Ubisoft

Game Music

GENKI ROCKETS Release ‘make.believe / Flow (Child of Eden Mix) EP’

June 24, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | 1 Comment Share this

I’m a huge fan of the GENKI ROCKETS. You may know them for their track, “Heavenly Stars,” which was featured in LUMINES II and No More Heroes. While much of the talent behind the group remains a mystery, Tetsuya Mizuguchi at Q Entertainment and Kenji Tamai of Agehasprings Corporation are known to be involved.

When we first saw Child of Eden at Ubisoft’s press conference at E3 2010, I thought I was hearing the distinctive voice of Lumi, the group’s fictional vocalist. I was right, and here’s an EP that celebrates GENKI ROCKETS’s contributions to the game as well as an additional track that was used as a promotion for Sony’s “make.believe” brand slogan campaign.

Find out if the EP is worth your time in our brief review after the jump. (more…)
Game Music

Comic Con 2010: Teased With More Child of Eden and Halo: Reach Details

July 24, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on Comic Con 2010: Teased With More Child of Eden and Halo: Reach Details Share this

Seriously, what a tease. Child of Eden is mine and many others’ most anticipated game for the Microsoft Kinect, and while it isn’t on the show floor, it was at Microsoft’s press event a couple nights ago. I wasn’t expecting it to be there, and I quickly made my way over to watch a young lady move with the music and actually look good while playing the game (I know I’m going to be incredibly awkward). As it turns out, she’s with Microsoft, and they weren’t letting anyone get hands-on with the game, which was a shame. Still, it looks awesome, and we did confirm that we were indeed hearing the Genki Rockets in the background, and that while it may look casual in that you progress through levels without any sort of resistance, enemies will indeed fire back in the final build, and you can die.

Regarding Halo: Reach, we saw 8-player multiplayer in action, and man does this game look beautiful. We saw the return of classic maps from the original Halo, and when we inquired about Marty O’Donnell’s score, we were told that his writing partner Michael Salvatorri is indeed on the project, and that while we heard rock music at E3, there’s a nice blend of all new music for the game, including ethnic Middle Eastern themes as well as rock and other styles. I’m looking forward to a soundtrack release for this one already!

What do you think of Child of Eden and Halo: Reach? Have you enjoyed O’Donnell’s recent experiments with the music of Halo?
Game Music

E3 2010: Michael Jackson and Tetsuya Mizuguchi Team Up With Ubisoft

June 14, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on E3 2010: Michael Jackson and Tetsuya Mizuguchi Team Up With Ubisoft Share this

Michael Jackson, you say? Well, yes, at least in videogame form. Ubisoft held its annual E3 press conference in front of a packed crowd at the Los Angeles Theater, and there were certainly some pleasant surprises throughout the evening.

While Ubisoft unveiled a number of interesting titles including Driver: San Francisco, Ghost Recon: Future War, and a new Rayman game with a sweeping orchestral soundtrack, the highlights of the evening were the first and last titles shown: Child of Eden and a game titled Michael Jackson.

Hit the jump to find out what Ubisoft had to say about these two titles. (more…)
Featured, Game Music

No More Heroes 2 Interview with Jun Fukuda and Nobuhiko Sagara

May 13, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | 5 Comments Share this

We had a blast with No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, and are still awaiting word from Grasshopper Manufacture regarding a soundtrack release. While the game was released months ago in North America, it still hasn’t been released in Japan, and we’ve been fortunate enough to get some of lead sound designer and composer Jun Fukuda and sound coordinator Nobuhiko Sagara’s time to talk about their work on the title.

We dig deep into the many artists that were recorded for the soundtrack, the influence of the game’s theme of revenge, the use of tracks from the No More Heroes Dark Side Remixes album, a No More Heroes 2 soundtrack release, and Fukuda’s and Sagara’s respective backgrounds that led them to their current roles at Grasshopper Manufacture. It’s a good time, so we hope you enjoy reading about what went into all the sound elements in No More Heroes 2!

Hit the jump for our lengthy interview with Jun Fukuda and Nobuhiko Sagara from Grasshopper Manufacture. (more…)
Chip Music, Game Music

PAX East 2010: Anamanaguchi writing soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim Game

March 27, 2010 | Joshua Kopstein | 1 Comment Share this

It seemed to fall into place all too well: Just one day after the release of the official trailer for Edgar Wright’s film adaptation of the popular comic series, Scott Pilgrim, New York chiptune supergroup Anamanaguchi dropped a bombshell on stage last night during their set at PAX East — The group will be writing and performing the soundtrack for the Scott Pilgrim videogame being published by Ubisoft. For those not familiar, Scott Pilgrim is a comic series by independent Canadian comic artist Bryan Lee O’Malley. Debuting in 2006, the comic quickly gained an enormous following and became a cult hit amongst comic fans for its rapid-fire videogame references, off-the-wall story and loveable characters.

PAX Attendees watched as graphics from the game — which are being done by incomparable Australian sprite animator Paul Robertson, creator of King of Powers 4 Billion % and Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 — exploded onto the screen following the announcement as the band performed the game’s theme song for the very first time live on stage. If you’re not familiar with the series, please trust me when I say that Anamanaguchi’s exuberant 8bit-style punk rock is the perfect fit for the Scott Pilgrim franchise. Everyone I spoke to afterward had pretty much the same reaction: They could not wait to get their hands on this game, or its soundtrack. This was just one of the many amazing moments I’ve experienced this weekend at PAX East, and we’ll have more to share in the next few days. Stay tuned!

[image courtesy of Attract Mode; check out their post for more images from the game]
Game Music, Reviews

Kill or be Killed: No More Heroes 2 Desperate Struggle (Game Review)

March 20, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on Kill or be Killed: No More Heroes 2 Desperate Struggle (Game Review) Share this

While nobody I know outside of the gaming industry has played the original No More Heroes, it apparently did well enough to warrant a sequel. It’s one of my favorite games on the Wii, so I was understandably shocked but ecstatic at the news of a sequel. I loved the quirky otaku humor of the first game, and it looked as though there was more of the same with some improvements in the sequel.

The ending of the first game was so ridiculous that I had no idea how they were going to continue, but they’ve done it. Lots of things have changed in Santa Destroy, and for us here at OSV where we focus on music, Masafumi Takada’s departure left a huge question mark as to how the sequel would feel.

Well, let’s get on with our review after the jump! (more…)
Film, Game Music

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Movie: The Game: The Soundtrack (The Review)

December 28, 2009 | Patrick Gann | Comments Off on James Cameron’s Avatar: The Movie: The Game: The Soundtrack (The Review) Share this

Avatar, a film 15 years in the making, is finally out in theaters. From its US release on December 18th to the present day, it has broken a variety of box office records. Yes, despite a crazy blizzard in the Northeast part of the United States during opening weekend, the film was extremely successful. This comes as no surprise, what with all the advertising, and the almighty name James Cameron attached (Titanic, Terminator, et al).

The game based on the film, however, hasn’t fared as well. The PC version of James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game, played on a high-end PC that can pull off stereoscopic 3D display, demonstrates the future of high-end graphics in gaming. However, the console versions (particularly for Wii) don’t hold up as well graphically, and the gameplay itself has been described as “linear and clunky.”

The score for the film was written by James Horner, who has collaborated with Cameron before (Aliens, Titanic). The film also has a theme song from Leona Lewis called “I See You.” Lewis will also be featured on the non-Japanese release of Final Fantasy XIII with her song “My Hands.” Horner’s score has already seen the full gamut of praise and criticism. Some argue that he continues to write the same music over and over, yet others argue that his collaboration with an ethnomusicologist helped bring the fictional culture of the Na’vi to life.

The game adaptation of the film does not rely on Horner’s score, however. Ubisoft had Chance Thomas, who is no stranger to writing music for “licensed games” (see: King Kong, Lord of the Rings), write a sizable chunk of live orchestral music plus many more hours of tracked/sequenced music, and 35 minutes of that orchestral score is found on this disc.

Our thoughts on Chance Thomas’s newest score, after the jump. (more…)