When it comes to watching live competition, this past weekend was about as good as it gets for me. My two “sports” of choice are tennis and StarCraft, and both had major tournaments going on this weekend. For tennis it was the Miami Masters tournament, and for StarCraft it was MLG Columbus. I had streams for both events playing on my computer simultaneously for most of the weekend, and it was pretty awesome to be able to see the likes of Roger Federer and Chris “HuK” Loranger do what they do best side by side.

The side by side viewing also highlighted the similarities and differences between the two. The biggest similarity, by far, is the fact that both are individual, one-on-one competitions. They both harbor that gladiatorial nature, which is something I really enjoy. It brings out the personalities of the players, and highlights the types of matchups that are often lost in team competition. Another big similarity is that both are at least as mental as they are physical. For StarCraft this is obvious, and tennis is just as much so. I really appreciate this aspect, as it makes both competitions feel very complete to me. Finally, both are very fast. Things generally happen quickly in them, and the smallest misstep can often spell the difference between victory and defeat. This brings a lot of excitement and tension to matches, which makes both playing and watching them exciting; there’s rarely a dull moment. I can’t think of many (if any) other competitions of any kind that share all three of these aspects, which goes a long way towards describing why they are my two sports of choice, for both playing and viewing.

What really stood out to me as I watched this weekend, however, is the biggest difference between tennis and StarCraft: the way they are run at a professional level. While I love playing and watching both on a match by match basis, professional tennis is just better run, and by a good margin. That makes sense to a degree; tennis has been around much longer, and has had plenty of time to work out a lot of its kinks. That doesn’t mean that StarCraft couldn’t learn some of the lessons already learned by tennis. They’re so similar in the fundamental ways described above that professional StarCraft could be run like tennis in almost every way, and in most cases I think that would be for the better. Here are three major things that I think StarCraft could take from tennis that would make it better as a professional sport.

1. Official World Rankings

Tennis junkies debated amongst themselves for decades who the best players in the world were before finally instating an official, performance based rankings system in 1973. Now we never have to wonder; right now we know, without a shadow of a doubt, that Novak Djokovic is the best tennis player in the world, Rafael Nadal is number 2, Roger Federer is number 3, and so on. This is a fantastic way to establish a pecking order, and give extra meaning to results in tennis. For example, going into this week’s Miami Masters event, there was a chance that Federer could overtake Nadal as the number 2 ranked player in the world. How does that not make the result of the tournament more interesting in the grand scheme of things? Having an official world ranking not only answers the question of “Who’s the best?”, but it also adds context to the larger narrative of the sport as the players play tournaments from week to week.

StarCraft has no official ranking at the moment, which makes it impossible to say with any clarity who the best player in the world is. Sure, you could argue that MarineKing’s win at MLG Columbus puts him on top. But what if, say, DRG comes out and steals the show at the next GSL? What if Stephano wins the next IPL? Would MarineKing still be the best then? Without an official ranking, our perception of the best players changes drastically from one event to the next. Each event stands on its own, its result rendered meaningless once the next event starts. An official rankings system would not only establish a true StarCraft hierarchy, but also give each result more weight in the larger narrative of the game.

2. Calendar

The tennis calendar isn’t perfect, but what tennis gets right is that during the regular season there is a tennis tournament almost every single week, and with rare exception each tournament lasts exactly one week. Better yet, each tournament falls into one of four tiers of prestige, clearly defining what the biggest, most significant events are. This gives a steady flow of tournaments to follow: every week professional tennis is being played somewhere, and every Sunday a champion is crowned. And since the bigger tournaments are clearly defined, you know which tournaments you expect to see the big dogs show up at. The likes of Nadal and Federer may not bother to show up at San Jose in February, but come July you can bet they’ll all be on the grass at Wimbledon. It’s a simple, clear way to highlight what tournaments matter most, while still providing high quality competition almost every week of the year.

StarCraft, on the other hand, has a haphazard calendar. Some tournaments like the GSL take months to complete, while others like MLG happen in a single weekend. More confusing still, these tournaments often don’t happen at regular intervals, and there’s no real distinction on what the “biggest” tournaments are. Does winning a GSL have more significance than winning an IPL? It’s a mess to try and follow or make sense of these tournaments in the grand scheme of things, furthering the notion that each one is an event unto itself. If StarCraft could establish a more sensible calendar and tournament hierarchy, it would create a more meaningful sequence of events, and lend each result more weight in the bigger picture of the sport.

3. Tournament Format

The format for a tennis tournament is the simplest, purest kind there is: single elimination knockout tournament. This format is used at virtually every single tennis tournament, and it makes perfect sense for a one-on-one sport such as this. All of a sudden, every match matters; one off day and you are done. Upsets now become a big deal (which is always exciting), and you know by the end of the tournament that the champion is the only person who beat everyone in his path. Tennis further supplements this by having players play at most one match a day, and having matches be long enough to guarantee that the better player on the day wins the match. It’s all designed to create the fairest possible playing field, and do as much as possible to ensure that the better player wins.

StarCraft tournament formats are a mess, with qualifying rounds, round robin play and double elimination losers brackets all combining in the most obtuse ways possible. Trying to make sense of it all takes a monumental effort, and even worse is that individual matches are often really short. A best of three series in StarCraft hardly guarantees that the better player on the day comes out on top. Furthermore, many tournaments have players playing multiple times a day, which can not only lead to fatigue, but also eliminates important preparation time. This makes it extremely unlikely that we’re always seeing players at their best. If StarCraft tournaments were single elimination, one match a day, and every match was long (think best of seven or more), that would be an easily digestible format that would simultaneously guarantee that the best players advance from one round to the next.

Conclusion

I admit, there are a lot of factors holding StarCraft back from adopting tennis’ structure right now. Tennis itself took a long time to get there, and these kinds of things are often guided by money more than anything else. I’m not even sure the StarCraft audience is large enough to support the year-round structure that tennis has. Perhaps even more unlikely, a large number of bodies would have to come together and agree on a lot of different things to make any changes. Blizzard, tournament organizers, sponsors, players, and even fans; there are a lot of people with different contributions to the sport, and who knows if they could all agree on anything more unified than the haphazard collection of self contained tournaments that we have right now.

It might be wishful thinking, but that doesn’t mean I can’t indeed wish for more. A world where StarCraft is run more like tennis at a professional level is highly exciting to me, and would have me watching it week in, week out, rather than watching the occasional game here and there. It would give greater meaning to each tournaments’ results, and create a larger narrative defining the sport and its history. Tennis has laid the framework, and my fingers are crossed that StarCraft can one day make use of it.

The Mass Effect 3 insanity run continued this week. Honestly, it hasn’t been hard at all so far. According to my achievement progress for “Unwavering” (which you get for completing all missions on insanity) I’ve done 21 out of 27 missions, so I’m making good progress. It’s actually been going faster than my initial “normal” playthrough, though I’m curious to see how the final missions are on insanity. Pro tip: Energy Drain is, in my mind, by far the best bonus power to take (unless you already have Energy Drain as a class power of course). That power is stupid good; nothing else available comes close.

Playing on insanity has been fun, even if ME3 isn’t primarily about challenge, and there are also better pure shooters out there. Still, playing this way makes me realize that ME3 has easily the best combat in the series. The balance of guns and powers, and just moving and aiming in general feels better than ever (though getting in and out of cover is still nowhere as responsive as, say, a Gears of War). Speaking of, a friend and I played through Gears of War 3’s Raam’s Shadow DLC yesterday, which was pretty fun. Its big selling point is supposed to be that you get to play as Raam and his crew, though I was a little disappointed that you don’t get to play as the bad guys that often. There were only two short segments where we played as Raam and co., and the rest of the time was just normal Gears stuff. Not that normal Gears stuff is bad, just that I expect a large piece of DLC like this to be about something different.

The other kind of disappointing thing is that while the host gets to play as Raam himself, who is pretty badass, the rest of the players don’t have it as nice. I can’t speak to how the elite Marauders are (that’s what players 3 and 4 get), but the elite Theron Guard that player 2 gets is pretty lame. He just plays like a pretty normal Gears guy, which is not what you want from something like this. Still, the DLC was surprisingly lengthy, and was a good time on the whole. Not a bad way to go for anyone wanting more Gears action.

The other thing I played this week was Journey. Man, that game is great. It’s also short. I think it only took me about an hour and a half to play from start to finish, but it could take another hour or so if you explored every little nook and cranny. At $15 that may be a somewhat dicey proposition for people who like to judge games based on weird hour-to-dollar ratios (you know, crazy people), but I loved the experience I got out of it; it was pretty much perfect. It’s kind of a hard game to describe, but that’s partially because it’s so simple. You just go on a journey, and that’s about it. It’s about travelling across this epic landscape, and seeing what there is to see as you go from point A to point B. The mechanics are incredibly simple, there’s no combat or conflict to speak of, and there’s no mechanism for judging your performance. Journey exists to let you experience an incredible sequence of sights and sounds at your leisure, each one as varied and beautiful as the last.

That’s what makes the game resonate so well. It looks and sounds absolutely amazing, and the way the game is paced is perfectly designed to guide your emotions through all sorts of memorable turns (I had chills go up my spine on multiple occasions, most prominently at the end). If nothing else, Journey is a master at the art of showing but not telling. It doesn’t explicitly tell you a damn thing, yet I have no doubt that anyone who plays it comes away knowing exactly what happened, even if they can’t put it into words themselves. I really enjoy this type of narrative. The other really interesting component to Journey is the “multiplayer”. Similar to Demon’s/Dark Souls, other players just kind of come in and out of your world. Since there’s no combat, however, you are simply sharing the same space with someone else, thus gaining a companion to journey with. I spent most of the game traveling with one other person, and the level of camaraderie the game effortlessly instills in players is incredible. I won’t spoil anything, but there were moments where I genuinely felt bad for my companion as he or she stumbled along, and I’d like to think they felt the same way about me. This is all the more impressive given the fact that there is no way to communicate past a hilarious little chirping sound you can make. I think this style of multiplayer is amazing at getting people to play together while keeping you fully immersed. I think it leads to a more raw set of player interactions than you would have otherwise, and I hope we see more games do this stuff in the future.

So yeah, Journey is great. You do little more than go from one place to another, but the emotional journey you take to get there is something that games rarely do with any amount of craft, and certainly not at this level. I highly recommended it. So what’s next? Last week’s games seemed to turn out pretty rotten, so I’m basically biding my time until Xenoblade Chronicles finally hits North American shores. I’m pretty pumped for that. Until then I’ll keep rolling on my ME3 Insanity run, and should fiddle with Raam’s Shahow a little more, but nothing major there. So that’s all for now, until next time!

Currently playing: Mass Effect 3, Gears of War 3

I’ve been doing these music entries for about a year and a half now, and given how much amazing video game music is out there I feel like I could potentially keep doing it forever. One thing's for sure; I won’t have to stop due to lack of good music to choose from.

That being said, I personally can’t keep doing them forever. I love video game music as much as anyone, but I also have to prioritize how I spend my time. These posts take a good bit of effort, and given where my life is at the moment I’m not sure it’s the best use of my time. So even though it makes me a little sad, I’ve decided to wrap up this series after six more posts (including this one). There’s a small twist though; in an effort to highlight as many songs as possible (keeping in mind that I’ll never get around to all of them), each of these six posts will showcase three songs, but won't focus much on each one individually. “Quickies”, if you will. This will let me run through a lot of my favs that I haven’t yet touched in a timely manner, and hopefully someone out there will get something out of it. With all that out of the way, let’s move on to three very awesome songs!

Freedom Fighters: March of the Empire

Every song on the Freedom Fighters soundtrack is fantastic, but I consider March of the Empire to be the pinnacle track. The vocals are chilling and oppressive in a way that I imagine the Cold War was for a lot of people. The tempo and instrumentation hint at a slow and steady march, and I can just envision a Soviet army marching down the streets with this song propelling them forward. When I think of the Freedom Fighters soundtrack I think of awesome vocals and a East Bloc tone. March of the Empire does all of that, and bolsters the game’s alternate history setting perfectly.

Rhythm Heaven: Love Lab

I love the lighthearted and goofy nature of Rhythm Heaven, and Love Lab brings all that genuinely fun attitude to bear. The whistling, the snapping and the groovy beat are all really easy to get into, and the vocals are great to hum along with. This is just one of those songs that always puts a smile on my face, and kind of makes me want to... dance. Weird, I know, but that’s the power of Love Lab, and Rhythm Heaven in general.

Final Fantasy VI: Dancing Mad

Dancing Mad is the ultimate tribute to gaming’s greatest psychopath. I would argue that Kefka is one of the best villains out there; he is utterly insane in a way that is nothing short of terrifying. Dancing Mad is a lengthy song, with multiple transitions (which mimics the multi-stage final boss fight) that seem to portray the many sides of Kefka’s dementia. The tone and the instrumentation (if you want to call it that, given the SNES's sound quality) continue to contribute to the air of lunacy surrounding this character. I just love that this iconic madman has an equally iconic theme to accompany him, which makes Dancing Mad one of the most memorable video game songs I’ve heard, and one of my favorites to boot.

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This week was once again all about Mass Effect 3, despite the fact that I finished the game early in the week. Not much has changed since I wrote about it last week; it’s still a hell of a game, and one I had a blast playing. I don’t like it quite as much as I like Mass Effect 2 (which will probably go down as my favorite game this entire generation), but it still has so many awesome moments, and only reinforces the notion that the Mass Effect universe is very likely my favorite fictional universe out there, regardless of medium. That’s a big part of what makes this series so great to me, and ME3 doesn’t buck the trend.

Past that, I’m a little unsure of what there is left to say about ME3; it really is just a case of “ME3 does more of what made ME2 so amazing”. The writing, the universe, the characters, the decisions you make and the way they affect the story; it’s all heads and shoulders above anything else out there right now when it comes to realizing the potential of interactive storytelling in video games. The one extra thing ME3 has going for fans is that you get to see/choose how all of the series’ major plot threads wrap up. Big conflicts like the genophage and the Quarians vs the Geth obtain resolutions, and most of them are superb. In fact, wrapping up all those threads is the driving force behind the entire game, which is amusingly its biggest strength and biggest weakness in relation to ME2. I feel like BioWare is at their best when introducing new characters and stories, rather than wrapping them up. ME2 was all about introducing a large cast of lovable characters, where ME3 is all about giving them their proper sendoffs. You can’t have one without the other, but that BioWare is noticeably better at one of them (in my opinion) simply makes one a better game. That’s just how it goes sometimes.

I guess I should at least mention the game’s ultimate sendoff, the oh so controversial ending. Put bluntly, I didn’t mind the ending much at all. In fact, I kind of liked it. I agree that there could have been a little more room for your choices to make an impact in the closing moments, but even that’s not a huge deal; in a sense I consider the entire game to be the ending. When you combine all the choices you make across the game, the state of each players' universe will be radically different from one another at the end of the game. Just because the final cutscene isn’t different doesn’t mean your choices don’t leave the galaxy in a different state than it would be otherwise. I don’t really want to talk any more about the ending, mostly to avoid opening a can of worms (people are going completely insane over this stuff), but I think Penny Arcade summed up my thoughts on the ending pretty well in a post you can find here.

The only other thing worth mentioning is the multiplayer, which I played a decent amount of during the week. It can be pretty fun in a way, though it's not anything special by any means. It’s a pretty basic horde mode with Mass Effect’s combat and powers. That simultaneously makes it a little clunky and adds its own spin to things (combining powers is pretty neat), but otherwise there’s nothing very noteworthy about it. I’ll probably keep playing for achievements, but that’s about it. Otherwise, I started a new game + on insanity (which doesn't seem that hard so far), so I’ll still be playing ME3 for a bit. I will pick up and play Journey this week as well, which I’m really looking forward to. I’m also keeping an eye on both Ninja Gaiden 3 and Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, though I’m not sold on either one yet. Ninja Gaiden 3 in particular is looking like a bummer, given how good the first two games were. Hopefully it will turn out better than I think it will. Anyway, that’s all for now, until next time!

Currently playing: Mass Effect 3

Unsurprisingly, it’s been all about Mass Effect 3 this week, and I’m really, really enjoying the game so far. I do feel it got off to a rocky start, however. The opening did a pretty poor job at bridging the transition from Mass Effect 2 to Mass Effect 3, and the way shit hits the fan immediately imparts a weird pacing on the entire game. It makes everything sound direly urgent to the point where you really shouldn’t have time to run around the galaxy doing all the stuff you do in the game. While I’m getting it out of my system, I’ll also mention that the fetch quest side missions are absolute garbage. These are the dumbest fetch quests you can imagine, and the goofy minigame you have to play as you search for this stuff is just lame. I honestly think the game would be infinitely better without any of it.

I’ve also noticed an assortment of minor bugs. The game occasionally slows dramatically during loading, which often happens as you roam around busy areas like the Citadel. I’ve had cases where my quest log doesn’t update properly as I complete quests, and there’s that super frustrating bug with the character importer. I had to redo my character’s look from scratch, the same one I created back in 2007 and have been playing with ever since. That was a sad moment. I’m getting all the negative stuff out of the way first because, despite what it may sound like, there’s not a lot of it and it’s all pretty minor (save for maybe the side quests). That doesn’t mean that it’s not there and worth mentioning, but the positives do far outweigh the negatives for me.

It all starts with the presentation. ME3 looks fantastic, both technically and artistically, and sounds even better. All the sci-fi sound effects are just great, and the voice acting and musical score are as brilliant as always. The game also has some notable changes for the better with regards to the weapons and combat. There’s some real customizability to the weapons now, and I really appreciate that any class can use any weapon. Each gun has a weight associated with it, and carrying more weight in guns reduces your power recharge time. It’s a great balance between guns and powers, and gives you a lot more freedom in choosing how you want to play during combat. Combat itself is also more robust than ever. There’s a roll, there are proper grenades, there’s a better melee, etc. It’s still not on par with the best 3rd person shooters out there, but having better combat can only make Mass Effect better.

Still, the best things about ME3 are the same things that made ME2 so special. This series is at its best when you’re spending time in this great universe full of great characters. That’s something ME3 strives to do often, and often does well. Being the final part of Commander Shepard’s story, ME3 is all about giving you one last chance to see these characters we’ve come to know and love over the years. As far as I can tell, every character you’ve ever met (and is still alive) makes an appearance somewhere, and you often get a real sense of closure for these characters in the process. I’m guessing I’m about halfway through, but I’m really impressed with the way it’s handled these beloved characters so far. The only downside is that this doesn’t leave much room for new characters, but being the final game in the trilogy that might be for the best. It’s kind of nice to spend a full game enjoying (and saying goodbye to) the ones we already have.

I won’t say any more at the moment about the story and characters for obvious spoiler reasons, but I will say that some of the missions I’ve done so far match the best in the entire series. One in particular was just incredible. When BioWare sticks to doing what they do best (writing character driven stories) they can still come up with some amazing stuff that nobody else can match. Like I said, I would guess I’m about halfway through ME3, and will certainly have plenty more to say next week as I keep playing. I’ll also be giving the multiplayer a whirl. Anyway, I think that’s all for now, until next time!

Currently playing: Mass Effect 3

This was a relatively low key week as far as gaming is concerned. The main item of note is that I finished up what I had left in Rhythm Heaven Fever, which wasn’t a lot. The last few levels got kind of crazy; the final stage, Remix 10, was just bananas. It took literally every minigame in the entire game and mashed them all together rapid fire. It took a little bit of extra effort to get the medal on that one, but I eventually got it, which nets me all 50 medals in the game. I’m pretty happy with that, though I won’t be going for a perfect on every level. That’s partially because of the terrible way the game handles perfects that I talked about last week, and also due to the fact that I’m not crazy. Getting a perfect on every level would take some serious effort, and even more patience.

Anyway, that’s it for Rhythm Heaven Fever for me. It’s an awesome game, and I couldn’t be more happy with it. After that I spent some time with Dustforce. I decided to check it out after seeing the quicklook, and it’s a pretty neat game. It’s a demanding 2D platformer in the vein of N or Super Meat Boy, but puts its focus more on moving fluidly through levels as opposed to avoiding hazards. The way you can wall and ceiling run really rewards constant, fluid movement. You also get an extra jump if you hit an enemy in the air, so you can chain jumps together as long as there are enemies to hit. The game’s scoring system also rewards such play. One of the key categories is “finesse”, which is judged by how long you keep a combo going. If you don’t keep moving and picking up dust, your combo will reset. This encourages you to move fast and efficiently, and the moves at your disposal certainly coincide with that notion.

That focus on movement makes Dustforce a pretty interesting platformer, and there’s a lot of precision to the controls that leave a ton of room for people to get really good at the game. In fact, you can view the top runs on the leaderboard for every level, and some of the stuff people are able to pull of is pretty mesmerizing. I really enjoyed watching those replays, but it also drives home the fact that Dustforce is a score chasing game. Beating levels is not the goal of this game; getting a good rating is. I’m not a score chaser in the slightest, so once I realized that I was more or less done with the game. I quickly ran through the handful of levels available at the start, and since simply beating levels is not the focus of this game, it’s not hard and has no reward. And that was that. I think Dustforce is a really cool game, but it’s not for me. That’s just how it goes sometimes. Oh, I should mention that it does have an awesome soundtrack, which is something I can always appreciate!

The rest of my week was spent playing some good old fashioned multiplayer, mostly StarCraft II. We discovered that people have made pretty neat custom maps that implement Day[9]’s “Team Monobattles” concept, so we’ve been having a blast with that. It’s a fun twist: in a 4v4, each player must pick one unit at the start of the game (it can be random), and can only build that unit for the entire game. It’s a neat diversion, and leads to all sorts of hilarious scenarios. It’s been really fun. Finally, I gathered up some thoughts on To the Moon yesterday, and wrote them in a separate post. You can find that here if interested. And with that, my gaming slate’s pretty clean for Mass Effect 3! Unlike the Internet I still really like Mass Effect, and am really pumped for that game. That’s probably going to be where I spend the majority of my gaming time this week. Anyway, that’s all for now, until next time!

Currently playing: Nothing! Waiting for Mass Effect 3 :P

The dying wish. It’s a common enough concept, and one that certainly has storytelling potential. Regrets, ways you would have lived your life differently, or things you never made time to do; it’s easy to imagine all the things you would wish for if you knew your life was near its end. What if you could be granted a single dying wish? What would you wish for? For Johnny, his dying wish is to go to the moon.

That’s the driving force behind the aptly named indie game, To the Moon, which I recently had the pleasure of playing. You play as two scientists as they use some bizarre technology to literally manipulate Johnny’s memories to make him believe he went to the moon as he lies unconscious on his deathbed. It’s simultaneously a far-fetched and simple concept; far-fetched in the sense that manipulating and/or changing memories is crazy, but simple in the sense that granting a dying wish is a familiar idea. It taps into basic human desires in a way that’s easy to relate to, and To the Moon gets a lot of mileage from its initial setup. Why does Johnny want to go to the moon? What has happened in his life that makes this one wish, above all else, his dying one? You spend the entire game sifting through Johnny’s memories to answer these questions, ultimately attempting to grant him his wish.

I won’t go into the story any more than that (I’m not good at writing about that kind of stuff anyway), as that’s easily the reason to play To the Moon. What I will say is that, as someone who plays video games first and foremost to play them, and values gameplay above all else, I thoroughly enjoyed To the Moon’s story. I like it for a lot of reasons too; the writing, the subject matter, etc. But the one reason that stands out more than anything else to me, and what makes To the Moon relevant as a video game, is how the story is presented. This could have easily been made as a movie or a novel or a comic book, but in some weird way I think it works just as well, if not better, as a video game.

To the Moon is, in the most basic sense, an adventure game. You point and click to move your character around and interact with objects, but you only do so in the most basic ways possible. You’re essentially pushing buttons here and there to move this roughly four hour story along, and otherwise spend the vast majority of your time watching and reading. To the Moon makes this work in a couple of ways. First, the gameplay never intrudes on the story. When I think of story focused games that I’ve found off-putting, the gameplay is generally not only boring or frustrating, but also invasive. If I’m playing a game for the story I don’t want said story to be overshadowed by terrible gameplay; I’d rather have no gameplay than bad gameplay. To the Moon does well to recognize why people are playing it, and (save for a short late-game misstep) does a great job at making sure the player is always getting what they signed up for.

Secondly, and more importantly, the way To the Moon is presented makes it quintessentially a video game. I would argue that the visuals and audio (the soundtrack in particular is beautiful) are vital to the experience, which immediately rules out novels and comics as means to tell this story. And as limited as your interactions in the game are on the whole, some of the game’s most memorable moments occur during those times when you have the freedom to move around on your own, and are more memorable because of said control. To the Moon has an innate understanding of the power of discovery natural to video games, and harnesses it wonderfully to guide the player in discovering a captivating story in a way that something like a movie simply could not do. Make no mistake; you spend the majority of To the Moon not playing at all, and plenty of the time you are playing is pretty rote. But there are just enough moments that hit home that much harder simply because you walked those precious few steps on your own accord. That’s a wonderful thing, and something unique to our medium.

If you are interested in video games as a storytelling medium, or more importantly, simply enjoy a great story, then I can’t recommend To the Moon enough. If you are looking for a game in the strictest sense of the word, then To the Moon will not fulfill that need. You barely do more than occasionally push a few buttons to keep the story going, but it’s a story well worth seeing (I even got a little misty eyed here and there). To the Moon is proof that great stories are great regardless of medium; that it finds a compelling way to make a great story feel perfectly at home as a video game, that’s something else entirely. Our medium still has plenty of growth to do, and my journey To the Moon has shown me one of the directions that can happen.

One of my favorite things about Super Mario Galaxy is its wondrously upbeat soundtrack. Its orchestrated tracks in particular are amazing, and none of them stand out as much as Gusty Garden Galaxy.

Gusty Garden Galaxy opens up with an emphatic burst of energy, and never stops moving from there. It immediately settles into a basic rhythm governed by a combination of strings and drums that has an almost Latin flavor to it. It’s a catchy, fast moving beat that I find very exciting. Flutes and violins come in shortly to introduce the primary melody, which is a sweeping combination of beautiful chords that do a great job at mimicking the windy nature of the level itself. They’re intermittently joined by various horns, producing an intricate display of instruments and sounds that seems both chaotic and unified at the same time. This seems to represent what it feels like on a windy day; the wind can gust in all directions at any given moment, but the net result of it all is generally in one decisive direction. Gusty Garden Galaxy represents this direction during its pinnacle section (first occurring around 1:20 in the video). This segment is a wonderful culmination of everything the song has done thus far, but is much bigger and bolder. It’s a fantastic way to further highlight the song’s primary melody without deviating from what made it so great in the first place. This section is the heart of the entire song to me.

Despite the rich combination of sounds on display, there’s nothing super complex or complicated about Gusty Garden Galaxy on the whole. This is Nintendo at their finest, putting on a big, exciting, yet straight forward production that’s incredibly fun to get caught up in. It’s great that it mimics the windy nature of the actual level, and that it manages to remain distinctly Mario at the same time makes it even better. Nobody does whimsy like Nintendo, and when they do it with a full symphony orchestra at their back it’s a sight to behold. That makes Gusty Garden Galaxy one of my absolute favorite video game songs, and one I’ll never get tired of listening to.

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I finished Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning on Monday, and the final few hours didn’t add much to the experience; it was pretty much what you would expect. I wrote a lot about the game during the past two weeks, and feel like I’ve pretty much covered everything I have to say about it. If there’s anything I want to reiterate as a parting comment on Reckoning, it’s that I simply feel that the game is way too big for the ideas it presents. I liked a lot of things about it for the first 20 or so hours, but nothing was nearly deep enough to last the 50+ hours I played it, which brought the entire experience down. By the end I wanted nothing more than to be done with the game, which is about the worst feeling you can have while playing a video game. I can understand why Jeff was conflicted about it.

Anyway, I’m happy to be done with it, and moving on to better (but thankfully not bigger) things. I rolled right off of Reckoning onto Rhythm Heaven Fever, which is awesome. I really loved the DS Rhythm Heaven, and everything I liked about that game is present and accounted for in the Wii version. All the minigames are silly and over-the-top in the best ways possible, and exude tons of charm and personality. They’re also often hilarious. Ringside (where you interview a wrestler) has kind of become the poster minigame, and that one in particular had me laughing pretty good. In fact, there are probably only two or three minigames that I haven’t cared for so far, which is pretty impressive considering that there are over 50 minigames in Rhythm Heaven Fever (and I’ve done 45 of them as of this writing). There's a good amount of quality content here given the game's $30 price tag, so I’m pretty happy with the value I’ve gotten out of it. I haven’t even had a chance to try the cooperative minigames yet; I’m pretty curious about those.

Rhythm Heaven Fever also looks and sounds fantastic. The bright and colorful art style is incredibly lively in that classic Nintendo fashion, and the soundtrack is super catchy. That’s fortunate, as this is a rhythm game after all, and it’s also fortunate that the game plays so well too. All you do is literally press the A and/or B buttons along with the beat, and everything is super responsive and rewarding to pull off. I’ve often said it before, but I always love it when a game is able to get a ton of mileage out of incredibly simple mechanics, and that’s exactly what Rhythm Heaven Fever does. Each minigame changes things up just enough to keep it entertaining (it doesn’t hurt that each one is downright bonkers either), while never straying too far from the game’s core concepts. It’s rhythm gaming in its purest and simplest form, which is often where the genre is at its best. If I have one complaint with the game it’s the same one that I had with the DS version; I don’t understand why you have to wait for specific windows to attempt a perfect rating. I’ve nailed at least two games on my first try, and it’s annoying to not get credit for them just because the game didn’t explicitly prompt me to go for a perfect. That’s pretty annoying, and makes me not want to even bother trying for perfects (something I might try otherwise).

Anyway, that caveat aside, Rhythm Heaven Fever is a wonderful game, and one I’d easily recommend to any Wii owner out there. Last but not least, I played through To the Moon from start to finish in one sitting yesterday. I’m going to give that one a few days to sink in before I attempt to write anything about it, but I will say upfront that I really enjoyed it. I’ll likely coalesce my thoughts on it in a dedicated piece later this week. That’s all for now though, until next time!

Currently playing: Rhythm Heaven Fever

Chrono Cross’ soundtrack sports so many beautiful songs, and its pair of world map themes stand among the best of them. They showcase an interesting contrast in both execution and tone that are not only pleasant to listen to, but also do a fantastic job at defining the game’s two parallel dimensions. First is Fields of Time (Home World theme), followed by On the Beach of Dreams (Another World theme).

Fields of Time is both mellow and upbeat simultaneously. It keeps a steady, forward moving beat throughout, yet never becomes terribly loud or excitable. The instrumentation and chords do a great job at contributing to this feeling, as they’re consistently bright and happy without being brash or obnoxious. It’s a song that seems very content with life at the moment, comforted with the knowledge that all is right with the world. That seems to also go a long way towards describing the state of Serge’s life at the beginning of the game. He’s leading a simple life in a simple village, and seems to be perfectly content with that existence. Through his eyes the entire world seems like a wonderful place to be.

On the Beach of Dreams shares the same peacefulness as Fields of Time, but it loses the comforting vibe in the process. The beat that drives the song isn’t as steady as before; it’s a little more in and out, featuring more highs and lows. The instrumentation and chords also lose a lot of the brightness they once had in favor of a more dissonant feel. This all brings more uncertainty and doubt to the world than before, which is likely how Serge feels when he is first ripped from his home world and thrust into this one. The world looks like the one he knows and loves, but something about it just doesn’t feel the same. Similarly with the two songs; they share a comparable calmness, but where one feels comforting the other feels on edge. This goes perfectly in hand with one of the game’s major themes, which is that small divergences can lead to drastically different outcomes. The game’s parallel worlds constantly show such contrasting results, and it’s awesome that their themes represent that same dynamic so well.

If Time’s Scar is Chrono Cross’ pinnacle track that represents the chaos and confusion of a world distorted across different dimensions, then Fields of Time and On the Beach of Dreams represent the opposite ends of that spectrum. And yet, they are both connected by that same low key nature that makes the entire Chrono Cross soundtrack such a pleasure to listen to. Past the dichotomy that separates these two songs, I remember them more for what they have in common. Fields of Time and On the Beach of Dreams are both beautiful songs that sum up a lot of what makes Chrono Cross’ soundtrack so great, and are among my favorites as a result.

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