Open Hatch

Archive for the ‘Video Games’ Category

I find track 06 from this old Nintendo game uniquely interesting and cool.

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(download mp3, ~2.39 MB, 2:44)

Also track 26, though maybe it gets older faster (still, it’s really a crime against my hardcore Nintendo music roots to even suggest that any such music could be redundant).

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(download mp3, ~2.04 MB, 2:44)

I’d pick and choose other cool tracks to post here, but I’d be uploading half the game’s music. Or all of it.

I’m far overdue posting how to rip these tracks to mp3 files for those interested

But this wouldn’t be complete without the games’ title/screen/opening.. anthem?

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(download mp3, ~1.94 MB, 2:44)

I’ve been playing through an old favorite of mine, the game EARTHBOUND, with my very young son, reading everything to him (and he likes the game very much). As I’ve been playing I’ve grabbed screen shots of what reminds me why I love the game. This is a gallery of those screen grabs.

What I love about the game:

• It is the story of four children who conquer Giygas, the Cosmic Destroyer.
• Japanese wackiness. As you can see from the gallery, it is full of good-natured, daffy characters.
• It is incredibly musically versatile, prolific, expressive, and in my opinion, beautiful. Here is the track for your home.

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• The ultimate, world-saving weapon in the game is prayer. This is combined with the work of knocking back into their senses anyone or anything that has gone wild or insane (such as a Rowdy Mouse or Insane Cultist). Or, if they are a mortal enemy (such as a lil’ UFO, Spinning Robo, or Starman), destroying them.

If you’re reading this today (10-14-2009) you’ve got about an hour and a half to grab this game campaign I made (while I was at Ninjabee) free – for download to the iPhone. Search for Kaloki Love. Ninjabee’s post about it is here (link). A previous post about this campaign is in my blog here (link).

See my description and the YouTube upload here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (34.0MB)

WEST OF HOUSE

This screen grab is straight from the source. Well. Loaded in an emulator.

What? You don’t know what this is? Put down the x-box controller and look it up!

Every room and scene in this text adventure painted clear, vivid images in my head.

I will paint them. Starting with this.

After I do other things..

[Update: this music has been revised and re-posted]

In reference to Pilcrow’s prescient request, I now present a remix of title in subject from the Nintendo 8-bit era of glory. The overlaying melody on this thing (I argue) makes the work substantially different enough from the original that this is a new work, which I provide for your download.

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(Download mp3, ~2.5MB)

This combines work done in Melodyne and Cakewalk with a nintendo sound font.

For an idea of this game (or a strange nostalgic glimpse), here are several YouTube videos -

I don’t like the weird video intro for this one, but it’s the only thing I find that gives the game title sequence (without a painfully elaborate or nerdy uber-over-narration) from which this title remix was built:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hTl1gTTOFNA

Level 1 play-through:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Wakyt-KtoBU

For the excellent finale music and sequence, skip to 2:44 in this one:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ct1Ins6oZY8

There’s this tune from the game Mother (the original Nintendo version of what later became the brilliant EARTHBOUND on Super Nintendo), evidently this is the music when you die. (Or that’s what the track ripper says; “Game Over”: I wouldn’t know because I never played the original. Also, the music when you die in EARTHBOUND is different but equally cool.) One day I was listening to this tune and I heard and started singing a high harmony melody. I’ve now re-rendered the music to include that melody, also altering the bass line enough that I can call this an original – if blatantly ripped off and extended – work, without conscience – so you can download it.

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(Download mp3, ~1.7MB)

How I made this was tricky – and yet produced results far faster than if I’d figured and re-did all the notes by hand. I’m kinda proud of it. I’ve mentioned Melodyne, which changes pitches very well. I used a Winamp plugin called NotSoFatso that lets you mute tracks in an .nsf (emulated nintendo music) file. I rendered each part (or instrument or harmony) to different wave files via Winamp’s wave writer – bass, lead, and lead echo. That was easier with NotSoFatso allowing me to “shadow” or list one of so many songs in the .nsf (right-click the song listing, click “file info”, then click “shadow->Winamp). I moved the notes of the bass wave file around a bit in Melodyne, and also copied it to another track and divided and moved around the notes and overtones (formants) to make this higher lead part (several of the notes were barely audible until I moved the formants).

Bingo.

Melodyne gave it a sing-song quality, if it is still very much a “nintendo” instrument – because Melodyne is designed to emulate the formants of the human voice in particular. It also made it too “clean” to be a “nintendo” instrument, so I processed the result in Audio Mulch using a “DigiGrunge” distortion decimator simulating a bit depth of 8. Then I mixed it all back together in Guitar Tracks Pro 3, and converted it to .mp3 with foobar2000’s “convert to same directory” right-click option.

Ah, EARTHBOUND.  Here’s a favorite capture from this Super Nintendo classic.  Clicking the medium thumbnail opens a full size image (which has been processed to look better at a very large size).

Update: I slightly revised and expanded this song.

I composed and rendered in a Nintendo sound font the following tune.

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(Download mp3, ~3MB)

This is from that game they might have made, and which you should have won, but you didn’t, because they might not have made it. But it might have involved a hero running through fields defeating the forces of evil, solving puzzles pertaining to the salvation of the world, acquiring mysterious relics, conversing with wizards and sorcerers and friendly beasts, and advancing in skill and stages toward defeating the ultimate foe.

You are free to download, copy and use this song for any purpose (see the license in the tag), and I request a link to this page in any redistributions. I don’t demand credit but request it in any commercial re-use.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (1.6MB)

I think these screen shots may be a bit old, and I’m confused by text appearing at this site saying that the Playstation 3 is “forthcoming” (it’s long since already out – maybe this page was posted before it was out) – but oh wow these screen shots are beautiful. These are on-the-fly renders from the game. The characters maybe could afford to possess any emotion other than a tough-guy scowl – but then, maybe that’s just the Metal Gear universe.

The game isn’t out yet (at this writing).

['Nother update 08-11: I just wandered back to his blog to download music and found that the side bar on the left of his blog contains links to pages where he organizes his downloadable portfolio. Nice Also, amid his blog is a link to his Professional Contact/Portfolio page, which itself I think has more (other?) music - I dunno, I'm using an automatic downloader to grab the music files but indicating that he has done a lot of scores to imagined, nonexistent games he made up. Ha ha! That's insane! That's awesome!]

[Update: a commenter corrects a mistaken fact; this musician didn't do the original original music on CONTRA; he did a lot of fan remixes of it. The rest of this is apparently correct.]

I just found this blog of a guy (by Googling the author and title of a file I nabbed from my brother; a chiptunes version of “Thriller”, in this post) who does freelance video-game music, including chiptunes (NES style). Apparently he worked on the original CONTRA, a huge (as in popular) Nintendo game; and he’s doing music for a new installment in the series fashioned closely after the old platform style. Awesome. Anyway his page of new chiptunes has awesome stuff, free for downloading and sharing with restrictions that wouldn’t affect most people.

So here’s his chiptunes version of Michael Jackson’s tune “Thriller” (this song is also at his page for downloading). Weird. Awesome.

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(download mp3, ~4MB)

I think I’m going to be downloading and enjoying a lot of his work

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.0MB)

One day a few years ago, my brother and I burst into invented overlay melodies for this Nintendo music, as we drove in my car – I think this was on or near Halloween (2003?). But to me, this music is just downright.. I dunno. Christmasy.

[note: In time I'll update this to play it in the page with a little music player (flash), but it's at a mHz that makes it freak out right now]

- download .mp3 -
- download .m4a (.iTunes) -

[This was moved over here from my wiki - date unknown]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (1.1MB)

The Adventure Game! .. An old one. ..King’s Quest.. um.. I don’t remember which one.. at some point I was playing through this game with my wife, and laughing at some of the very funny (unintentionally so?) sound bytes. Here are captures I made of those sounds.

Leave my harp alone! ..

Ah, life giving water, nectar of the Gods! ..

Yonder lies the crystal cave! ..

Ech, a dead fish! Hmm..

[This was pulled from my wiki which I am overhauling - I don't know the original date of this.]

The music happens when

I am ready for the next level,
A task has been accomplished,
Something evil and spooky might be going on, but I’m pretty okay with it,
I conquer evil,
It’s awesome,
I die, and when
It’s really, really over.

[Are you a nintendo junkie? Did you guess the game these are from? Castlevania 3. This is another pull from my aging wiki, originally posted April 28th 2005]

I bought the game CIVILIZATION IV. I played it some, and have mostly shelved it. WAY TOO EPIC.

As your civilization discovers and develops technologies and so forth, the voice of Leonard Nimoy informs you: “You have discovered <thus-and-such>”. When I play the game with new victims, I send a message to everyone in the game chat:

You have discovered pants.

This gets a good laugh.