But what about Orcs? Some jokers (or maybe actual Orcs!) have put together this draft kickstarter page to raise money for a film about all the problematic ways Orcs are depicted in games. Of course, this is a draft—it seems... unlikely that something like this would actually get approved by Kickstarter.
WIT' YER HELP I, WARLORD GROMUG, WILL KONSTRUKT A 5 VIDEO SERIEZ KALLED "TROPPZ vs DA ORKZ IN VIDYA GAMES", WOT WILL ECKSPLORE GREENSKIN CHARACKTER KLICHES THRU DA HISTRY O' DA GAME MANUFAKTORING. DIS AMBISHIUS PROJECKT WILL FOKUS ON DESE TROPPZ:
DA HORDE - VID #1
DA KILLIN' MACHINE - VID #2
DA DUMB MOOK - VID #3
DA STRONG SIDEKICK - VID #4
INSTRUMENT O' DESTRUKSHUN - VID #5
Okay, I know that the guys making this are likely the same generally assy dudes who have been "protesting" Anita Sarkeesian's video, but this also made me laugh?
Well, until I saw the bio for the project creator, "Warlord Gromug," which crosses into mean-town by more directly going after Sarkeesian:
Warlord Gromug is an ork warboss and socio-economic spectator who has an over-inflated sense of self-entitlement. He uses his meagre following to launch ill-fated attacks against Imperium space, as well as providing an important and fresh insight into modern pop culture. His videos are used as educational tools in classrooms and are screened at conferences and film festivals [citation needed]. He claims to speak internationally and lots of other things that appear to have no basis in truth.
Sigh. Guys, you had me laughing despite myself, but you just had to overstep, didn't you? Of course you did.
Sometimes it's not enough to smile when you run into each other on a mutual friend's Wall, or to make nice to someone in public and then complain about them to your partner in private. No. Sometimes you just need a foe. Perhaps, even, a nemesis.
Epic's Tim Sweeney suggests that for true plot and character development, any story needs to have a foe. And that includes the story of your life... as told on Facebook.
Of course, it makes sense why Facebook only has ways to codify, quantify, and acknowledge positive actions or relationships. There's enough drama all over every inch of the site without a "foe" category and no matter how often part of my secret heart sympathizes with the calls for a "dislike" button, I never particularly want or truly expect one to appear.
Perhaps this is why Facebook can never truly represent the breadth and depth of the human experience. We need adversity to grow, and Facebook lets us block those who cause us strife. Like the two dozen in-laws who never stop talking politics...
In defiance of the sudden onslaught of flashing lights comes Girl's Generation's latest single, "Paparazzi." The nine-woman supergroup from South Korea, known for their charming personalities and perfect legs (and covered plenty in the past here at Kotaku), released music videos for the song today. Paparrazi is the lead single for the girl's upcoming Japanese album, and totally beats their last big single, "The Boys," out of the water.
There are two versions of the video: the one above is the longer one, included for the fantastic moment about two minutes in. Those outfits, man! A great revelation indeed.
The song, the video: amazing, yes—but my favorite thing about new releases are the bevy of gifs the fan community strips from the videos. Here's a few from my friend, Toshi—though we're bound to see even better ones in the coming weeks.
Kirk was like "yo Jason write me something for Kotaku Melodic" and I was like "yo okay."
So immediately I went to YouTube and found the opening video to Suikoden II, aka the greatest intro to the greatest video game of all time.
Just watch. Watch the way it opens, setting the stage with an epic choral harmony, as if to say "We are not fucking around here." Watch the way it transitions from devastation to hope to harmony, the music swelling every step of the way. Watch the way it introduces the game's wonderful cast of wonderful characters. Watch the way it concludes, ending on a Broadway-like flourish, just begging you to jump in and hit the New Game button.
"Play me, motherfucker," says Suikoden II's intro. And you should. You really, really should.
I love music, and I love television. And you know what I really love? When a show has a great opening credits sequence, with a perfectly picked piece of music set against a rockin montage.
And hey, what do you know? It's Kotaku Melodic time, a.k.a. the time when we talk about music. Maybe next week we'll do the best video game themes, but this week, I thought I'd list the best TV credit-themes, along with a few that make me reach for the fast-forward button. I should say that the bad ones are all from shows that I like—there are, of course, a ton of crap theme songs to crap shows that aren't even worth listing.
Here we go!
Mad Men
I love the Mad Men theme for the way it combines that queasy string part with a totally baller backbeat—the result is something that is at once grooving and uneasy, and perfectly matches the imagery of the now-famous falling man. Dig that flat seventh popping out in the last chord, too. Too cool.
Alias
Composed by J.J. Abrams himself, I've long loved the Alias theme for its brevity and focus, as well as for how kicky the whole thing is. I never skip over it—it's too short, and too good!
Freaks and Geeks
Probably the best pop-tune implementation in a show ever, Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" is a prefect accompaniment for the credits to Judd Apatow's first, short-lived but wonderful show. I also like how the background colors change depending on whether the character on screen is a Freak, or a Geek. And yet, there's Ken...
Friday Night Lights
The actual credits sequence is nowhere to be found on YouTube, so we'll just have to listen to the music. But my god, this music... argh, it makes me freak out with so many emotions every time I hear it. Snuffy Walden's work on this show is some of the best television music ever done.
Skins
I dig Skins, though it lost me somewhat in the second season. But something about the music really works for me—that repeating, ascending line with the layering parts. It's dramatic in that way that daytime soaps are dramatic, and just… I don't know! It's hard to explain why, but I really like this theme.
Cowboy Bebop
Well, you knew this one had to be on here. Not only is Yoko Kanno's "Tank!" pretty much the coolest opening song ever composed, the animation and design on this sequence are so flippin cool that they may never be matched. No mater how hard Archer may try...
Parks and Recreation
Just pure, focused excellence. They had a competition to decide who would compose the theme to this show, and I'm glad they chose who they did. The full version that plays over the credits is even better, and of course, there's the unbelievable Jabba the Hutt version, Hutts and Recreation. Ha!
Game of Thrones
A late addition, but of course this one needs to be on this list. I have to admit, the first time I heard the Game of Thrones theme I was underwhelmed. It just sounded like more generic fantasy music to me. Little did I know that it would become one one of the catchiest, most frequently covered opening themes of all time. And of course, the entire credits sequence for this show is so good that I watch it, raptly, every time, hoping for a new location to spring from the map.
Veronica Mars
The Veronica Mars opening credits (particularly Season 1), are a great mix of whimsical and sinister (note the sketches on the paper), all accompanied by "We Used to be Friends" by the Dandy Warhols. I maintain that season 1 Veronica Mars was one of the very best single seasons of television of all time.
The X-Files
A real classic, the original X-Files theme will long be one of my favorite theme songs. When I was a kid, I totally wanted one of those cool FBI identification folios that they showed, and would watch this sequence to try to make one for myself. I never made a great folio, but I did watch these credits a billion times. The truth is out there.
The Cosby Show
The Cosby Show had a whole lot of great openings, but I think the season 4 opening, featuring legendary jazz vocalist Bobby McFerrin doing his multitrack thing, is my favorite. Aw man, I loved this show so much. It's the only TV show I've ever seen where a whole episode revolved around a rare Charlie Parker record.
The Wire (Season 4)
I'm normally not a fan of long, self-indulgent credits sequences (as you'll see below), but The Wire gets a pass. Particularly for the sequence to Season 4, which centered around Baltimore's broken educational system. That season, the theme song was performed by young Baltimore musicians, and they did a great job—dig that weird-ass guitar solo halfway through. What's more remarkable is how much this sequence says with its visuals—one of the themes of The Wire is how everything is cyclical, and how our failed systems force us to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Note how many circles there are in these credits—circles on circles, repeating around and around—a merry-go-round, a spare tire lined with hidden drugs, a kid rolling a tire around himself. Down in the hole. Dang.
The Worst (For Otherwise Great Shows)
Angel
I don't know why, but I just can't get with the Angel credits. Overlong and overwrought, they never had the punchy charm of Buffy's similar credits sequence. Too much cello, not enough rock? Or maybe the melody just didn't do it for me.
(Jason, however, disagrees, telling me: "Kirk, you sanctimonious douchenozzle, the Angel theme song is one of the greatest theme songs ever. That string section is chilling and perfect. It fits the show's tone to a tee. And it's been stuck in my head for years now. Jerk.")
Sorry, Joss! You get two of the "worst" entries here. Firefly may have been a good show—good enough to make me think fondly of its credits music. The cheesy song, the silly lyrics… it's the biggest disparity between show quality and opening credits quality I can think of. It's like a bad version of the awesome Deadwood opening credits.
The West Wing
I may talk smack on Aaron Sorkin (and be dreading his sure-to-be-self-righteous upcoming HBO show), but I love The West Wing. What I never loved was the opening credits, which go on forever and are full of the sort of cheesy, noble trumpet music that I feel like making fun of these days. Maybe it's a sign of how things have changed that I now get a big kick out of hearing the same sort of melodramatic, heroic music played during the awesome (and underrated!) new HBO show Veep. I really think that at one point I loved the West Wing theme, but that as I've grown more and more disillusioned with American politics, I've lost my taste for it. Sigh. Jadedness wins again!
Twin Peaks
Last, we'll have to list the mother of all ponderous, endless, boring-ass credits sequences: The credits to Twin Peaks. It goes on, and on, and on—when I watch this show on Netflix, I feel like I fast forward for like two minutes just to get to the waterfalls. It fits the show, weirdly, and has the same sort of gauzy, off-kilter vibe, but I just can't get with this credits sequence. It's iconic, it's unforgettable… it's bad.
So that's just me. And I'm sure I left a few great ones off of this list. For example: I can't quite articulate why, but I decided that both The Simpsons and The Sopranos didn't make the cut. So, which ones did I "forget?" What are your favorite TV show credits sequences? And which ones are the worst?
I loved all of the Quest for Glory games, but Quest for Glory IV was easily my favorite. I re-installed it recently due to that great sale at GOG.Com, and so I'm once again making my way through Moravia.
This game was great not only because it was one of Jennifer Hale's first video game voice-over performances; it's great because the music is unabashedly cheesy and joyful.
The menu music is a real standout, particularly the super epic, wailing keyboard guitar solo that starts at 1:19. Best of all, on my PC, for some reason the audio coding got weird, so that entire solo was about fifteen cents sharp or something. So it was painfully out of tune, and even more epic and hilarious.
Go ahead, keyboard guitar soloist. Show us your best guitargasm face.
Kimbra's first album may have been out for a year, but most of the people I talk to have only heard her singing with Gotye on his great (though overplayed) tune "Somebody That I Used To Know."
I was one of those people, until I listened to some of her debut album and realized that holy crap, Kimbra is amazing!
The video above is a live performance of "Plain Gold Ring," which is included on her album Vows. Which shows just what a strange, incredible performer she is… man, the voice on this woman. I haven't dug on an album like this since I first heard Janelle Monae's Archandroid.
Vows is one of those albums like Jellyfish's Spilt Milk, in that it seems like a true labor of love. Every tune has been produced within an inch of its life, but not in a bad way—as I recently described it to a friend, "There's so much music in her music!"
The songs have ideas on top of other ideas, and never run out of creative ways to play with the core melodies. Here are a few of my favorite tracks:
"Cameo Lover"
Pure pop goodness, with a side of serious Motown starting at at the bridge (2:18). Kimbra's chops and vocal versatility take this tune well beyond the realm of "fun pop song" and to a whole other level. The highs, the lows. The whole range.
"Good Intent"
They don't get much groovier than this, folks. (Even though this video takes nearly a minute to get to the music, which feels unforgivable these days.)
"Two Way Street"
One of the best pop minor-to-major transitions I've heard lately, and I utterly love the hook on "Love is a Two Way Street." Grand.
"Old Flame"
Probably the strongest, most classic-feeling melody on the whole record. That chorus is just unstoppable. I wish more pop writers used altered tensions in their melodies! Also, dig how the bass drum does that offset rhythm during the first chorus. So hot.
"Sally I Can See You"
One of my favorite tracks on this record… this is one of those tunes that has musical ideas on musical ideas on musical ideas… the verse alone is better than most entire songs.
Every other track on Vows is as good as these ones—there's not a skippable tune on the whole record. So if you haven't heard, I'm here to let ya know: Kimbra's first album is a nonstop collection of excellence. You can listen for free on Spotify or buy the album on iTunes, and she's on North American tour right now.
Okay, be right back, going to go listen to this entire album again.
This week saw the Western release of one of the very best games yet for the PlayStation Vita—the freewheeling, fantasy superhero game Gravity Rush. This game has so much of what I want in a video game—it combines the exploration and collection-obsession of Crackdown and Infamous with a uniquely fresh-feeling gravity shifting mechanic.
And best of all, it wraps the whole thing up in Kohei Tanaka's grand, achingly romantic soundtrack, which is easily one of the very best I've heard this year.
This music is a far cry from most video game soundtracks—it is neither industrial nor "epic" in the traditional sense, and it eschews the typical sorts of sweeping melodies that most video game soundtracks attempt to capture.
Instead, Tanaka's compositions channel old-school Hollywood, with European flourishes placed atop timeless chord progressions and arrangements. It's all put under a thick layer of Django-inspired jazz, conjuring the energy of a bustling, foreign metropolis in, say, the 1930's.
Let's give it a listen, yeah?
"Resistance and Extermination"
This is the main battle theme of Gravity Rush, and it somehow manages to perfectly convey the vibe of the game. Although big, important things are happening. Gravity Rush never succumbs to navel gazing or overseriousness—it's a game that revels in lightness and fun, even when the fate of the world is at stake.
Also, this tune has the best piano breakdown. Every time this song plays before a fight, I get amped up.
"Pleasure Quarter"
This is the first straight-up jazz tune that plays, and it accompanies the moment when I suspect most players will truly fall in love with Gravity Rush. After finishing a few missions in the first district, the protagonist Kat takes a train to the Pleasure Quarter, and suddenly… it's night, and the lighting is entirely different, and this off-kilter tune begins to play. Soaring around building tops while accompanied by a swinging violin solo… not many other games are this cool, is what I'm saying.
"Gravity Days"
This lush, strolling tune plays at several different points in the campaign and always combines the joy of an afternoon stroll with the vertigo of, you know, being able to fall up. Or down. Or sideways.
"Old Town"
Another of the mellower tunes on the soundtrack. This tune could accompany me every time I got to the park, and that'd be just fine with me. A real woodwind highlight, this tune. So good.
"Douse Shindundakara"
Here's one I haven't found in the game yet, but it's so good that I'm listening to it nonstop anyway. Go ahead, clarinetist! If you needed any other reason to get into this soundtrack, know that I've played a ton of this game and haven't even heard this song yet. That's how deep and lovely this soundtrack is. The only bummer is that there's currently no way for American gamers to buy it. Rest assured that as soon as there is, I'll post it here.
I'm heartened every time I see a soundtrack as distinctive and grand as this one attached to a game from a major studio. 2012 has already been a hell of a year for video game music (I mean: Right??), but truly, Gravity Rush stands tall with the very game music not just of the year, but stretching back much farther than that.
That dancing piano, that tiptoeing harp; those soaring strings. Yes.
Hi there, and welcome to Kotaku melodic, your one-stop-shop for all things musical and video-gamey. Tonight, we've got some good stuff from the world of video games and beyond, so sit back, put on your headphones, and enjoy.
Sure, the many problematic sexist tropes used to depict women in games are worth exploring. So too, apparently, are tropes vs men in games (enough to merit a bona-fide indidgogo fundraiser.)
This week saw the Western release of one of the very best games yet for the PlayStation Vita—the freewheeling, fantasy superhero game Gravity Rush. This game has so much of what I want in a video game—it combines the exploration and collection-obsession of Crackdown and Infamous with a uniquely fresh-feeling 
