| Video Games Live Review |
[Jul. 25th, 2008|08:55 am] |
Last night, among the crazy hordes of Comic-Con, a few friends and I attended the Video Games Live! concert at Embarcadero Marina Park, which is, interestingly enough, right behind the Convention Center where said Comic-Con was occurring. The San Diego Symphony and Master Chorale were on hand to bring video game themes to life before our very eyes and it was pretty damn rad.
SHOWTIME!
They got off to a good start, on time, with a medley of themes from old video games (think Ghosts 'n' Goblins, Tetris, Out Run, Frogger, etc.) while a pastiche of gameplay videos played on three giant screens. Each time a new game popped up I excitedly called it out, if I knew it, and I knew most of them. The host of the show, and co-creator, composer and musician Tommy Tallarico then came out to emcee the rest of the performances.
Not to belabor this review with play-by-play details, and also because I'm bad at remembering all of the details, the rest of the show consisted of various game composers being introduced, either by coming on stage for a bit, or by playing pre-recorded videos (like in the case of Koji Kondo (!!!)), and then having the orchestra and chorale play a piece. All of the pieces were well done, although sometimes it seemed like they could've gone for a bit more diversity when doing a certain game's oeuvre of themes (the Legend of Zelda one was cool, but they didn't play anything but the main theme). Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Halo, God of War, Super Mario Brothers, and Castlevania (the "surprise" ending) were all thoroughly rocked out like only an orchestra can. A medley of Final Fantasy themes done by Martin Leung (The Blind Pianist - OMG Internet Person!) was especially impressive, despite already seeing him perform on several YouTube videos.
LET'S PLAY A GAME
There were two interactive portions of the show that, while fun, kind of brought the integrity of a "serious night at the symphony" down a few notches. First, a dude was selected from the audience, told to put on a t-shirt, and then essentially "be" the ship from Space Invaders as his motions moved the little pixelated star cruiser on a big screen while pushing a big button to wipe out the oncoming horde. He got close to finishing the first level in under 2 minutes but started hemorrhaging lives near the end and did not succeed. He gave up a (legal?) MAME cabinet for his loss. The other one was a standard "come up and play Guitar Hero" segment where the dude rocked "Sweet Emotion" on Expert and the fun that is rhythm games was felt by all.
CONCLUSION
Overall, it was an enjoyable concert in a park (we were seated right next to the rocks and water) and we could see everything well enough and hear everything even better. The whole thing gives much-needed credence to the outstanding work that goes into video game music and while there was too much of a "we're weird and geeky and not-serious" vibe about some of it to really put it into the high-art category, it's a huge leap forward for the industry, in general.
I'm glad several people were interested in it and could come, and that they all seemed to have fun. Much like any other "band," I dunno if I'm jazzed about seeing it again next year, since I essentially have my "moment" to remember, but if even more people want to come and they change up their program a bit, that'd be awesome.
\m/ \m/
P.S.
The guy who does the voice of the Berzerker from Gears of War AND the voice of Klaus the fish from American Dad (and a bunch of others, actually) was there and did an insane re-creation of said Berzerker's voice as a video played showing in-game footage of the players encountering and then subduing the monstrosity. |
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