The unsung heroes of videogames

How many times have you hummed that Zelda tune? How many times has that Final Fantasy (pick your number) battle theme been stuck in your head? For you hardcores, how many CD's of videogame soundtracks do you own?

How many gamers have you heard buy a game solely for their music (Rock Band, Guitar Hero or all those other music games doesn't count)? After that count the number of times you have heard a gamer said, I bought this because the graphics was so cool. I bet you would get an infinite ratio. Yet try to measure how long you would last playing a game with the music and sound turned off. I bet you wouldn't last 20 mins. Count the number of times that you can imagine Mario without your brain playing that first few notes of level 1-1. I would say never. Music is just as part of the game as graphics and yet it doesn't seem to get recognized as much.

I have a simple analogy for this phenomenon. Imagine a brownie, your favorite brand, then put your favorite ice cream flavor on that brownie. By itself, the brownie has satisfied you, but the ice cream just made it special. That is what music is to videogames. It is the ice cream on your brownie ala mode. It's the egg on your chicken noodle soup. It's what makes a good game outstanding.

I would like to honor all those unsung heroes of the videogames, the music composers, (instrument) players, and everybody that makes the music for videogames. Thank you for making our games special.

Where do you draw the line?

I have just used my Nintendo DS to cook ginger pork. Surprisingly, it was good. This is the first time I have cooked a new meal by myself. I recently bought (*cough* downloaded *cough*) the Personal Trainer: Cooking for the NDS. My question is, "Is this a videogame?" It loads onto the NDS (a handheld videogame console). However I didn't play with it. I did have fun preparing, cooking and eating the food. What is the line between videogames and non-games?

There has been a growing divide between hardcore and casual gamers. One of the tricks hardcores use is labeling a title a non-game. Brain Age? Non-game! Halo 3? Now that's a game. What's the difference? Sure one of them lets you stab another player, while the other lets you take a stab at a math problem. But the core usage is the same. It is to have fun. Some people do not have fun with math, I should remind you that some people do not have fun stabbing somebody.

Drawing lines usually occur when the market expands. I myself have draw lines. This occurred when the RPG market expanded. At first I distinguished myself as an RPG player. When FF7 came out, RPG became mainstream. I have felt that I lost my special status, so I drew the line between hardcore RPG players and casual RPG players. The line usually was RPG players who loved and played RPG's before FF7 and those who play RPG's because of FF7. What did the line do in reality? It just divided the RPG market into labels, but both of them basically had the same traits. Both enjoyed RPG's. Both enjoyed investing long hours for the story. Some loved level grinding, some don't. Some like random encounters, some don't. It was basically the same group, with one minor difference one group was introduced to RPG's before FF7 and the other group after FF7.

FF7 was certainly not the best RPG (in my book at least), but its effects was so enormous that it left the RPG market better off in ways no other RPG has done. First of, FF7 made it attractive for other companies to venture making an RPG. It also meant that there was profit in bringing an RPG to western shores. Now it wasn't a question of WHETHER it would be translated, but WHEN would it be translated. It has even changed the other genres as well. Now almost every game has RPG elements in it. Why? Because FF7 has taught all these new RPG players how to understand concepts of leveling or equipment or other stuff alike, and have begin to look for these elements on other games. Bottom line, the market expansion brought about by FF7 was the best thing that happened to the market.

Today the videogame market has expanded so fast (thanks to that playing card company), that gamers have lost their special status. Suddenly, it is not as special to play video games because my grandma in the nursing home is playing wii bowling. So their initial reaction, just like me before is to draw the line. Draw the line at which titles are games which are not. Which gamers are hardcore and which are casuals. In the end, however, it will basically be the same group, and the effects of this market expansion will leave the gaming world so much better.

So while the other hardcores are drawing lines which are not really relevant. I'm going to cook my next new meal with my NDS. How does braised beef with vegetables sound?