Mike Oldfield's Online Game Makes Like A Maestro

Thanks to Terra Nova for pointing to information about Maestro, a game billed as 'Mike Oldfield's Virtual Reality Online Quest'. The title, created by the composer of the multi-million selling '70s album Tubular Bells, goes on to promise "a free form world offering a refreshing alternative to the typical, task-orientated 'in-your-face' computer game", although the gameplay seems somewhat less 'free form': "Your job is to find the Gravitars, bring them home to the mothership and put them in their pen." The demo is available from Mike Oldfield's website, and the full game is available next month for around UKP15 (USD28).

Comments

At last an Oldfield item?

[AtariAmarok]

We needa nice little tubular bells icon just for these!

Oldfield's been dabbling in "virtual worlds" for a few years now with his MVR (Music Virtual Reality) project. For the most part, it has been empty flat landscapes with a few objects scattered around.

Songs of Distant Earth - previous game.

[AtariAmarok]

Also relevant here is 1994's The Songs of Distant Earth (by Mike Oldfield, of course), thematically inspired by the Arthur C. Clarke book of the same name, and musically inspired by the "monk music" craze (Enigma, etc.). Clarke even has an intro on the liner notes.

This was an enhanced CD that contained a similar "game of exploration" which ran only on the Mac.