I smile like a fool every time I see it :)
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
'An Audience with Hirokazu Hip Tanaka'
The folks over at GameSetWatch.com recently posted an interview with Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka, the man behind the music heard in such Famicom/NES classics as Balloon Fight, Kid Icarus, Metroid, Mother and Wrecking Crew.
My favorite comment of the incredibly interesting interview comes after Tanaka, who currently serves as the president of Creatures Inc., mentions that the use of rhythm in Balloon Fight and Wrecking Crew was an homage to Sly and Robbie.
"To be honest with you, back then I had a lot of reservations about the use of music in games," Tanaka says. "I was sort of embarrassed by it. The background music would just keep on playing over and over. I thought it was annoying. My feeling was that the audio should be more in line with the sound effects that you had control over as the player, so that there was a more unified sound to the game. I was kind of in love with the idea of a game whose audio was totally composed of sound effects.
"This concept was on my mind while making Metroid," he adds. "The idea was for there not to be a strong melody line until the game was completed, and that gave you as the player a sense of accomplishment. You were playing this game with its dark-sounding music, battling for weeks on end. Hearing this melody at the end of the game would then feel so rewarding."
Read the rest of the interview here.
"This concept was on my mind while making Metroid," he adds. "The idea was for there not to be a strong melody line until the game was completed, and that gave you as the player a sense of accomplishment. You were playing this game with its dark-sounding music, battling for weeks on end. Hearing this melody at the end of the game would then feel so rewarding."
Read the rest of the interview here.
Have a DSi? Get ready to 'Fight With Photos'
Folks with a Japanese DSi (and at least 200 Nintendo points) are in for a treat come Jan. 16.
That's when Nintendo is going to release Fight With Photos: Photo Fighter X--a DSiWare title that lets people create their own fighting game using photos they've taken with the DSi camera and sounds they've recorded with the system's microphone.
Here's a bit of gameplay footage:
For more information, go to andriasang.com and tinycartridge.com.
That's when Nintendo is going to release Fight With Photos: Photo Fighter X--a DSiWare title that lets people create their own fighting game using photos they've taken with the DSi camera and sounds they've recorded with the system's microphone.
Here's a bit of gameplay footage:
For more information, go to andriasang.com and tinycartridge.com.
I'd definitely do this if I were a girl
A blog called The Daily Nail posted this image yesterday morning, and I couldn't help but post it here.
Apparently the blogger is attempting to go through 365 different nail designs in 365 days.
Anyway, here's the post that accompanied the photo:
"Today's nails are dedicated to the first video game I ever played. EVER. SPACE INVADERS!!!! It was a pain in the ass to paint the little squares, and I had to start over on a few nails, but I'm super excited with how they turned out! Plus, thanks to Wikipedia, I just found out that the company I work for used to hold the license for the game! Crazy!!"
Hey, what do you know--another blogger who loves exclamation points :) She seems to love video games too, though, so I'll cut her some slack.
Apparently the blogger is attempting to go through 365 different nail designs in 365 days.
Anyway, here's the post that accompanied the photo:
"Today's nails are dedicated to the first video game I ever played. EVER. SPACE INVADERS!!!! It was a pain in the ass to paint the little squares, and I had to start over on a few nails, but I'm super excited with how they turned out! Plus, thanks to Wikipedia, I just found out that the company I work for used to hold the license for the game! Crazy!!"
Hey, what do you know--another blogger who loves exclamation points :) She seems to love video games too, though, so I'll cut her some slack.
Shigeru Miyamoto is gay
OK, so that's not really true. Or, I don't think it's true. Obviously, it would be great if it were true, but I don't think it is...
Anyway, I jokingly came up with the headline after reading the latest "Iwata Asks" interview on Nintendo's website. While talking about how he, Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka came together to work on the original Super Mario Bros., Toshihiko Nakago mentions the following:
"As Excitebike was being developed in Tokyo, I went on a lot of business trips there together with Miyamoto-san and we'd often stay over in a hotel. That was right at the start of the bubble economy and there were times when it would be really hard to secure a hotel room. There were even times when we slept in the same bed."
Other interesting tidbits are revealed during the interview, too--including the fact that Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda were developed by the same team, at the same time.
"Those two titles were both developed at the same time," Satoru Iwata says at one point. "It's surprising how many game fans aren't aware of this, but the first Super Mario and Zelda titles were made simultaneously, with the same staff. It's something that seems completely unthinkable now!"
If this kind of nerdy stuff trips your trigger like it does mine, go here to read the interview in its entirety.
Anyway, I jokingly came up with the headline after reading the latest "Iwata Asks" interview on Nintendo's website. While talking about how he, Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka came together to work on the original Super Mario Bros., Toshihiko Nakago mentions the following:
"As Excitebike was being developed in Tokyo, I went on a lot of business trips there together with Miyamoto-san and we'd often stay over in a hotel. That was right at the start of the bubble economy and there were times when it would be really hard to secure a hotel room. There were even times when we slept in the same bed."
Other interesting tidbits are revealed during the interview, too--including the fact that Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda were developed by the same team, at the same time.
"Those two titles were both developed at the same time," Satoru Iwata says at one point. "It's surprising how many game fans aren't aware of this, but the first Super Mario and Zelda titles were made simultaneously, with the same staff. It's something that seems completely unthinkable now!"
If this kind of nerdy stuff trips your trigger like it does mine, go here to read the interview in its entirety.
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