Showing posts with label Zelda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zelda. Show all posts
Oscar sings
My son Oscar is crazy for video games. He loves playing them, he loves watching other people play them and he loves learning about them. I bought a Nintendo Game Cube when he was two and it's been a big part of his life since.
Today he had a 'mental health day' where I let him stay home from school so we could spend time together. I asked what he'd like to do and, after rejecting playing video games, Occy suggested recording video game themes in the style of Smooth McGroove.
Above is Song of Storms from Ocarina of Time, which is one of the Zelda games. It's the second track he recorded today.
The first song Oscar wanted to record was the Sanctuary Boss theme from Earthbound. We've been talking about this game recently after I mentioned that Hirokazu Tanaka was visiting Melbourne soon. It turned out that Oscar is a massive fan of Tanaka and asked me to pursue an interview for Cyclic Defrost. However, Tanaka-san doesn't speak English and my Japanese won't get us very far, so it's not likely happening. Hopefully Good Game will talk with him.
Below is the version of the song that Oscar covered. I'm curious to hear more music by Tanaka as Occy tells me he has a musical signature in his work.
Big wet
I don't understand the effect that the film Big Fish has on me.
Tonight I watched it again. Actually, it was more like I half-watched it. But as soon as they start talking about going to the river, I start crying.
My son was watching it with me, interrupting to talk about playing Zelda after the film and he said he started crying too. Then as the credits role we're both acting like nothing happened.
It seems we were both allowing our attention to drift away from watching Big Fish yet it managed to extract moisture from our tear ducts in final scenes. It's quite magical to me how it can do this but so is the film I guess. There are many memorable images in it, yet they're vaguely familiar. Maybe it's the symbolism?
One of the things that resonates for me while watching Big Fish is that it's a film about becoming a father and how it changes your own relationship with your father. This is one of the best things about having kids for me because I found I could let go of a lot of angst once I started to see things from the viewpoint of being a parent.
Tonight I watched it again. Actually, it was more like I half-watched it. But as soon as they start talking about going to the river, I start crying.
My son was watching it with me, interrupting to talk about playing Zelda after the film and he said he started crying too. Then as the credits role we're both acting like nothing happened.
It seems we were both allowing our attention to drift away from watching Big Fish yet it managed to extract moisture from our tear ducts in final scenes. It's quite magical to me how it can do this but so is the film I guess. There are many memorable images in it, yet they're vaguely familiar. Maybe it's the symbolism?
One of the things that resonates for me while watching Big Fish is that it's a film about becoming a father and how it changes your own relationship with your father. This is one of the best things about having kids for me because I found I could let go of a lot of angst once I started to see things from the viewpoint of being a parent.
Secondhand games and new consoles
Aside from Zelda Twilight Princess (completed yesterday), I've been buying a bunch of cheap secondhand Gamecube games.
This copy of Shrek 2 was one I bought since it's multi-player and suitable for my kids. I was surprised to find the copy that arrived was a new game and still in shrink-wrap.
It's the first new game I've bought in nearly six years of owning a secondhand Gamecube and it seemed an interesting coincidence that it arrived in the same week as reports that the next generation of consoles may not allow secondhand games.
I can understand that the companies who make games might be upset they don't receive money from these ongoing sales, after all it's an issue that artists have had to deal with -- don't you think Van Gogh would've liked to see some of the money his paintings now earn?
Look at the price on this game pictured above and consider that I paid one-tenth of this price on Ebay (again because it's a multi-player game suitable for my kids). Now consider I could've bought the game for a third of what I paid if I downloaded Super Monkey Ball 2 onto my Apple device.
On one hand I think it's really petty to limit consoles so they won't play secondhand games. It limits the functionality of the device and this will frustrate users. On the other, I can see this is a paradigm shift in terms of how content is delivered. Physical objects are giving way to digital information and I like Jeremy Denk's assessment on his blog.
While Nintendo could complain that I've bought a lot of their gear secondhand, it's been something of a gateway drug and has introduced my family to their intellectual property. Just look at the joy we got from Mario for one example.
This copy of Shrek 2 was one I bought since it's multi-player and suitable for my kids. I was surprised to find the copy that arrived was a new game and still in shrink-wrap.
It's the first new game I've bought in nearly six years of owning a secondhand Gamecube and it seemed an interesting coincidence that it arrived in the same week as reports that the next generation of consoles may not allow secondhand games.
I can understand that the companies who make games might be upset they don't receive money from these ongoing sales, after all it's an issue that artists have had to deal with -- don't you think Van Gogh would've liked to see some of the money his paintings now earn?
Look at the price on this game pictured above and consider that I paid one-tenth of this price on Ebay (again because it's a multi-player game suitable for my kids). Now consider I could've bought the game for a third of what I paid if I downloaded Super Monkey Ball 2 onto my Apple device.
On one hand I think it's really petty to limit consoles so they won't play secondhand games. It limits the functionality of the device and this will frustrate users. On the other, I can see this is a paradigm shift in terms of how content is delivered. Physical objects are giving way to digital information and I like Jeremy Denk's assessment on his blog.
While Nintendo could complain that I've bought a lot of their gear secondhand, it's been something of a gateway drug and has introduced my family to their intellectual property. Just look at the joy we got from Mario for one example.
I love Zelda
One highlight of my summer has been avoiding the hotter days by staying indoors and playing Twilight Princess on my Nintendo Gamecube. Yeah, I'm old school like that -- playing a game that's more than five years old on a superseded console.
This is the second Zelda quest I've undertaken. The first was Wind Waker, a charming cartoony game that I've since learned was a radical departure from the Zelda franchise but popular enough to spawn two sequels on the Nintendo DS Lite.
The Zelda games are a popular Nintendo property but seem to be little-known among non-gamers. Zelda does not have the same brand recognition as Mario or Donkey Kong and this is probably because she's something of a secondary character. You never actually play the character of Zelda, except in the game Super Smash Brothers Melee -- which is a great multi-player game where all of the Nintendo characters battle it out.
Twilight Princess has the familiar narrative that unfolds as the central character reaches the rite of passage where he is given the green hero outfit and undertakes a quest to save his kingdom. The character can be seen as a version of the green man, a symbol of rebirth or maybe eternal youth like Peter Pan.
There are little variations between the games of course, particularly in the equipment found along the way. The twilight in Twilight Princess seems a dated twist though, reminding me of The Matrix but maybe also the nothingness in Neverending Story or possibly the end of the world in this Madonna song.
A couple of things I've noticed in Twilight Princess have got me wondering about messages in the game, probably because as a former cultural studies student I seem to over-analyse everything.
Are there messages in the game? For example, often it's easy to avoid fighting all the monsters. Many times I've found it easiest to just run away and, usually, the monsters don't bother chasing. I like to think it's a lesson for players that confrontation can be avoided. This seems to be emphasised in that you don't get points for killing things. In fact, you don't get points at all. The key objective is to overcome various challenges along the way.
The other lesson that I like to think is in the game, is the way that you very quickly fill your purse and are unable to keep collecting the gems which are used as currency. This seems to me to be a message that making money isn't the goal, again reinforcing the view that you need to succeed at the objectives required to fulfill the quest. Money is means to achieve your goals, not a goal in itself.
This focus on achieving your goals rather than seeking confrontation and collecting money seem to me to be a good philosophy to impart and one of the reasons why I enjoy sharing Zelda with my kids.
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