The first reviews are appearing for de Blob, and they're reallygood. We should all buy it, in other words, but it's worth mentioning that a couple of retailers are willing to bribe you to purchase your copy from them. Best Buy, for example, is offering customers a free and also very yellow de Blob T-shirt (pictured here). It's rather nice, in our opinion. We'd definitely wear it in public, and we're extraordinarily fashionable people. Meanwhile, Circuit City is giving away copies of the de Blob soundtrack, which is happy and catchy and jazzy.
Wherever you purchase it from, we just hope de Blob sells some copies. We're tired of the myth that the Wii lacks quality third-party releases, but also tired of people not buying saidgames.
[Update: Brits take note: de Blob is a measly £18 at Play -- thanks, Nigeria!]
While Siliconera has put up an some excellent impressions of Mega Man 9's official soundtrack in Japan, Rockman 9: The Ambition's Revival!!, Youtube user Blulohhoi has taken it a step further, posting 21 songs from the 31-track production for fans to stream and enjoy.
So far, Blulohhoi has put up the tracks in five videos, one we've embedded above and the other four we've tucked past the post break. Make sure to listen to Part 5 at the 00:12 mark for the shop theme -- it's aces.
Mega Man 9, Capcom's forthcoming platformer that is so1987ithurts, is planning to release two soundtracks for the game in Japan this fall.
The first of these emerges on September 12th (to coincide with the title's release), and will feature all of the 35 original 8-bit recordings that were created for the game. The second will come out this October 10th, and will contain arranged versions of Mega Man 9's soundtrack. We'd like to import both, if only so we can gaze at that brilliant cover art whenever we feel like it.
In related news, the soundtracks will not be falling in line with the retro philosophy that pervades Mega Man 9's development. Instead, they'll both be available on the very modern medium of CD, and not on compact cassette or wax cylinder or anything.
On the 20th of this month, the Japanese iTunes Music Store will be invaded by the Space Invaders Get Even soundtrack. The album, which costs 1,500 yen, contains new orchestrated and electronic music from Taito's house band Zuntata. Some of the songs on the album apparently won't be featured in the game, which to us suggests remixes.
While it's not terribly likely we'll see this album in the U.S. -- although Square Enix, Taito's parent company, makes some soundtracks available on the American iTunes store -- it's still great news for us (provided we even get Space Invaders Get Even over here). It means that we'll get a full soundtrack of Zuntata Invaders music in the new game, at least, which should excite any Space Invaders Extreme player.
Photos from Flickr user beastandbean recently popped up in our RSS feed, titled "Wii Fit Jams: Music to exercise to!" Now, we never really got the appeal of listening to other music while playing a game, but then perhaps we're really old and fusty and out of touch (likelihood of this: high).
We can sort of understand it with Wii Fit, with its plinky-plonky elevator music (music which is designed to be nothing more than background noise), but some friends of ours actually play their record collections all the time with every game. Are we alone in thinking they're as mad as a hatter?
One of the many reasons we love Bionic Commando and want to see it on the Virtual Console so badly is for its awesome, 8-bit soundtrack. So, when Capcom released Simon Viklund's album for Bionic Commando Rearmed, which reworks the NES songs into a more modern-day sound, we had to have it.
We know that Rearmed isn't coming to the Wii, despite Wii gamers' pleas and petitions. Still, there's no denying the NES roots in Viklund's music, and just because we're not getting the actual game doesn't mean we should deprive ourselves of some great tunes, does it?
In fact, the folks at Capcom are releasing the soundtrack even though they think they'll lose money on it, simply because they love and believe in the music that much. After listening to it, we have to say that we can see why. If you're interested, you can get the full soundtrack on iTunes or at Sumthing Digital for $9.99 (or buy the tracks you like separately for $0.99).
Game|Life's Jean Snow, along with a very exclusive audience that naturally did not include us (we'd be happy just to be able to buy the CD), attended the launch party for the No More Heroes Dark Side CD, which features remixes of Masafumi Takada's excellent soundtrack by other game and chiptune musicians. The party took place at Shinjuku's 8-bit Cafe, a retrogaming-themed restaurant with displays of classic games, and even a bin full of games for customers to play at any of the systems set up around the shop.
Once the event closed, the celebration moved to another bar called 16 Shots -- as in Takahashi Meijin's button-mashing record. You'll never hear a geekier name for a business, at least until our loan goes through.
No More Heroes composer Masafumi Takada mentioned in his GDC talk that a remix album of music from the game would soon be available from Grasshopper Manufacture's online store. We now have details of that album, called No More Heroes Sound Tracks: Dark Side -- as well as its burning-Santa-Destroy-flag cover.
The album contains 9 tracks remixed by artists including Takada himself, Game Boy chiptune master 6955 and Metal Gear Solid's Norihiko Hibino. It'll sell for 2,100 yen ($20) when it releases on March 14th. We suspect awesomeness, even though there are only nine tracks on the disc. We're going to have to figure out how to get Grasshopper's online store to ship stuff to us!
In a slightly surprising move (wait ... baseball games have music?), 2K partnered with Pitchfork Media to make the soundtrack for Major League Baseball 2K8(which comes to NA this week). By "make," of course, we mean "pick a bunch of different pre-existing songs," but that's neither here nor there.
If you ask us, the soundtrack for the game is looking pretty damn sweet. Then again, this blogger has a musical taste that is often disliked by the norm, so many of you may hate the track list. But, don't worry too much: supposing bands like LCD Soundsystem and Dinosaur Jr. don't do it for you, there's also a lot of good bands on the soundtrack that are more well-known, such as The Cure, The Cars, and Modest Mouse.
To feast your eyes on the full track list, make sure to check past the break.
Remember all of those awesome songs in the Golden Axe series? No, we don't either, and we love Golden Axe. Pretty much the only music we remember is the tune that plays while those little gnome jerks are looting your campsite. But that song is great. Classic Sega. Most of the time, the game is too overrun by digitized screaming for us to get a good listen to the soundtrack. We get the feeling, however, that a game starring Ax Battler, Tyris Flare, and Gilius Thunderhead must have some rockin' music.
That's why we want to kick a little gnome thief guy until one of the new Golden Axe The Music CDs falls out of his bag. On February 21st, Sega Direct will release a collection of music from all three Genesis Golden Axes, the Saturn game Golden Axe: The Duel, and both arcade games. The collection will sell for 3,500 yen total ($31).
Check after the break for ten minutes of Sega Master System Golden Axe Warrior gameplay, for no good reason. It's Zeldastic!
If NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams turns out to be awful, we'll feel a little stupid for hyping it so much (though we always temper our enthusiasm with skepticism, because ... Sega). But even if the game ends up not being perfect, the music is pretty much a known quantity. If you like sappy, uplifing orchestral pop, then you'll probably enjoy the NiGHTS soundtrack. But would you enjoy it three discs' worth?
The NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams Official Soundtrack will be released in Japan on January 16th for 3,800 yen ($34) and will include 76 tracks, including nine versions of "Dreams Dreams." Some are instrumental -- perfect for karaoke!
We know that you were impressed by the opening video for No More Heroes, because, well, you told us so. The people behind the game must have degrees in tease-ology, though, because now you can download music samples from No More Heroes at the game's official website. Even though they aren't full tracks, it's easy to tell that the music for this game is going to rock our socks off. Now we're even as hyped for the soundtrack release as we are for the game itself.
To download the track samples, go to the bottom of this page and click on the orange buttons. Your ears will thank you.
Importers NCSX and Play-Asia are freeing us from the unavailability of awesome Japanese Club Nintendo exclusives -- presumably, by paying some Japanese people for theirs. Whatever methods they use to get these things, we cannot argue with the results. Because the result is the opportunity to preorder the Super Famicom Classic Controller.
Bothcompanies will ship the item in April (and the Super Mario Galaxysoundtrack in January) in April, but NCSX is taking preorders right now for $30. We don't know when Play-Asia will open preorders or how much they will charge. All we know is this: YES. Who cares if it's a freebie for Club Nintendo members? We're just happy to have a shot at it.
Just look at that. Isn't it glorious? What you're seeing above, folks, is a Wii-compatible SNES pad. Let's say that again, shall we? A Wii-compatible SNES pad. Don't get too worked up though, because unless you're a member of Club Nintendo in Japan, these are off-limits (not that using a SNES pad for your VC games is impossible, but still, this is the real deal).
Our scheme to slowly convert this site into ThereminFanboy continues with a video from Randy George, a clasically-trained chamber musician who recorded himself playing The Legend of Zelda's overworld theme with the synthy gadget.
For those of you who still aren't hip to the workings of a thereminvox, it's a fully electronic musical instrument with two antennas that control pitch and volume. Designed to be played without ever being touched, its harmonies have been described as "music from the ether." Sounds wild? This was all dreamed up by Russian physicist Lev Termen in 1919. He later went on to invent motion detectors for automated doors and KGB espionage devices. Head past the post break for video of Randy's performance.
Mega Man 9, Capcom's forthcoming platformer that is so 1987 it hurts, is planning to release two soundtracks for the game in Japan this fall.
One of the many reasons we love Bionic Commando and want to see it on the Virtual Console so badly is for its awesome, 8-bit soundtrack. So, when Capcom released Simon Viklund's album for Bionic Commando Rearmed, which reworks the NES songs into a more modern-day sound, we had to have it.
Importers NCSX and Play-Asia are freeing us from the unavailability of awesome Japanese Club Nintendo exclusives -- presumably, by paying some Japanese people for theirs. Whatever methods they use to get these things, we cannot argue with the results. Because the result is the opportunity to preorder the Super Famicom Classic Controller.
Our scheme to slowly convert this site into ThereminFanboy continues with a video from Randy George, a clasically-trained chamber musician who recorded himself playing The Legend of Zelda's overworld theme with the synthy gadget.
