8Static @ VGXPO

VGXPO is coming up in just 2 weeks, and we've got some more info on the great musical acts, VJs and 8bit art that'll be rocking our socks. Here's a rundown of a major presence at VGXPO this year, 8Static:

Animal Style
(http://animal-style.com/)

Joey Mariano is an American guitar virtuoso, chip musician, visual artist, and educator hailing from Philadelphia. Well-known for his Game Boy Foot Controller mod and for popularizing the 8bit fuzz pedal, Mariano continues to innovate the performance of 8bit music. Live, Joey walks a chiptune tight rope, triggering loops from his feet and shredding progressive, improvised guitar solos rooted in his strict, jazz training. Animal Style music is a blend of demoscene sensibilities, catchy melodies, organic guitar riffs, and improvisation that will explode your ear canal and leave you begging for more. Mariano stands at the forefront of the emerging chip scene in Philadelphia and is a frequent co-conspirator with 8bitpeoples, the New York chip scene, and iimusic.net.

Inverse Phase
(http://clickass.org/ip/)

Inverse Phase takes the songs you (hopefully) love and whittles them down to chiptunes that fit the specifications of old gaming platforms. NES and Commodore 64 renditions of rock and metal are his specialty -- besides, computers are made of metal anyway -- and as much as possible is preserved of the tune, sometimes changing the feel and other times leaving it the same. Inverse Phase will be playing a fun set of chiptunes and sharing a few humorous insights into the writing that went into them.

Cheap Dinosaurs
(http://myspace.com/cheapdinosaurs)

Dino Lionetti, a veteran of the indie rock scene, first gained recognition as a chip music genius with his his band Chromelodeon - integrating chrunchy melodies, huge orchestration,and gameboy tracker music. recently, he played Blip Festival Europe and a slew of other high profile performances. Sometimes aided by Dan Tang (ex-Chromelodeon), Joey Mariano (Animalstyle), and Bucky this band has a unique sound that can't be denied. The sound has strong roots in the sounds of chip music past, but also updates it for the future.

Autoscroll
(http://autoscrollsound.com/)

Autoscroll is an insane fusion that joins the two fractured worlds of video game cover music and chip music. Retro video game music is covered with live instruments and chip music backgrounds.

VBLANK (VJ)
(http://waitforvblank.com/)

VBLANK is a live media project by Wil Lindsay. Wil Currently lives and plays in Philadelphia, where he teaches Interactive Media at the University of the Arts and Philadelphia University. He is currently serving as the resident artist for Philadelphia’s “The Hacktory”, and creates visual work that can be seen regionally and throughout the country. The name VBLANK is derived from the code used to create NTSC video on many old game systems and the chip-based video synth he uses for this project. In video programming land, he spends the majority of his time waiting for the television’s vertical blank (or “VBLANK”) to happen so he can quickly draw things on the screen with some amazing programming.

NO CARRIER (VJ)

(http://no-carrier.com/)

NO CARRIER, or Don Miller, is an educator, programmer, and live visualist currently living in Philadelphia. He reprograms nearly obsolete videogame and computer hardware, for use at live music events and installations. He primarily codes for the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Commodore 64, creating visual works that incorporates both new and recycled symbols and patterns. His work simultaneously speaks to the emerging DIY technology culture, and the reminiscence of a generation raised on interactive media technologies.

Ro-Bear
(http://myspace.com/robearaudio)

Robert Joffred, or Ro-Bear. initially fell in love with the music of video games early on while playing Tetris Attack and Yoshi's Island on his Super Nintendo. After learning musical instruments from guitar to trombone, he discovered LSDJ in the spring of 2008 and hasn't looked back. Taking influences from Maurice Ravel to Daryl Hall, Ro-Bear focuses on making heavily melodic compositions created from a Nintendo Game Boy.

Enso
(http://enso.tumblr.com/)

Enso is a visual artist and live visualist from New York, currently living in Philadelphia. He brings a unique fine art perspective to the world of pixel art, being influenced by old Nintendo games just as much as Art Nouveau, Ukiyo-e, and other traditional art forms.

For the Love of God, Don't Touch Anything: A Message from the Mushroom Kingdom Board of Tourism

Holy shit!

S...Sorry about that, some dudes just popped out of a hole in the ground and scampered off toward the castle.

Which...which is on fire apparently.

Hope everybody’s all right.

I guess…hmm.

Anywho, I am a representative of the Mushroom Kingdom’s Tourism Board. I represent it mainly because I am also the sole member. When I started the organization, the people of our land laughed at me.

“Who would come here, willingly?” they asked. “Think about what you are trying to do. We don’t even like it here, and we’re human fungi.”

I disagree. I see this as a land with rolling green hills and spectacular sunsets. The weather is never anything but pristine, and the leadership has exemplified continuous stability, despite horrifying threats from both talking dinosaurs and that transvestite that can shoot eggs out of his mouth.

I blame the schools.

There is nothing “asinine” about convincing people to vacation here. Time and time again, we have proven that even those not in leadership positions can step up and perform magnanimous acts of heroism, which is good, because of our complete lack of a military presence, even though we are constantly presented with reasons to procure one.



This is a pie chart I am legally required to post in any and all forms of media produced by the MKTB. It is supposed to make sure that “All prospective tourists to the Mushroom Kingdom are aware of the risks besetting them upon arrival.”

But don’t be fooled; this does not mean that you will die upon entry into our beloved realm. You will find our population most hospitable and eager to please. Our princess, Peach, is more than happy to bake a cake, and when she is not being chained to a boulder or forced into bondage with a beast who merely looks like the biblical devil (He’s not, though), her cooking is an experience in and of itself.

Now, for the unavoidable elephant in the room: the “Bowser” issue.

Is he a dinosaur?

Yes.

Do his minions walk freely throughout the dancing hills and endless deserts of the kingdom?

Absolutely.

Is it true that he at one point stole an entire castle and took it into outer space?

Uh, yeah.

But ask anyone here. He has committed several dozen atrocities against our government, but get this: he has been defeated every single time.

Does this bring up the question, “If he keeps coming back, doesn’t that make him unkillable?”

And the answer is, yes it does.

Consider this, however: The kingdom of Hyrule has been destroyed on occasion, and features zombies, rock-spewing aquatic monsters, and a place (seriously) called “Death Mountain.”

Let's take a quick tour, why don't we, of some of Hyrule's more multifaceted residents:




That's a parasite, a walking nightmare, and giggling scarecrow/pedophile, respectively. And keep in mind Hyrule's got the Military presence to eliminate this kind of thing.

We live in a universe of gross exaggerations, and as far as a vacation spot goes, you could do a lot worse. Countless problems? You bet, but we’ve got a pretty close to perfect performance record.

This year, forget the Grand Canyon or sun-soaked tropical beaches. Give the Mushroom Kingdom a try.

You probably won’t be killed.

The Art of the Badass

You know him.

His name’s Frank and he just wants his family back. Or maybe his name’s Dolph and he just punched you in the larynx.

You’ve seen him.

He’s got the battle-axe over his shoulder, stained with a couple gallons of troll’s blood. Unless he’s carrying a Gatling gun the size of a small tree and smiling crookedly at the advancing raptor horde.

You’ve heard him.

“You know what they say about volcanoes?” he asks his nemesis, just before delivering a roundhouse kick to the jaw that sends him spiraling into the lava-spitting hole of hell below. He sparks a cig before continuing, “They’re the pits.”

"You guys wanna get some pizza later ARRRRGHGHXHHXGGXYSGS!!"

No matter where he is, no matter how dumb his hair looks, the badass has shown up in countless forms of media since the dawn of…well, media.

Video games are the perfect place for a badass. What better selling point can there be than putting a timid 10th grader in control of a sword-chucking, crotch-kicking barbarian?

For some people, ass-kickery and hot chickery don’t provide themselves as amply as needed, and well-timed one liners almost never form in your head when you want them to, leading most of us to rely on zingers like, “NO, YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS LAME!!!”

The badasses are here to help, and no matter how many pixels are holding them together, they’re always willing to take a guy down.

This man has glasses and must be a nerd.

I’d love there to be a list of the top badasses in video games here, but that’s too easy. And the truth is, the reason it’s so easy is because there are so many of them.

Master Chief. Samus Aran. Kratos. The Ice Climbers. Rayman. Everybody’s got a hint of badass in them if they’re put in your control. Everybody’s punching goblins or using severed arms as weapons or fighting with every flick of the finger and grind of the teeth to save their world from the undeniable darkness that craves to be satisfied.

The badass puts up the fight; the badass is the one who says “No.” The fact that he does it whilst assembling a sniper rifle he’d been hiding in a nearby house plant is… incidental.

The thing is, the badass is absolute. He is an unstoppable force facing insurmountable odds, and that is why we root for him and want to be him.

Let’s all be stereotypes for a second.

When I was a young lad, it didn’t take many basketballs to the throat to figure out that I was an “indoor kid.” Say what you will about assumptions, but if you think the other kids’ parents weren’t watching me stumble up and down the court and thinking “Damn, that kid in the rec-specs is an asthma attack away from being a career dungeon master,” then you are delusional, my friend.

Actually, I’m being delusional, because what they were really thinking was “GET THAT LANKY CORPSE WITH THE GOGGLES OUTTA HERE!”

"THIS TEE BALL GAME IS THE MOST SERIOUS THING I'VE GOT GOING ON."

And they were thinking it loudly, from the bleachers.

Call it close-minded. I lived it.

But this isn’t a sob story. The badass exists for a reason. Everybody thinks he’s cool, sure. How could you not? Yet, if video games are your thing (and if you’re reading this, they probably are) then you know how satisfying it was to stab King Dodongo to death that first time.

Gamers have a history of being lampooned as weak and pasty, so to see the protagonist of so many games appear as a brute force, no bullshit, hammer of the gods, is to see the opposite of what many assumed us to be.

So, you might say, the real badass… is the one inside of you.

God no, never say that, unless you want a real badass to punch a hole in your stomach.

Games are always evolving; they’re a boulder, rolling down a mountain, picking up advanced technology and complex storylines along the way. While not every game incorporates a narrative, there are plenty with a badass on the cover; his assault rifle smoking, his dark stare penetrating your sweat glands.

And while we wait to see what threatens our livelihood next, in the real or virtual world, there’s another absolute with a tight grip on the trigger of the game industry:

They’re only going to get badder.

PA Jedi (Strikes) Back at VGXPO

One of the best things about VGXPO is its ability to bring together all kinds of people. Not only those who have a love for all things video games, but other mediums and areas of pop culture. That's why our next featured exhibitor is such a great fit, and is sure to attract fans from miles around. They are, of course:

Besides being an organization with a sweet logo, PA Jedi is a Philadelphia area fan-based light saber oriented stage combat group who pull their own inspiration for characters from the entire sci-fi genre. With the freedom to use your imagination, you can enjoy the awe of the saber while being the hero or villain you created.

The PA Jedi will be showing off their mad lightsaber combat skillz, and it's sure to be a blast, so definitely stop on by during the expo. We'll post more about their events as the convention approaches.

For more about the PA Jedi, check out the recently-posted profile of the group on Geekadelphia, one of my favorite blogs, and follow them on Twitter. As Yoda would say, "Lightsaber fights are wicked awesome, yo."

Nintendo at VGXPO!

Some very exciting news, guys. Nintendo has just signed on as a major exhibitor for VGXPO 2009! That's right, the creator of like 90% of my childhood memories (the video game related ones anyway) will be showing off its latest Wii releases and maybe a sneak peek or two at some upcoming games. We're thrilled to have such an innovative and well-loved industry leader at the event!

To commemorate this, here are my Top 5 old school Nintendo Games:

#5: A Boy And His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia (NES)

I spent so much time on this game. WHY DO JELLY BEANS MAKE IT TURN INTO THINGS RELATED BY PUNS? This was never fully explained, though as a 7 year old, I didn't question it. It was a fun yet frustrating puzzle game. There is apparently an update coming out for Wii, so hold onto your jelly beans.

#4: Star Fox (SNES)

One of only a few games to be released containing the Super FX graphics coprocessor, Star Fox was an awesome game. For their time, the graphics were great, and I never turn down the opportunity to kill things in a star fighter, let alone as part of a gang of woodland creatures. I could still probably pull off some sick moves. How can you not love a game with a character named Falco Lombardi? It was hard to choose between Star Fox and the other Super FX game of my childhood, Stunt Race FX.

#3: Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)

When many people had moved on to Super Mario World for SNES, a strong contender in the ever-evolving Mario franchise, and eventually Super Mario 64, I was content to stick with Super Mario Bros. 3 for NES. The game has few peers, even today, for sheer enjoyment factor. Good times.

#2: Super Mario Kart (SNES)

Yeah I'm a big Mario fan, what of it? :) It says a lot about a game when friends still huddle around functioning SNES systems to do tournament races or battles in square arenas, despite the existence of more recent, graphically enhanced versions. And by friends, I mean my friends. Both modes could get crazy with truly skilled players going up against each other, but the atmosphere is always about the race and not the result. Super Mario Kart Wii definitely holds on to that fun, anyone-can-win spirit, but the SNES version captured it in its purest form.

#1: Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (SNES)

Why did I choose the sequel to the hugely-successful Donkey Kong Country, and not the original? A while back, I played through both again, and was surprised at the enhancements to the sequel, both in overall graphics, gameplay and controller interaction. The characters are just easier to control, and can do more, in DKC2. This is another game I played for hours on end when I was a kid, and it holds up remarkably well.
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So, what are your top 5?

Stop Exploding at Me: Non-Violence in Video Games

One more second, you’re thinking. Just another damn second…

KABOOM.

The Spartan laser is finished charging and fires a blinding burst of plasma at a small gathering of new recruits. The lag’s been sticking its ugly head into the match today, so you have to wait a second or two before the primal screams of whoever was ignorant enough to pick an Elite avatar go soaring past your ear. “Triple Kill,” the announcer informs you, and the smirk crossing your face does little to hide the immense satisfaction of incinerating those who oppose you.

Violence! It’s the best.

Be honest with your gaming self. If you were at your angriest, your most wrathful, psychotic low, and you had the means and the will power to put a gun in your own hand, would you use it?

I can’t answer that for you, but Jack Thompson and the “violence in video games” brigade seem to think that they can. But just because you’re a Halo fanatic doesn’t mean that you are at all prepared to murder another person in real life.

Besides, if anyone saw a member of the Covenant running down a city street, the first thing they would think is “HOW DO WE KILL IT?!”

It’s true that a lot of video games use some form of violence, whether its plowing through a legion of the undead with an umbrella or jumping on a cartoon turtle. What do you expect? In video games, aliens are always burrowing up through the surface of the earth, or your princess is getting kidnapped, or you just woke up in a lab with a bloody stump for an arm while a group of scientists point and laugh at you from the other side of six inches of glass.

Violence is the only thing these warlords and werewolves and Koopa Troopas understand.

It’s become such a given in the industry that at least a little bit of carnage is expected for there to be even an ounce of fun. I was in a Halo Oddball match myself the other day while a guy on another team kept whining about how he wanted to play a match where “We just kill everybody!”

So don’t act like your eye isn’t snared when you’re cruising through a magazine and see a review for a game called “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney,” or “Spore.” At this point, it’s jarring to think that a popular, mainstream game without violence could maintain success, when the first kind of game you thought of when you read “non-violent video games” in the title was this.

Interactive, gory, flaming violence doesn’t have a place in every game. In fact, many times, the absence of the concept is what makes a game revolutionary, interesting, or fun in a brand new way. In the past few years, we’ve seen more and more games pop up that want to engage you in the same way that violence always did…but without it.

Or at least…less of it.

In recent years, one of the most touted games to appear was Portal, a game in which you carry a gun for the entirety of the story, but don’t kill a single entity with it (companion cube notwithstanding). For once, your weapon is used to escape death, more often than dish it out.

“The game is designed to change the way players approach, manipulate, and surmise the possibilities in a given environment,” Valve writes on their web site. By its very nature, Portal isn’t meant to satisfy your blood lust, but make you think.

That’s what you get when MIT grads are designing your video games: Physics, but without the D+ like you remember.

But it doesn’t stop there.

When I first got my hands on Spore, it wasn’t even by choice. A buddy of mine had recently completed an update of my computer and left the game on there as a gift.

As you create a living organism, starting with the earliest stages of evolution, Spore plays more like an interactive lesson in biology or anatomy than something that belongs in the video game aisle. How many other games have an opening screen that says “Excreting gastrodermical system” as it loads?

If Spore were to be integrated into a classroom setting, it’s addictive and fun nature would no doubt be applied to the scientific applications in the game. Kids would be learning from something that appeared in the pages of Game Informer.

The Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series brings back the somewhat dead genre of “point ‘n click” adventures, in which the protagonist moves the story along by a series of discoveries, rather than running through a level blasting terrorists.

Okay, yeah, you’re investigating a murder, but you’re doing it without putting a shotgun in anybody’s mouth. Using thought, connecting the dots, and putting a case together sound like office work; something that, if successfully emulated in a video game, doesn’t sound like it’d be a very high selling point.

Whether it’s the investigation mode, or the segments where you are actually in the courtroom, arguing your case, the game appeals to players. Phoenix Wright is quite famous, and has several spinoffs and sequels to prove it. Clearly, there is an interest maintained in this genre, and would-be lawyers the world over are putting this game into their Nintendo DS.

Speaking of Nintendo…

The Nintendo Wii has brought a plethora of games that haven’t relied on blowing people away. Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wario Ware, and others like them seem more interested in getting the viewer off the couch and into the game, rather than tirelessly replaying a level because that damn sniper keeps putting a round through their eye.

This is, however, because that was the plan from the beginning. Before the Wii’s introduction to the world, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata had expressed his interest in not competing with the fellow seventh generation game consoles from Sony and Microsoft, but of bringing in a whole new generation of gamers entirely.

"We're not thinking about fighting Sony, but about how many people we can get to play games,” Iwata stated before the Wii’s release. “The thing we're thinking about most is not portable systems, consoles, and so forth, but that we want to get new people playing games."

This sense of purity gave Wii an even larger fan base before its initial release. Casting aside the educational or revolutionary benefits of throwing out violence, a staple of most games, Nintendo was taking a new angle: They just wanted everybody to play.

The double “ii” in the name “Wii” is even supposed to represent two people together, standing up. Nintendo was claiming that their loyalties lied with video games in general, in changing them, adapting them, and engaging those who had perhaps cast a judgmental eye on them prior to the Wii’s launch.

The scary part was how well it worked.

As a big corporation, it’s hard to trust if what Nintendo claimed to be their intentions were genuine. But even if it had all been a lie, more moms, dads, and technologically-impaired folks who’d never heard of Sephiroth, Albert Wesker, or GLaDOS were playing video games.

All it took was a little less bloodshed.

This isn’t to say we’ll see an end of violence in video games, or even a decline. It’s not to predict that these genre-busting affairs are going to shut up video games’ oldest critics.

But if the purpose behind the efforts of recent years is to introduce the world to a new kind of interactive fun, and go beyond the stereotype video games (and their fans) have garnered for themselves, so be it. Let’s get the nay-sayers in on the action.

I know video games are about fun (when they’re not about competition or just sheer rage). You know they are too, otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this. It’s the same thing as critiquing a movie you haven’t seen; how can you really know you won’t like it just because Kevin Costner is on the poster?

Okay, bad example.

But the point remains valid; expand the fan base of video games and the acceptance of our hobby as an art will really start rolling.

If that means starting a revolution, which ironically will include less violence, then so be it. What harm could come from someone saying they play video games and not having the assumption be that they’re a friendless virgin?

Unless they are, of course. For some people, not even a revolution is going to change that.