This week, we unveiled our 2012 Games of The Year as selected by the Zed Games crew. Here is the list, in no particular order:
THE WALKING DEAD (PC/Mac/iOS)
GUILD WARS 2 (PC)
DISHONORED (PC/PS3/360)
SLEEPING DOGS (PC/PS3/360)
FARCRY 3 (PC/PS3/360)
MAX PAYNE 3 (PC/PS3/360)
KINGDOMS OF AMALUR: RECKONING (PC/PS3/360)
SHOULD HAVE MADE THE LIST BUT DIDN’T DUE TO HUMAN ERROR AWARD:
NEED FOR SPEED: MOST WANTED (PC/PS3/360/PSV)
BEST GAME FEATURING A PROTAGONIST NAMED “LEE” AWARD:
THE WALKING DEAD (PC/Mac/iOS)
UNFORTUNATE OVERSIGHT AWARD:
XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN (PC/PS3/360)
LISTENERS CHOICE AWARD:
BORDERLANDS 2 (PC/PS3/360)
Runners up:
MASS EFFECT 3 (PC/PS3/360)
FEZ (360)
While we democratically came up with this list, there are more games that each of us wished would have made it on there! Here are the Game of the Year picks for each presenter:
This weekend is a huge one for gamers, as EB GAMES EXPO debuts on the Gold Coast. A celebration of all things gaming, the Expo will feature exhibitions from all the big names in gaming.
But it’s not all just about big names: POCKET MUSIC, Brisbane’s independent chip music collective, will be representing on the Saturday evening with a showcase of the finest home-made chiptune Brisbane has to offer. We caught up with RUBIJAQ, one of the artists performing at the Expo.
What do you feel is the appeal of chipmusic to audiences?
I believe chip music appeals to audiences predominantly from the novelty of using old computers and/or video game hardware to create music. There’s also a nostalgic element too, since the sounds are naturally reminiscent of that generation of electronics. This is depending on the type of audience though. I think ‘true’ chip music in the sense of only producing music with a single piece of hardware, for example a Game Boy, is still very niche as both a method of music creation and therefore not very well known amongst the ‘mainstream’ audience.
Novelty and nostalgia aside, however, chip music can be also appealing in respect to the technical aspects of its creation. For example, physical hardware hacking or circuit bending, technical limitations (in terms of limited channels/sounds that can be produced) and even ‘instrument’ creation. Generally speaking, I believe a wider audience of people are gradually becoming aware of it which is good to see and hopefully overtime will develop into a more embraced type of music.
Can you describe how you create your music?
I create my music on an original Nintendo Game Boy with a four-track tracker named Little Sound DJ (LSDJ for short) which was written/programmed by Johan Kotlinkski, who lives in Sweden. LSDJ is arguably the most utilized and user-friendly way to make chip music, and is all I have been using since I started.
The Game Boy has an on-board 4-bit sound chip which correspond to the 4 channels in LSDJ; two simultaneous square wave generators, a wave sample channel and a noise generator To explain what trackers are briefly, they are a type of music sequencer which allows a user to arrange pre-written notes and samples in a linear timeline. If you’ve ever used a sequencing program such as Reason, Logic or ProTools, you would probably grasp the concept of a tracker quite easily.
What are your thoughts on the Brisbane chip community?
Since I became aware of global chip scene, I had began to start frequenting all the online communities. It was through those that I found out that Dot.AY (Alex Yabsley) was also from Brisbane. At that point I hadn’t started writing chip music, but expressed my interest to him. I believe the Pocket Music shows started very soon (or just before) I had found out about Alex, so I decided to start attending them when I could. Sometime later, I began to actively participate in the scene/community here in Brisbane, which at the time consisted of very people. Since then I’ve become a regular performer at Pocket Music, and we’ve slowly expanded into a somewhat larger group of chip musicians and have made a lot of new friends in other beats and electronic scenes here in Brisbane.
It’s always exciting to hear about people in Brisbane who are interested in producing chip music because it’s a bit of a rare occurrence (but is more often than it used to be). For me I think it’s interesting to see what kind of creative direction newcomers take their music. One of our newest acts, Finagrin, combines chip music with trombone. I’m yet to see him perform live, but I’m excited!
How do people who have never been exposed to chip music before respond to your live shows?
A lot of the time the response has been positive. Whether or not people actually enjoy my music I think depends on their particular taste, because I don’t define my music as the standard “blips and bloops” that chip music is often associated with, though people usually do enjoy it. I think people are often awe struck and surprised when they realise that the music is coming from a Game Boy, though, and that often plays into the positive response I usually get.
What is your gaming background? How do your gaming habits and your song writing intersect?
I think the SNES was the first console I owned. I believe Yoshi’s Island 2 is one of my most favourite games of all time. Although overtime I grew weary of consoles (I’ve never owned a ‘next-gen’ console), and moved predominantly into PC gaming. I became a huge MMO freak and hopped across a lot of different games, but stuck with Guild Wars and a Korean MMO by the name of Dark Eden, which is an isometric vampire vs. humans game. I’m also a large fan of open world, fantasy RPG and games that will make you jump. At the moment I’ve just got my hands on Borderlands which I’m having fun with, although it’s hard to find time to play.
My gaming habits don’t overly intersect with my song writing, although I’m starting to write songs around particular themes which I think are being influenced heavily by games in both their themes as well as visual aesthetic. I’ve previously written theme songs to characters of a what-was-to-be web comic which was going to be written and illustrated by a friend of mine.
Currently I’m working on creating a game entitled ‘To Survive A Madman’ for my final project at Qantm College. It’s a first-person puzzle game whereby the player can use a gun called ‘The Device’ to magnetise, demagnetise and change the magnetic polarity of blocks. It’s hard to explain the mechanics without visuals, so I’m not going to try. If you’re interested, like ‘To Survive A Madman’ on Facebook or bookmark www.teamglowbug.com for further updates.
What unique challenges do you face as a chip musician?
Particularly with LSDJ, I face the challenge of hardware limitations which is also part of the fun of tracking on a Game Boy. As I explained earlier, it only has 4 channels which mean you have to be somewhat tricky about how you write the music; giving the illusion that you are making more sounds than what is possible is one of the fun things about it. As well as the 4 channels, the amount of sounds that can be synthesized from within a Game Boy is limited in some sense, but by using different commands and internal effects, you can create a wide array of interesting instruments.
Best places on the net to get chip music, as well as local chip recommendations:
The two largest online communities are chipmusic.org and 8bc.org (8bitcollective). Chipmusic.org centres more around a message board, whereas 8bc is more user-created content where people can upload songs they’ve created. I would suggest 8bitpeoples.com as probably the best go-to place for free and easily downloadable chip music.
In terms of Brisbane recommendations, definitely check out Dot.AY (dot-ay.com) and Slato (soundcloud.com/slato). Australia wise, I personally recommend cTrix, godinpants, Ten Thousand Free Men and Their Families, Abortifacient, Vicious Cyclist and little-scale.
RUBIJAQ performs at 4PM this Saturday at the EB GAMES EXPO. www.rubijaq.com
Supanova, the biggest pop culture expo in Australia returns to Brisbane April 1-3. This year is set to be the biggest one yet! Check out this video of Zedgames at Supanova last year. For full details about the even, head to www.supanova.com.au
Last week’s ZedGames segment on Magic: The Gathering had me primed up for some tournament play. So, I went along yesterday to the Friday Night Magic (that actually happens on Saturday afternoon) at Ace Comics & Games in the Queen St. Mall. As a relatively new player I’m used to getting my butt handed to me at tournaments; but I’m pleased to announce that yesterday was my best result to date. I won two games (out of four) to place fifth out of fifteen players!
This follows my last tournament a fortnight ago where I placed third last (one win out of three) and the one prior to that where I placed second last (drew two, lost two).
A major reason I did better this week was because the last time I turned up to FNM I did an awesome trade with some totally rad dude who basically gave me his entire Ally deck in return for two pretty decent cards I had (Time Sieve and Student of Warfare). Because Allies is seen as a fairly un-competitive deck build, it’s pretty easy to get your hands on Ally cards that other players don’t want. Personally I’ve always brought Ally decks to FNM tournaments because the cards are cheap (monetarily speaking) and it’s easy to put a deck together, despite having a few glaring weaknesses. The main problem is that you need to play an Ally every turn to get the full benefit of their abilities, otherwise you have a battlefield full of easy to kill/block little men. Playing the optimum number of Allies (28-32) means that you have to sacrifice useful other non-Ally cards in your deck, like creature removal. The fact that I didn’t have four copies of common card Join The Ranks, which lets you drop two Allies at instant speed, was also a major weakness of my previous decks.
So finally last week I was able to build a proper White/Red Ally deck using four copies of all the different Ally cards I wanted to play. Play-testing at home, it seemed like it could at least be semi-competitive. I added four copies of Splinter Twin, which has the same converted mana cost (CMC) asJoin the Ranks but lets me tap to put a token copy of the enchanted Ally onto the battlefield anytime I want (token gets exiled at end of turn), including during an opponents turn. It seemed that if it all worked out, this would let me work around the weakness of Allies by letting me trigger my Allies anytime I wanted!
Splinter Twin works fantastically with an Ally deck for a bunch of reasons: First, it lets you create an Ally token the turn you cast it. This is rad as you don’t have to worry about the fact that it’s not an Ally card. Then you get to trigger all your Allies for free every turn thereafter! If you can also cast an Ally and activate Splinter Twin in the same turn, it’s double the fun! (not for your opponent) And here is something that is sure to wipe the smile from your opponents face: Wait until they attack, then cast Join the Ranks and activate your Splinter Twin in succession! You instantly get three chump blockers AND you trigger all of your Allies thrice! In addition to this, you can choose which Allies effect you want to double depending on your situation. If you are playing against a multi-coloured deck, attach Splinter Twin to Kabira Evangel for instant protection from two colours. If you’re in a position to be aggressive, attach Splinter Twin to Akoum Battlesinger to give all your Allies (including the token) +2 to their attack. If you need some life, attach it to Ondu Cleric to instantly gain life equal to double the number of allies on the battlefield. Putting it on Kazandu Blademaster works a treat because of his vigilance; you can attack with him on your turn and then wait until its your opponents turn to tap it to create the token! And probably the best combo: putting it on Kazuul Warlordinstantly gives all your allies two +1/+1 tokens each, plus a 5/5 creature that can attack or block without consequence!
One of the most exciting moments in my Magic playing career thus far was at FNM yesterday, playing against a mono-green elf deck. He flooded the board with mana-generating elves and had a couple of huuuge creatures, including one elf who was pumped up to be a 15/15. He kept swinging with his big dudes, and on my side of the board I had two Splinter Twins attached to both an Ondu Cleric and a Kabira Evangel that I activated as needed. The fact that I had a second Ondu Cleric (in addition to the one that was enchanted) on the board meant that everytime I created a token to use as a chump blocker, I gained life equal to THREE TIMES the number of allies I had, which was five (life gain per activation: fifteen). I kept chipping away at him with my 2/3 token that had protection from Green and eventually after six or seven turns got him down to 1 life. Meanwhile I had gained so much life that I had to borrow more dice to keep track of my life total (seriously, about 12 dice). Finally he thought he may have gained the tools to turn the tide when he cast Beastmaster Ascension which activated straight away, giving all of his creatures +5/+5; and then quickly cast Overrun the turn after that, giving all of his creatures a further +3/+3 for the turn plus trample. So with 1 life point remaining he put it all on the line and swung at me for a grand total of 82 damage across 9 or 10 creatures, with trample. 82 damage! With trample! HOLY CRUD! Considering that you only start with 20 life, swinging for 82 is huge by anyone’s standards. To block, I had a measly two 1/1 Soldier Allies that were untapped. So, I was up for a total of 80 damage. We each held our breath as we counted the pile of dice that represented my life total to see if he had done enough damage to kill me. It turned out that I had 87 life, which meant that I had survived to inflict lethal damage the following turn! I didn’t have to though; my opponent conceded. Following this tense and extremely mathematical battle, we shook hands and agreed that surviving a swing for 82 trample damage with only two 1/1 blockers was pretty freaking amazing.
The next two matches didn’t go so well. Both were against aggro decks (like mine) that are designed to hit hard and fast for a win within six turns. However, I didn’t get completely whooped as usual. Both of the matches came down to a few life points and critical plays that happened at around turn six. Actually, in retrospect I probably could have won my third game if I had chosen to attack rather than hold my guys back at the endgame. Ah well, you play and you learn. I’ll definitely be bringing my W/R Ally deck back to FNM for another couple of plays before I try a different build.
If you’re interested in competitive magic, I’m sure you’ll be looking forward to this event:
MTG QUALIFIER
Magic The Gathering: PTQ Amsterdam – Standard (Type 2)
Event Details:
Date: Sunday June 27, 2010
Format: Standard (Type 2)
Cost: $20
Time: 9am Rego for a 10am start
Finals: Top 8
Main Event – Main Prizes
1st: Flight to play at pro Tour Amsterdam (or US$375)
The major presentations for each of the big companies have been scheduled and you can find the time that they’ll be on in Brisbane in the brackets.
Microsoft: Monday June 14, 10am [Tuesday June 15, 3AM] Electronic Arts: Monday June 14, 2pm [Tuesday June 15, 7AM] Ubisoft: Monday June 14, 5pm [Tuesday June 15, 10AM] Nintendo: Tuesday June 15, 9am [Wednesday June 16, 2AM] Sony: Tuesday June 15, 12pm [Wednesday June 16, 5AM] Konami: Wednesday June 16, 1pm [Thursday June 17, 6AM]
If you want to watch E3 the following sites will give you live feeds:
G4TV – http://e3.g4tv.com GameSpot – http://e3.gamespot.com GameTrailers – http://www.gametrailers.com/e3 IGN – http://e3.ign.com Konami – http://www.konami.com/e3 Microsoft – XBOX 360 Live Channel Nintendo – http://e3.nintendo.com/
We’ve got a discussion post up on our facebook if you want to squee along with us!
