The problem with working under a post buffer at least a month long and being too lazy to reorder things to make them more sensible is that when I post the soundtrack to a game I’m playing it makes much more sense at the time. Hence Tower of Guns which came out over a month ago but is still wonderfully fresh and new at the time of writing – game and soundtrack both.
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Game music: Tower of Guns
Game music: Morrowind
With Skyrim and Oblivion taking the Elder Scrolls series to the masses, it’s common among longtime fans to declare that Morrowind was the high point of the series. Wrongly, obviously, Daggerfall being – for the time – a staggering game that made everything that followed look small and samey. But I won’t deny that Morrowind was one of the most imaginative and interesting game worlds yet created, and the music takes me instantly right there.
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The letter ‘V’ 0.06 times
Remember about a year ago I mentioned a speedrun of VVVVVV, where someone beat the game in under 14 minutes? And compared that to the tool-assisted run of under 13 minutes? And then I said something almost prescient…
Barring a disruptive new glitch or strategy, that run is an indication of the theoretical fastest possible time that can be achieved, by a computer or a human.
Well…
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The sound of Alien: Isolation
When you’re hiding in the dark what you can hear may just be the key to your survival
Al Hope there, creative lead of Creative Assembly, adroitly summing up the entirety of how you do sound design for a survival horror game. The more we learn about Alien: Isolation the more I look forward to it. The recently released video discussing the sound design for the upcoming game is ticking all the right boxes – a dynamic music engine, use of the original assets and processes, audio as an integral aspect of gameplay, and even some of the musicians from the first film.
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Game music: Homeworld
When it comes to space-based strategy games nothing comes even close to the Homeworld series’ mastery of the genre. From humble beginnings shuffling about a handful of ships to the epic climax seeing you in command of a mighty fleet of capital ships, Homeworld remains unmatched to this day.
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Microsoft thinking about planning the possibility of maybe trying to design a 360 emulator for the Xbox One
Microsoft’s Mattrick says he doesn’t think compatibility is really a problem. He said only 5% of customers play older games on a new videogame system anyway, so spending time and money to develop technology to allow them to play older games isn’t worth it.
“If you’re backwards compatible, you’re really backwards,” he said.» Wall Street Journal, May 2013
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Are there plans for an Xbox 360 emulator on Xbox One?
SAVAGE: There are, but we’re not done thinking them through yet, unfortunately. It turns out to be hard to emulate the PowerPC stuff on the X86 stuff. So there’s nothing to announce, but I would love to see it myself.» Build Developer Conference, April 2014
And the 2014 award for “Most Generic Fantasy Trailer” goes to…
Elder Scrolls Online!
It was kind of inevitable really. By all accounts the game is a mediocre MMO and an awful Elder Scrolls game, and the marketing has been less than effective. That the cinematic trailer would fail to inspire is unsurprising, but the level of mediocrity exceeds expectations.
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Game music: Serious Sam 3 BFE
The original Serious Sam games hold a special place in my heart – I’ve never been much of a multiplayer gamer but some of my fondest memories of of ad-hoc, jury-rigged LAN parties – Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, Age of Empires 2, Rune and Serious Sam 2. Serious Sam 3 was a worthy successor and it’s time the soundtrack got some love here.
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Bastion minus most of Bastion
Everyone knows Bastion is a great game (and yes, has great music). Over at SDA a speedrunner called Vulajin has managed to finish the game in only 15 minutes and 9 seconds. Just… wow.
It’s funny to watch – so much content is skipped that the story falls apart and makes literally no sense.
Getting hopeful: Alien Isolation
Rock Paper Shotgun have posted a hands-on with Alien Isolation and after reading it I’ve gone from disillusioned fan to please-don’t disappoint-me-this-looks-so-good enthusiast.
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