Welcome to the world of the Plastic Beach, a collaboration between musicians and mediums alike.
My plane arrives at its eerily uncharted destination by the sea. Fortunately, there isn’t an abrupt crash landing, or an Ayn Rand-inspired dystopian society to welcome me. Unfortunately, my first contact is with the insufferable likes of a dopey pelican and a suicidal seagull voiced by the lead singer of Blur.
I must be in Gorillaz territory. Continue reading →
If the premise of Ace Attorney Investigations doesn’t thrill you, the music will.
Miles Edgeworth’s starring adventure had me concerned for the decaying crispness of Capcom’s legal not-quite-sim series; at least before my shamefully gluttonous yet entirely satisfying playthrough over the weekend.
As much as I adore the Ace Attorney games, I admit they don’t offer much leeway in converting newcomers to the franchise. The presumptuously juvenile anime aesthetics, coupled with the seemingly endless amounts of reading required, can cloud the series’ value to the uninitiated.
Certainly, Capcom’s ability to meld endearing writing and silly situations with otherwise gruesome murder scenarios is an admirable achievement in any medium. And yet Wright and Co. reside contentedly in their niche, making few attempts to engage those who are unfamiliar with the admittedly now convoluted narrative elements of the series. Playing through each Ace Attorney title released thus far first (in order) is an understandably daunting requirement. Continue reading →
Language, race and verbal communication.
The Good
Games speaking in their Native Tongues
We can handle foreign films in their original spoken forms, so why is it that we have an inability to immerse ourselves in the multiple languages that could appear in our games? Even Avatar, with its make-believe lexicon, had large chunks of its spoken audio translated into text (albeit, via an incredibly horrible font). Thankfully games like Metro 2033 are proud enough of their origins and feel strongly enough about their settings to offer up the ability to play in their original language, in this case Russian. I may be the only one, but I long for a day where localisation returns to its written roots – except this time sticking within the bounds of English grammar. Continue reading →
You may have heard of Eminence. Or, you may not have, in which case you’re missing out on one of the most interesting things happening in symphonic game music.
I wrote about them quite a few years ago when I still lived in Melbourne; unlike many other things in my life, I think I actually got it right at the time. It’s about the music, sure, but it’s also about the importance of what Hiroaki Yura was trying to do by refreshing what is largely a dying market (in a very literal sense – have you been to a symphony recently?) through challenging what ‘classical’ music really means.
Classical symphonies have been stagnating for decades now; attendance rates are falling and the perceived relevance to your average person is at an all time low. Put it this way – how many symphonies have you or people you know been to over the last year? Now, to put it in context, how many people do you know have gone to see Wicked, anything by Cirque de Soleil, or generic Andrew Lloyd Webber musical #52? Classical music has an image problem, and it’s a big one. Continue reading →