Thursday, February 14, 2008
Videogames Live
Video Games Live was amazing! I'm so glad I went, I really enjoyed it. Sorry, I meant to post this update yesterday, but I've been busy (read: Call of Duty 4), but there's not thaaat much to do at work so I made the required video at work today, and now I'm posting this entry. Anyway, yes... VGL was amazing! I'm so glad I went, I really enjoyed it.
As expected, the music was great, the show was pretty good, but the atmosphere and the people... that helped a lot. Like the raptors game, it would've been a different event if there weren't so many fans... so yes, same thing here. There were a lot of (duh) videogame fans, and I assume most of the people were between 18 and 30... also, the atmosphere was somewhat casual. I mean, first, I didn't underdress - I was thinking of wearing the same thing to here as Canoe, but I got lazy at the end, and yeah, most other people wore t-shirt and jeans and the like. Also, unlike a movie, audience participation and clapping and yelling out random things was encouraged, so every now and then you might hear "Do a barrel roll!" and "For the Horde!" and "OMG I love you Solid Snake!!" from the audience.
Yeah, the fan thing is kind of obvious - of course if you're a raptor's game, you're probably a fan of the raptors, but... hmm... it's kinda like when we saw Serenity (the Firefly movie) on opening night in Waterloo - which has all these fans and stuff - which would be different than watching Serenity a few weeks later. A few weeks later, Firefly fans and "friends of fans" would go, but it wouldn't feel as epic as it was on the opening day.
Anyway, back to Video Games Live (VGL). Unfortunately, both my flash and non-flash pictures turned out crappy, and we weren't allowed to take video, but I managed to get a bit before the lady usher told me to stop taping things. So here's a short video I made of the experience.
http://www.baomon.com/blog/vgl-2008.wmv - 2 minutes, 2 megabytes
So, the show was awesome! They started with a small poem (Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, "All your base are belong to us"), and then a videoclip which we haven't seen before, which you can find below. I recommend it!
http://www.theater5films.com - 2nd film
Then there were some medleys about a bunch of old games, while the video plays the old games, the orchestra plays the music. Anyway, I'll just list some highlights and things worth mentioning. If I remember correctly, these are things we've heard, but probably not in this order:
Retro-game montage (Pong, Donkey Kong, Ghouls and Ghosts, Elevator Action, etc)
Metal Gear Solid
God Of War
Chrono Cross
Harry Potter
Medal of Honour
Civilization IV
Final Fantasy _ _ _ - See Below
Zelda Medley
Tetris
Kingdom Hearts
Mario Medley (Orchestra)
(World of) Warcraft
Starcraft II
Final Fantasy Medley
Sonic Medley
Mario Medley (Piano)
Halo
Final Fantasy _ _ _ - See Below
In no particular order:
So for each particular game (unless it was a piano-only segment, more on that later) they had videoclips of the game on the screen, except for SquareEnix games, because Square doesn't allow VGL and other things to show footage of their games on screen. So for the Final Fantasy sequences, it was just the VGL logo, and for Kingdom Hearts it was scenes from various Disney movies.
One of my favourite parts was the Sonic Medley, maybe it's just me. It wasn't as epic as Halo (which also was good), but it was well done. Here's a youtube video of the Sonic medley in London, it was basically the same thing. I love how the choir says... well, watch it :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5tKah8Rx7U
(too bad the guy playing sucks; would've been more impressive if they could actually play the game) (you can find a bunch of other vgl-related videos on youtube, if you like to)
There were several contests throughout - first, there was a costume contest, and the winner won some VGL-related snag... then later a guy won a contest to appear on stage, and he played some weird version of space invaders and lost and took home some parting gifts... and then two contestants were chosen from the audience to compete in Frogger, and the winner took home some more fun stuff...
Later in the show, a videogamemusic cover band took the stage, aptly named "the Runaway 5" (from Earthbound), and they played some mario/etc music in a Jazz form, it was cool.
You know those videos of that guy who would play mario songs on the piano, blindfolded? Whatever happened to that guy? Well, that was 3 years ago, and since then he's been touring with VGL full-time! So he was there, and he played a bunch of stuff for us. What an amazing guy. So from the above, he played Chrno Cross, Final Fantasy Medley, Tetris, and a Mario Medley (first part blindfolded too).
During the Metal Gear Solid session, a soldier came out and a box came out, and... well, it was fun. Man, I must get me one of those glow-in-the-dark exclamation marks! (no pictures, sorry, but you can imagine, yes?)... also, at the end of the very epic Halo section, Master Chief came out, it was pretty epic.
Speaking of Master Chief, Halo's composer Mike Salvatori(sp?) was a guest star at VGL, that was pretty neat. Oh yeah, as you saw in the Sonic Medley, before each section the game creator would speak with us about the music, so that was cool too.
Now, for the Final Fantasy's. So Mike, the host of the show, would come out, and say "okay, now we're going to play... a song... from... Final Fantasy..." and then he would pause. And then the audience would start yelling out 7! 6! SEVEN! SEVEN! SIX! SEVEN! FOUR!!! SIXX!! SEEVVVEENN!!! SIXX!! TEN!! FOUR! SEVEN! TWENTY-THREE!!! ... "well, " Mike says, "I guess any number I say will disappoint a lot of people" Lols....
So the first Final Fantasy - was Final Fantasy VIII, Liberi Fatali. Very nice song choice, very well done.
And then the second Final Fantasy... well, after Halo, we all did the clapping and the host and the conductor left the stage... and came back. There was only one thing it could be. Mike once again said "Final Fantasy..." and it was unanimous this time... SEVEN!! 7!!! SEVEN!! 7!! SEVEN!! SEEVENN!! And yes. It was Final Fantasy VII, and then everyone yelled out ONE. WINGED. ANGEL.
And it was. Sweet.
Sweet concert, very well done. I highly recommend it, but of course, go with friends. Would I go again? Not for a while, but I would eventually, yes. Our seats were great, surprisingly good. If I had to choose favourites, It'd be Halo, Sonic, and Metal Gear Solid. Piano Final Fantasy medley was good too. Man, it's hard to pick favourites... but I used to keep watching the MGS2 9-minute trailer, and they pretty much used that for the MGS section, and wow, that was wonderful. Here's that trailer again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk7aBSUAozE
If I had to pick least favourites, those would be Harry Potter and Medal of Honour. I haven't played much God of War but it was well done (included one lady singing, and the pictures were nice), CIV 4 looked pretty, Kingdom Hearts had disney movies, Starcraft II was ookay, WOW was excellent... so Harry Potter and Medal of Honour are my bottom two.
And while we're talking about negatives, parking sucked. We're not parking there again. Anyway, nothing special happening this weekend, and next weekend I'm having the "Endless Setlist" party (see facebook).Labels: video games live
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As expected, the music was great, the show was pretty good, but the atmosphere and the people... that helped a lot. Like the raptors game, it would've been a different event if there weren't so many fans... so yes, same thing here. There were a lot of (duh) videogame fans, and I assume most of the people were between 18 and 30... also, the atmosphere was somewhat casual. I mean, first, I didn't underdress - I was thinking of wearing the same thing to here as Canoe, but I got lazy at the end, and yeah, most other people wore t-shirt and jeans and the like. Also, unlike a movie, audience participation and clapping and yelling out random things was encouraged, so every now and then you might hear "Do a barrel roll!" and "For the Horde!" and "OMG I love you Solid Snake!!" from the audience.
Yeah, the fan thing is kind of obvious - of course if you're a raptor's game, you're probably a fan of the raptors, but... hmm... it's kinda like when we saw Serenity (the Firefly movie) on opening night in Waterloo - which has all these fans and stuff - which would be different than watching Serenity a few weeks later. A few weeks later, Firefly fans and "friends of fans" would go, but it wouldn't feel as epic as it was on the opening day.
Anyway, back to Video Games Live (VGL). Unfortunately, both my flash and non-flash pictures turned out crappy, and we weren't allowed to take video, but I managed to get a bit before the lady usher told me to stop taping things. So here's a short video I made of the experience.
http://www.baomon.com/blog/vgl-2008.wmv - 2 minutes, 2 megabytes
So, the show was awesome! They started with a small poem (Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, "All your base are belong to us"), and then a videoclip which we haven't seen before, which you can find below. I recommend it!
http://www.theater5films.com - 2nd film
Then there were some medleys about a bunch of old games, while the video plays the old games, the orchestra plays the music. Anyway, I'll just list some highlights and things worth mentioning. If I remember correctly, these are things we've heard, but probably not in this order:
Retro-game montage (Pong, Donkey Kong, Ghouls and Ghosts, Elevator Action, etc)
Metal Gear Solid
God Of War
Chrono Cross
Harry Potter
Medal of Honour
Civilization IV
Final Fantasy _ _ _ - See Below
Zelda Medley
Tetris
Kingdom Hearts
Mario Medley (Orchestra)
(World of) Warcraft
Starcraft II
Final Fantasy Medley
Sonic Medley
Mario Medley (Piano)
Halo
Final Fantasy _ _ _ - See Below
In no particular order:
So for each particular game (unless it was a piano-only segment, more on that later) they had videoclips of the game on the screen, except for SquareEnix games, because Square doesn't allow VGL and other things to show footage of their games on screen. So for the Final Fantasy sequences, it was just the VGL logo, and for Kingdom Hearts it was scenes from various Disney movies.
One of my favourite parts was the Sonic Medley, maybe it's just me. It wasn't as epic as Halo (which also was good), but it was well done. Here's a youtube video of the Sonic medley in London, it was basically the same thing. I love how the choir says... well, watch it :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5tKah8Rx7U
(too bad the guy playing sucks; would've been more impressive if they could actually play the game) (you can find a bunch of other vgl-related videos on youtube, if you like to)
There were several contests throughout - first, there was a costume contest, and the winner won some VGL-related snag... then later a guy won a contest to appear on stage, and he played some weird version of space invaders and lost and took home some parting gifts... and then two contestants were chosen from the audience to compete in Frogger, and the winner took home some more fun stuff...
Later in the show, a videogamemusic cover band took the stage, aptly named "the Runaway 5" (from Earthbound), and they played some mario/etc music in a Jazz form, it was cool.
You know those videos of that guy who would play mario songs on the piano, blindfolded? Whatever happened to that guy? Well, that was 3 years ago, and since then he's been touring with VGL full-time! So he was there, and he played a bunch of stuff for us. What an amazing guy. So from the above, he played Chrno Cross, Final Fantasy Medley, Tetris, and a Mario Medley (first part blindfolded too).
During the Metal Gear Solid session, a soldier came out and a box came out, and... well, it was fun. Man, I must get me one of those glow-in-the-dark exclamation marks! (no pictures, sorry, but you can imagine, yes?)... also, at the end of the very epic Halo section, Master Chief came out, it was pretty epic.
Speaking of Master Chief, Halo's composer Mike Salvatori(sp?) was a guest star at VGL, that was pretty neat. Oh yeah, as you saw in the Sonic Medley, before each section the game creator would speak with us about the music, so that was cool too.
Now, for the Final Fantasy's. So Mike, the host of the show, would come out, and say "okay, now we're going to play... a song... from... Final Fantasy..." and then he would pause. And then the audience would start yelling out 7! 6! SEVEN! SEVEN! SIX! SEVEN! FOUR!!! SIXX!! SEEVVVEENN!!! SIXX!! TEN!! FOUR! SEVEN! TWENTY-THREE!!! ... "well, " Mike says, "I guess any number I say will disappoint a lot of people" Lols....
So the first Final Fantasy - was Final Fantasy VIII, Liberi Fatali. Very nice song choice, very well done.
And then the second Final Fantasy... well, after Halo, we all did the clapping and the host and the conductor left the stage... and came back. There was only one thing it could be. Mike once again said "Final Fantasy..." and it was unanimous this time... SEVEN!! 7!!! SEVEN!! 7!! SEVEN!! SEEVENN!! And yes. It was Final Fantasy VII, and then everyone yelled out ONE. WINGED. ANGEL.
And it was. Sweet.
Sweet concert, very well done. I highly recommend it, but of course, go with friends. Would I go again? Not for a while, but I would eventually, yes. Our seats were great, surprisingly good. If I had to choose favourites, It'd be Halo, Sonic, and Metal Gear Solid. Piano Final Fantasy medley was good too. Man, it's hard to pick favourites... but I used to keep watching the MGS2 9-minute trailer, and they pretty much used that for the MGS section, and wow, that was wonderful. Here's that trailer again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk7aBSUAozE
If I had to pick least favourites, those would be Harry Potter and Medal of Honour. I haven't played much God of War but it was well done (included one lady singing, and the pictures were nice), CIV 4 looked pretty, Kingdom Hearts had disney movies, Starcraft II was ookay, WOW was excellent... so Harry Potter and Medal of Honour are my bottom two.
And while we're talking about negatives, parking sucked. We're not parking there again. Anyway, nothing special happening this weekend, and next weekend I'm having the "Endless Setlist" party (see facebook).
Labels: video games live