies in video and audio production value. Not so here. 2D Boy went with a distinctive art style that hearkens to Tim Burton, but stands on its own so well that were you to see this artwork totally out of context, you would immediately know exactly what game it belonged to. Talk about branding. This game is colorful, mischievous, and knows how to laugh at itself. I particularly enjoyed reading the scattered messages left behind by the mysterious Sign Painter, which often break the fourth wall between game and player.
The music deserves its own recognition. In great circumstances, a game’s music perfectly complements the on-screen action, creating a full sensory experience. So what do you call it when the music brings the game to an entirely new level? The pace of frantic levels is heightened by song choice, and particularly devilish challenges are raised to epic proportions by music that may as well have come straight out of The Lord of the Rings. All of the sound effects exceed expectations, including the goo ball screams that are as funny the hundredth time as they are the first. To give you an idea of the sound quality at work, my fiancée played only a few levels of the game, but is now addicted to the soundtrack we downloaded from the game’s official website.
Buy this game if you like any of the following: puzzles, architecture, physics, symphonies, Tim Burton, rooting for the little guy, raging against the machine, fun.
For knowing exactly what it wants to be and achieving its vision with flair, I give World of Goo a 10/10.
I was driving leisurely across town six weeks ago when I first saw the giant green banner draped across the front of Richmond’s Landmark Theater:
VIDEO GAMES LIVE – Saturday, April 25
Pedestrians hurled themselves to the sidewalks as I floored the accelerator, suddenly in a race against time to get home and to ticketmaster.com.
For the uninitiated, Video Games Live is a symphony concert featuring video game music of all eras. From Asteroids and Defender to Zelda and Halo, the best sounds and songs of gaming are given full body by a live classical orchestra and accompanying thirty-person choir.
I first heard about the show in 2005 when creators Jack Wall and Tommy Tallarico staged the inaugural performance in Hollywood. As the concert has grown and even moved on tour, I have waited for my chance to attend a performance, but I never expected to be able to do so right here in Richmond, Virginia. It was with great excitement that I bought my tickets that afternoon, and after finally seeing the show this past weekend, I’m even more excited to say that it did not disappoint.
Wall and Tallarico have a massive music catalogue to draw upon, and they take full advantage. Richmond was the 100th performance of VGL (w00t!), and yet no two shows have had the same set list! Here is the list of songs from April 25th, 2009:
Classic Arcade medley (w/ Richmond Symphony Chorus)
Metal Gear Solid (w/ RSC)
God of War (w/ RSC and soloist Claudia Carroll)
Space Invaders
Civilization IV (w/ RSC and soloists Jane Riddle & Scott Meadows)
Final Fantasy Piano Solo (Martin Leung)
Metroid
Zelda
Intermission
Kingdom Hearts
Sonic (w/ RSC)
Warcraft (w/ RSC)
Mario (w/ RSC)
Mario Piano Solo (Martin Leung)
Chrono Cross/Chrono Trigger
Interactive Guitar Hero event (w/ RSC)
Halo Suite and Halo 3 (w/ RSC)
One Winged Angel (Final Fantasy VII) (w/ RSC)
Castlevania Rock
As a wee bit of a Nintendo sycophant, the highlights of the show for me were hearing the soul-stirring Zelda theme in full symphonic glory and marveling at the talent of Martin Leung, aka “Video Game Pianist.”
Leung was still a teenager when he achieved universal college dorm room fame in 2004. A video of the blindfolded Leung playing music from Super Mario Bros. on the piano appeared on the Internet, and was soon viewed 40 million times. One year later, the Video Game Pianist had accepted an offer to join Video Games Live.
Videos of Martin Leung can now be seen all over the Web, but nothing quite compares to witnessing him bang out flawless renditions of Final Fantasy and Super Mario tunes, grinning like a blindfolded Cheshire Cat. Just when I thought a piano could not possibly be played any faster, cheers of appreciation from the audience encouraged Leung to kick it up another notch. A standing ovation confirmed that the kid was a hit with everyone in attendance; games and non-gamers alike.
Which brings me to the surprising diversity of the crowd. I expected to find only game geeks and cosplayers at VGL, but I was in fact surrounded by people of all ages and descriptions. From bouncing school children to couples on dates to older patrons of the arts, an eclectic crowd packed the Landmark Theater. I saw one married couple that had to be in their seventies, dressed in full formal wear, showing what looked like a true appreciation for the music of God of War.
When it comes to broad appeal, it helps that the show’s production level ranges from fantastic to absolutely awe-inspiring. During most song elections, three giant video screens on stage displayed scenes from the games being highlighted. Some of the video selections could have been tightened up (the Mario set included clips from what seemed like every game that has ever included the plumber) but the clips usually complemented the music nicely, and the show’s visual aspects often took the concert to another level.
During Metal Gear Solid, a cardboard box snuck stealthily onto stage, followed closely by an armed military guard. When a lit exclamation point suddenly appeared over the guard’s head, the audience loudly expressed their appreciation for this attention to detail. Similarly, well-selected clips of Final Fantasy VII’s villainous Sephiroth reignited emotional memories during the encore performance of One Winged Angel.
After years of hearing about this show, Video Games Live lived up to the hype. I walked out of the theater high on nostalgia and eager to hurry home and play some games. As I loaded Mass Effect that night in my apartment, I reached over and turned up the speakers a few extra notches. With VGL’s ever-evolving set list, this just might be the music I rock to the next time the show comes to town.
Posted by bentreanor 
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I was driving leisurely across town six weeks ago when I first saw the giant green banner draped across the front of Richmond’s Landmark Theater:
