MIDI Week Singles: "Catherine's Theme" - SOMA (PC)

"Catherine's Theme" from SOMA on the PC, iOS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, & XBox One (2015)

Composer: Mikko Tarmia

Album: SOMA (Original Video Game Soundtrack)

Label: Self Released (Bandcamp)

Publisher: Frictional Games

Developer: Frictional Games

Since I happen to find myself currently in Sweden for the next couple of days, I thought that posting a MIDI Week Single from a game that was developed in Sweden seemed appropriate.  Yes, composer Mikko Tarmia is actually Finnish, but we will not be in Finland until Tuesday.

SOMA is a game from Swedish developer Frictional Games and despite having played through the game a couple of years ago, we apparently have not featured any of Mikko Tarmia's music from this game (although we have used music that he has written for Amnesia: The Dark Descent, also by Frictional Games).  Now, if you have not played SOMA, I would first off highly recommend it is all about powerful storytelling, but I will not spoil anything for anyone who has not yet played the game.

I decided to use "Catherine's Theme" because I thought that it does a great job of encapsulating the overall feel of the game, where as the title music puts you in a science fiction mind set.  I do love how simple "Catherine's Theme" is, which is the exact opposite of the character in the game.  I also feel an overwhelming sadness here, which again, is not exactly how the character is either portrayed or acts in the game, but it works so well.  Maybe it is all hindsight.  But I find this track to be beautiful and a perfect example of showing so much emotion with so little.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Unholy Recourse

Game EXP: Jack Lumber (PC)

It has been a loooooooong time since I last played Jack Lumber on my PC through Steam, but posting about Dustoff Heli Rescue II and the Three Star grading system implemented in that game got me thinking again about this game.  I think I did purchase it during a sale as opposed to it being bundled with a Humble Bundle.  And honestly, I like the concept behind the game, I like the artwork, I love the sound effects of the logs splitting, I like the humor, and even the story is absurd to the point of hilarity (Jack's grandmother is killed by a tree and he vows his revenge on trees, convinced that there is an evil overlord of trees out there.  Just watch the trailer.

I played Jack Lumber for a grand total of 2 hours until I reached the point where I had to stop.  Not really stop out of choice, but I stopped for the most damaging and saddening reason when it comes to video games.  Jack Lumber stopped being fun.

Jack Lumber works brilliantly as a touch screen game a la iPad or other large touch screen devices larger than a cellphone.  It even works pretty well with keyboard and mouse controls, and had I necessary tools I think it would work just as well (or better) with an artists stylus, or even Apple's Magic Trackpad might work really well; I never tried the game with trackpad, and I'm note even sure if it would be compatible with a gamepad.

Jack Lumber requires accuracy and timing, something that I have somewhat struggled with when using a mouse.  And if you are finished laughing at me, let me further explain.  What makes accuracy and timing important in Jack Lumber is that it is part puzzle game too, as you try to quickly figure out the quickest path to take before your timer runs out and the logs go back to their breakneck speed of spinning.  You gain bonus points for making cuts through multiple logs without turning, which can be difficult if you do not slow down the spinning logs at the right time or wait too long trying to cut a log that requires multiple cuts.  Even using the various types of syrups requires quick thinking lest you waste one requiring you  to save up a bit more money to buy more syrups.  This will often require additional playthroughs of previously cleared levels.

And that is where my lack of fun comes into play.  Like so many games, Jack Lumber uses the score and Three Star system for overall rankings in levels.  And this three star ranking is not for individual stages, but how you do overall across 10 individual stages.  This means that if you mess up on stage 6 out of 10, then you can either scrap all of your progress knowing you will not earn that coveted third star, or you can play through to earn more money to buy more items only to come back and try the level all over again.  Granted each stage lasts only a few seconds, as that is the amount of time you are granted with timed slowed down, but maybe that makes it even worse?

There was some point during the middle of the second area that I decided I would not try for three stars in every level, but instead move ahead after earning either one or two.  By the third area, Widowmaker's Peak, I hit a roadblock.  I was required to have more stars to play the next area than I currently had, halting my progress.  I looked back at the levels that I had only one star on and knew that it would require a lot of playing to either earn two stars or possibly even a third for the levels where I already had two stars.  But I did retry a number of those levels, earning a couple here and there, but still not enough to proceed through the next level which would have then required me to go back and earn yet more stars.

Playing Jack Lumber for me got to the point where if I made a mistake, I would esc out of the entire level, forgoing all progress regardless of what stage out of 10 I was on, only to restart it from the beginning; think Mario Kart when you are trying to beat the best time and you make one small mistake that you know will end up costing you 0.05876 seconds, so you quickly hit start-press down-restart-A button as if you have tucked the movement deep into muscle memory.  You know.

And this made me sad.  I wanted to love Jack Lumber far more than I ended up, and because of my inability (or focus?) to earn ever increasing Integrity Star Points, I will probably never finish this game.  Fare thee well sweet lumberjack, may you eventually fell the mighty evil tree that brought about your wrath.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Feel The Anger  Pulse Again

MIDI Week Singles: "Area 3 - The Jungle" - Dragon Spirit: The New Legend (NES)

"Area 3 - The Jungle" from Dragon Spirit: The New Legend on the Nintendo Entertainment System (1989)
Composer: Masakatsu Maekawa
Album: No Official Release
Publisher: Namco / Bandai
Developer: Now Production

Another great song discovered during the earlyish days of #AllTheNESMusic!

Now, if you are going to have a video game where you control a dragon in what is essentially a bullet hell airplane shooter a la 1942 where the dragon you control is able to spawn additional heads to spew greater fire and death upon your foes, you are going to need some pretty epic music to go with the cover art.  Now, the majority of Masakatsu Maekawa's music for the game is not nearly as grand or epic as I was either wanting or expecting, but the music for the third area, The Swamp, for me is where it all shines!

This song, at least to me, sounds quintessentially '80s.  Maybe it is just the beginning vamping intro?  The only way I could see this song being any better, is if the intro harmony was incorporated into the melody during the second time the melody is played (around 0:41).  But with the limitations of the NES sound chip, and it being 1989, maybe that would be asking too much?

And while I do not think that this song is particularly swamp-like, it is a pretty great song that does capture what it might feel like to be a multi head sprouting dragon trying to thwart the evil whims of the demon Zawel.  Lastly, this is the first time that I have come across Masakatsu Maekawa's name, but I am interested to see what else they have composed.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental*

*I personally find this arrangement/conducting by Michael Kamen to be performed too slow for my taste.  I much prefer Sir George Solti's conducting of this song.

Monthly Update: June 2019

June is going to be a bit of a weird month for me.  Weird in a good way.

For the majority of the month, Conklederp and I will be out of the country (our house is being watched by neighbors, guarded by our cat and cat sitter, and patrolled by the murder of crows and band of scrub jays that frequent our house nearly every morning).  We will be spending half of our time on a WiFi enabled boat, and by land some 4,800+ miles (7,725 km) away from our current living arrangement.  I do plan on bringing my computer with me to both write articles while awake and in our cabin, and also to dump pictures onto my hard drive and then the cloud (Yes, Jason Segel, we understand what the cloud is); and to play games when necessary.  What it boils down to, is that postings from me may not be as regular as they have been (when they are regular anyway) for the month of June.

So I do have some articles for June that I have already written, and if I manage to separate one veeeeeerrrry long draft into something readable, I will have my posts (currently looking to be five or six posts) about movies and movie ratings across various Internet sites finished and ready to be uploaded.  I may also finish up some articles that I have only titles for but at least there is an intention to write them.  Yes?

Now that that is out of the way, let's get down to copper brads.

Most of May saw me playing only a handful of games.  Two long RPGs filtered down to one (Darkest Dungeon and Octopath Traveler respectively), two shortish action games (Fortnite and Ninja Gaiden), and one first person perspective sci-fi adventure game set in a dystopian universe somewhat inspired by Blade Runner (>observer_).  Oh, and I briefly started What Remains of Edith Finch because I wanted to see how the Epic Games client ran and if my computer would combust attempting to play a game that was released two years after I bought my current laptop.  It did not.  But it did chug along at a pretty 18 fps when I tried to run Steep through the Ubisoft client, but I blame my computer more than I blame the Ubisoft client; and then the game crashed.

Speaking of gaming clients, I am still very impressed with the quality and selection of games that the Epic Games store is still giving away, presumably as part of their Idon'tknowhowlong promotion to draw people to use their own gaming client.  With titles like the aforementioned What Remains of Edith Finch, to Thimbleweed Park, The Witness, Axiom Verge, and RiME, are all titles that I am interested in already (and have already played in regards to Thimbleweed Park), and have heard/read a lot of good things about.  I recall when Ubisoft was offering free games to pull people over to them with games like The Crew, Assassin's Creed III/IV, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and Rayman Origins, which held my interest for a while too, but their promotion seemed to run for a shorter period of time.  Anyway, I could probably go on for a while about free games offered by various clients, but let us close it out for now.

And you know, while we are closing things out, I think I am going to finish up this article.  As previously mentioned regarding the rest of June, articles may be more sporadic than usual, but I will definitely be bringing my computer and the Switch with me (and possibly some CAH to play with the rest of the family) so I will try to work through some of my growing backlog, which is never a bad thing.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental