The Republic of Thoronia

So, it’s the end of the year, which happens to also be the end of the decade. We all know what that means, barrels and barrels of lists and best of’s and everything else with a number at the beginning. It’s just what we media nerds do at this time of year. So, due to the easy to use internet phenomenon of hyperlinking I’ve compiled a list of the lists I’ve done so far, with a couple more coming up here on this blog in the near future. Anyway, enjoy, complain about what’s missing, or complain about how list-making is stupid (but be forewarned, your complaints won’t stop it from happening again and again and again).

1. Top Ten Songs from the ’00s That Will Puzzle Future Generations

2. Ten of the Best Soundtracks of the Decade

3. Ten of the Best Reissues of the Decade.

4. Ten Best Video Game Soundtracks of the Decade

5. Top Ten CD/LP Packaging of the Decade

6. Top Ten Cover Songs of the Decade

My favorite albums have been written up and sent off to the printing press as well, so those are only available on that ancient and strange medium of paper (I think anyway, maybe they’ll be online? They don’t tell me these things).

I just finished recording another Simoebic Dysentery track, this one, “Blood Buddy” is a little different than the rest of the album (okay, not really), and utilizes a “less is more” attitude (with the exception of the absurd six and a half minute length). Please enjoy. The rest of the soundtrack is available here. Free, as always.

The sky opens and rain comes down. To escape I walk into a dimly lit old building, “arcade” in neon lights.

I hear the sound of quarters pounding out of a change machine. Quarters against other quarters. The sound of plastic being pressed and mashed against other plastic. A wooden ball gliding up a wooden ramp and into a hole.

The arcade is filled with flashing lights. A small boy runs past dropping loose change like breadcrumbs. A teenager comes waddling past with a grimace on his face, the weight in his apron pounding against his knees. An older man sits on a bench in the corner, reading a newspaper as his daughter tugs on his shirt.

The scent of popcorn and candy fill the air. Soda spilled on the carpet smells of sugar coated moth balls. A woman, uncertain in her stance, smells of lilacs.

Touching the joystick, memories to flood in. Down, down-right, forward, punch. Hadouken. The buttons are sticking to the frame. The joystick loose in its socket. The boy to my right holds tightly onto his. His tongue sticking out slightly against his lips. I can feel his concentration. Mashing the white buttons. Forward, down-forward, down, down-back, back, kick.

He slams his hand against the table. Looks at me with eyes ablaze. Drops another quarter in the machine. Metal against metal. I nod. He continues.

Down, down right, forward,

punch and hadouken,

it’s your end, my beginning.

I was told once that endings often come before beginnings. It’s a strategy of writing often used in film, where you come up with a premise, a background story and a universe, then decide how you want your particular tale to end before you’ve even decided how to start it. It’s a great technique, one that has yielded excellent results for me (in my own opinion, anyway, I adore the ending we’ve come up with for Simoebic Dysentery, for instance). I’ve been thinking recently about video game endings, or more specifically, how bad most video game endings are. This is startling considering the simplicity of many of the stories and downright weird that resolutions wouldn’t be met inside some of these stories.

This was sparked after I finished Batman: Arkham Asylum, a game that has a reasonably interesting plot and passable dialogue. The ending, however, was uninspired at best. Yes, I realize this is a Batman game and Batman has to win and then leave the universe in the same state it started in, but at the same time I felt the story being woven was far more complex then the resolution allows for. We got to see Batman start to lose his mind a bit, start to question if he too was crazy, then, nothing. It all goes away, Batman overcomes, no problem. It’s almost as if the story was being written as the the game was being developed, then suddenly it was time to end it. The place it ended up was not the place I was expecting — in a Batman story this is a bad thing. The resolution doesn’t match the early implications and the ending was tacked on, essentially useless. It didn’t resolve the story of Batman, it resolved the story of the Joker.

This is a common trait in video games, sadly. It’s as though an idea is created and then suddenly the game starts being developed — but where is it supposed to end up? What is the resolution? Some of the greatest endings have been great because they truly resolved the story. Look at a game like Shadow of Colossus, the ending (although surprising) wraps everything together in a shocking and beautiful way.  It was obvious from the get go, right after that big reveal, the designers new this was going to be the ending. Metal Gear Solid 3 is another great example, the killing of the Boss was an end point that must have been decided on early. Bioshock has one of those moments too, so does Deus Ex and countless others.

But countless others don’t match up to the hundreds of thousands of games that have no clear ending. Look at a game like Mirror’s Edge, whose ending makes absolutely no sense because it’s built as a trilogy. What’s the resolution? There isn’t one. What’s going to happen next? Well, judging by the sales, we may never actually know. This isn’t a risk game developers should be taking. We as players, as readers, as viewers, need to have resolution by the games end. More importantly, the resolution needs to END the story. It needs to finish the arc, leave us with a sense of understanding and allow us to move along. Ambiguity isn’t an ending, it’s a parlor trick. It’s something you tack on after the credits just in case you get the chance to make a sequel. But this arc, this first movement should be completed by the finish of the game.

There are thousands of great games out there and hundreds of thousands of great ideas. But it’s the responsibility of any storyteller to finish what they start, and I don’t feel the majority of games do this. It’s a problem perhaps solved if designers and writers start writing to an ending, not from a beginning.

Video game soundtracks are rarely on the top of list when it comes to finances, and rarely even listed on review scorecards. Yet, as a medium the industry still seems hell bent on retaining a cinematic nature with the sound and to this end the industry is failing.

Now, to be fair, sound effects are usually high on the list of “things to make a game good” but the actual soundtrack itself usually finds itself following basic film tropes:

*Large orchestrated pieces
*Midi synth
*Rock ‘n Roll/Pop Music
*Complete lack of music

There are a few games that I’ve been playing recently which have attempted to, and in some cases succeded at creating an excellent soundtrack — I’m not talking about the excellent Zelda theme and its subsequent rehashings, or the massive scale Final Fantasy orchestrations, or even the highly addictive music of puzzle games — I’m talking about a few games I’ve played recently that have attempted not to bridge the gap between cinema and game, but actually make a soundtrack specifically for the medium.

Mass Effect

Mass Effect fails miserably on most counts when it comes to the soundtrack, like many games before it and certainly many more to come, the designers decided on large scale Hollywood-style orchestrations for the majority of the game. However, at certain points Mass Effect nails it with minimalist, small scale science fiction arpeggios that feel, well, just right. It’s a science fiction game, it takes place in a science fiction universe, it follows science fiction theme’s and ideals — man/woman goes on mission, things go wrong, man/woman must save universe. Occasionally the soundtrack kicks in, lightly, as background, with the feeling of experimental ’70s electronic music, when this happens it is absolutely perfect — immersive, gut wrenching, hypnotic. Unfortunately this changes during cinemas to an orchestra and the whole thing falls apart.

Fallout 3

Fallout 3 has an excellent soundtrack. That said, it’s a very short soundtrack, maybe 40 minutes of actual music. Weirdly, this in game music, which is controlled by a radio by the player isn’t what happens during sequences with event triggers. You walk out of the vault for the first time and what do you get? An old timey jingle? No, for some reason you get a large orchestrated piece that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the game. It’s mindblowing that this is what they decided to do. They create a world in which the ‘50 lived forever, and then shatter the world with modern music pieces. They weave an in game radio into the plot, filled with propaganda, old time songs by the Ink Spots, Roy Brown, etc., then toss in orchestrations that make little sense. Why not use the same licensed soundtrack to convey the plot? Why wouldn’t “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” have worked for the player’s first step into the Wasteland?

inFamous

inFamous is a game that really, truly nails the very idea behind a video game soundtrack. That said, it’s not executed particularly well, but the foundation is there. The soundtrack is written and recorded by Amon Tobin using real world objects — trash cans, concrete, junk cars. This works perfectly for a game taking place in a half-destroyed city. The game itself is nothing particularly special, but the soundtrack is an excellent example of developers actually thinking about what the world they’ve created would sound like.

Final Thoughts

It’s no mystery that the industry needs to step away from film tropes if it wants to come into its own and tell its own types of stories. At the same time the industry needs to come up with its own way of conveying story through music. Soundtracks are an important part to any film — and most of us have our own personal soundtrack running through our heads throughout the day. Why wouldn’t our digital avatar’s have the same thing? What would these worlds, created from scratch sound like? What would I be hearing in my head while exploring a desolate planet, or an apocalyptic wasteland? Orchestrations? Unlikely.

If we look back at where the medium was heading 20 years ago we’ll find scripting like iMuse that attempted to set up soundtrack triggers to help convey themes. This was a stepping stone that didn’t seem to lead anywhere (we’re still here, just play any Call of Duty game and look for the line you need to step over to start the moaning violins and epic horns), but did set up some interesting ideals and systems to execute a soundtrack. Recently we’ve been getting dynamic systems in games like Far Cry 2, where weather, environment and pace are reconciled into the score (Far Cry 2 is another example of a game that attempted to go above and beyond in the soundtrack department, using instruments native to Africa while attempting to create mood and atmosphere with their dynamic system). These dynamic systems are likely the future of video game soundtracks (or, more accurately, are currently the way many work, event triggers not withstanding).  However, the soundtracks themselves have got to fit the mood of the rest of the game. I don’t need every game to have massive orchestration, I don’t even want that. Orchestrations are Hollywood tricks to make you feel when the director can’t completely convey a point — tearing up at the end of a movie when someone dies because the actor’s can’t hold their own (okay okay, also they are to enhance the mood). A true score needs to be able to be manipulated and changed to fit the player’s actions, no matter how unexpected those are.

I’ve got more to talk about here in regards to the possibilities for new systems and mechanics, and will do so soon.