Slashdot Mirror
Grammy Awards Finally Giving Games Some Respect
donniebaseball23 writes "Video game composers have been fighting for equal recognition at the Grammy Awards, and they've just taken another step in the right direction, as The Recording Academy has added video games to the descriptors of four awards, giving them equal billing with film and television. 'I think this could be viewed as a first step in the direction of video games getting their own category,' said the Recording Academy's Bill Freimuth."
Still waiting for the album of the year award to be anywhere close to relevant - or any of them. The Oscars are merely bad, the Grammys are closer to zero value.
Cinematics, story and voice acting in your average videogame cannot come close to the equivalent in feature films. Games are event-driven, so they're choppy by nature. There are games like Metal Gear Solid that have great cut scenes, but many gamers have complained that it seems more like a movie than a game. That seems like it's always going to be an argument, because if people wanted to watch a movie they would do so. They wouldnt be playing games
And I don't mean because games cannot be artistic. That's idiotic.
I mean because games are made better than Hollywood movies are.
I didn't believe this until recently. I thought even the most garbage movies shamed PC games. Then I played Mass Effect 2. I loved the game. But the Hollywood movie influence is everywhere.
Notably, the 'epic' (but unreal) shots. A character spray-firing a machine gun with no aim because it "looks cool." A character leaping off a falling building and it crashing down around him, just feet from crushing him. Said character shrugs and makes a smartass comment, unfazed. Setting a bomb timer to 10 seconds (WTF) and escaping with inches to spare. Or scenes like this one (which is hilarious, but c'mon...). There are endless examples.
PC games have the potential to become even greater than movies, so long as they are not dragged down by Hollywood's stupid theatrics.
In short. Fuck the Grammy Awards. You suck.
Finally!! This is great news because, seriously, music production in the latest blockbuster games is truly spectacular. Hear the latest Shogun 2: Total War soundtrack and it's frankly Hollywood on Windows!
"Sum Ergo Cogito"
Just a bunch of RIAA insiders stroking themselves, and insisting the rest of us must care about it (since it dominates the newscast that night).
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
...was that for the past 18 or so years, the grammy for game music (heck even awesome drowning sounds -- remember Quake Classic?) would have always gone to Trent Reznor hands down.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
The title song from Civilization 4 won a Grammy this year, becoming the first song from a video game to do so. I wonder if that had anything to do with their decision? As is often the case, you need really top-notch, undeniable talent to break down the barrier. Once it's broken, things get easier.
Why do gamers care about the Grammys? As a gamer, I couldn't care less about *any* award show. The whole concept is some outdated idea from the 20th century when media companies had a monopoly on distribution, and used these shows to peddle their wares. The rise of the Internet has made them obsolete.
For me the JRPGs would dominate any top 10 list of game soundtracks (spending a fortune licensing commercial music a la GTA doesn't count).
Presumably, Western composers get paid peanuts to write in-game music, and the results are laughable - music nobody would ever choose to listen to outside the context of the game.
There's no reason for the Grammys to recognise Japanese artists such as Koichi Sugiyama and Nobuo Uematsu who are truly brilliant modern-day composers - I think computer game composers command a lot more respect in Asia than they do over here. Writing film scores is about the only way to popularise modern classical music, and that won't change so long as the gaming industry carries on underpaying their employees.
What was the last decent original soundtrack for a PC game? Transport Tycoon?
And the life time achievement goes to [opens the envelope] chess
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I hope Chris Hülsbeck (http://www.huelsbeck.com/) will have some reward for his career, one day ...
:
....
Some of the music he has composed
- R-Type
- Giana Sisters
- Turrican 1, 2 and 3
- Apidya
- Tunnel B1
- Extreme Assault
Now if only they will go back and give Nobuo Uematsu a lifetime achievement award! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy#Music
This is a triumph.
Unless you're playing Lumines, Rez, DDR, Guitar Hero, or some other game whose gameplay revolves around music, the music in your game is going to be "choppy" to the extent that it stops playing one background music track and starts another. Smooth transitions won't be possible for several more years, at least until US Patent 5315057 expires at the end of 2014.
Games haven been 3D and Digital since at least 20 years now... Cinema has only recently catched up to video games in that regard
Cinema has been 3D since day one and stereoscopic since Bwana Devil in 1952.
Smooth transitions won't be possible for several more years, at least until US Patent 5315057 [Assignee: LucasArts] expires at the end of 2014.
Bullshit. Just look up any old LucasArts iMUSE game
The patent I linked to is in fact the patent on iMUSE, owned by LucasArts. Please allow me to rephrase: Smooth transitions won't be possible for several more years in games not published by LucasArts until the end of 2014.
The Grammy's are the most notoriously meaningless awards in any field. They're owned by the studios, who use them as little more than PR tools. Every year they're won by the same predictable chart-toppers (indies need not apply), they reward popularity over talent (two words: "Milli Vanilli"), and no one takes them seriously. In fact, the Best New Artist Grammy has been jokingly called the "Kiss of Death" award, considering how most "artists" who win it end up becoming one hit wonders. The only reason anyone even watches that joke of an awards show is for the performances. And even those are pretty forgettable.
The Simpsons said it best. In an episode where Homer wins a Grammy, he takes one look at it, sees it's a Grammy and throws it out the window. Then, out the window, we hear a voice yelling "Hey, don't throw your trash out here!"
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
As a gamer, I couldn't care less about *any* award show.
I dunno, I'm a pretty big fan of the independent game festival, and seeing who won what. Usually nukes a week or two of productivity for me.
Call of Duty games realistic? The first few were pretty good and somewhat realistic, but since CoD 4 its been one big game that traded story and realism for Michael Bay style of storytelling. Its the antithesis of realism, eschewing it for over-the-top explosions and characters doing ridiculous things. I slogged through the "story" mode of MW2 since I bought it to play online with friends and found myself rolling my eyes many times throughout. The CoD games now are just a bunch of big action scenes with little story tying them together.
Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) - Now this is the kind of game/movie that I would love to see more of. The idea was simple: a game that plays like a movie but in which you still continuously(almost) PLAY the game. It had great story, great feeling to the scenes, sound was appropriate and cinematics blended in so naturally. It all worked out. In my opinion I would give that game an Oscar. I think the story is the most important aspect of a game - as in any movie. Match it with good acting and keep the user playing (not as a spectator) and you will get a lot of success with it. In time, if enough of these are created, games will get their own Oscar award. P.S. I know Grammy's are just for sound.. but we're talking about entertainment in general here.