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UncategorizedAntônio Carlos Jobim, The Great Romantic Melodist
“I’d like to make a request.” (A woman has approached the bandstand. She’s smiling.) “Do you guys know ‘The Girl from Ipanema? I love Bossa Nova.” You and the rest of the band are midway through your second set at this wedding; this is your first request. The ceremony is over, and everyone has moved…
By Kirk Hamilton Published April 19, 2012 - Uncategorized
Introducing the Melodic Mailbag
I’ve been having a great time writing about music and games for you guys every Thursday. I’ve also been happy to hear from many of you about different music you’re into, what you’d like to see covered here, and to generally nerd out about all things musical. So I asked myself, why not make some…
By Kirk Hamilton Published April 19, 2012 -
UncategorizedRest In Peace, Levon Helm
It’s a funny thing, my relationship with The Band. They were a band that I wasn’t super aware of for a long, long time—that era of rock was something of which I was mostly ignorant for most of my years growing up. A few years after college, I watched Martin Scorsese’s phenomenal film The Last…
By Kirk Hamilton Published April 19, 2012 -
UncategorizedThe Kotaku Mixtape Vol 6: SimCity and Beyond
If you’re reading this, you probably wasted hours and hours of your youth on Simcity 2000. Chances are you also know the weird, off-beat soundtrack by heart. But in the 90’s, Will Wright’s Sim Franchise was massive, and SimCity 2000 was only one one game in a series that spanned subjects like healthcare reform and…
By Chris Person Published April 19, 2012 - Uncategorized
All Of The Coolest Instruments In The World Unite For A Single Album
Here at Kotaku Melodic, we sometimes talk about music that doesn’t turn up in video games. This week is no different! When I was writing about Botanicula earlier this week, I mentioned my well-documented bass clarinet bias; it’s one of my favorite instruments, though I don’t own one myself. And okay, yes, my headline here…
By Kirk Hamilton Published April 19, 2012 -
UncategorizedIf Lana Del Rey’s ‘Video Games’ Was Actually About Video Games. And Was Hip-Hop.
Back when I first heard all this buzz about this singer Lana Del Rey and her song “Video Games, I wondered if it was actually about video games. Turns out, nope! It isn’t really about video games. Talking to Kill Screen, Del Rey described the song’s inspiration thusly: I would consider it a hopeful song.…
By Kirk Hamilton Published April 19, 2012 -
UncategorizedGetting Lost In Super Mario RPG‘s Forest Maze
I’ll admit it: I’ve never played Super Mario RPG. But when I heard its music played in that amazing medley FreddeGredde did earlier this week, I thought “Wow, that is a great melody!” And so I looked it up. And so it is, a very good melody. Composed by Yoko Shimomura, it holds up despite…
By Kirk Hamilton Published April 19, 2012 -
UncategorizedMeet The Man Who’s Making The Music For Halo 4
It’s no small thing, the Halo music. In fact, it’s kind of a big deal. As I wrote last week, Martin O’Donnell’s music for the first five Halo games evolved to become one of the most iconic soundtracks in modern video games. While many chiptune anthems have been enshrined in gamer consciousness, O’Donnell’s Halo score…
By Kirk Hamilton Published April 19, 2012 - Uncategorized
Don’t Send Your Ace in Pursuit of Perfection in MLB 2K12
News and notes from around the world of sports video gaming: • More than 629,000 perfect games have been attempted and 555 have been verified as thrown in Major League Baseball 2K12‘s $1 Million Perfect Game Challenge, which has about 10 days left. Those numbers are the latest available from 2K Sports. That means in…
By Owen Good Published April 19, 2012 - Uncategorized
Gabe Newell Says Valve-Apple Meeting Didn’t Happen
Apple CEO Tim Cook and Valve head Gabe Newell did not actually meet last week as rumored, according to a new podcast interview with Newell. He squashed the week-old rumor in an interview with the fine folks at Seven Day Cooldown, who were kind enough to let us in on some early excerpts from the…
By Kate Cox Published April 19, 2012 - Uncategorized
The Secrecy Behind the NFL’s New Look Required a Uniform Effort from EA Sports
The flawless revealing, two weeks ago, of the NFL’s new uniforms and their designs required an unusual level of secrecy. But it was a particularly nerve-wracking process for the Madden NFL developers, the game’s creative director told me. That’s because last year, a Madden teaser video—the kind everyone picks apart for clues about the new…
By Owen Good Published April 19, 2012 - Uncategorized
The Life Of A Mass Murderer In World of Warcraft
Anders Behring Breivik smiled during court on Monday as the prosecution displayed an image of his World of Warcraft character, Andersnordic. The Norwegian mass-murderer, who admitted last year to killing 77 people, must have tapped into some inner well of nostalgia when he thought about Blizzard’s massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Breivik has said he…
By Jason Schreier Published April 19, 2012 -
UncategorizedUnofficial Teaser for Minecraft Creator’s Next Game Takes You Deep into a Hard Sci-Fi Future
I can’t tell if the fan-made trailer for 0x10c—the upcoming game from Markus ‘Notch’ Person—is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek or deadly serious. The stentorian narration just about screams “irony” but the events setting up Mojang’s next game are nothing to laugh at. Nevertheless, this appears to be one very well-made community-generated trailer. Heck, Notch even…
By Evan Narcisse Published April 19, 2012 -
UncategorizedThe Call of Duty Tactics Game That Never Happened
Infinity Ward may have created Call of Duty but publisher Activision has always wanted to take the hit war-game series into different directions. Most of those efforts stalled—like the third-person variant that dev studio Sledgehammer was working on—and the public never gets to see what might have been But what you’re seeing above is animation…
By Evan Narcisse Published April 19, 2012 - Uncategorized
If Your Favorite Websites Were Made Into Fabulous Dresses
If Wikipedia were a dress, would you wear it? How about Google? I don’t actually wear dresses, for I am not a lady. But I would wear the heck out of these garments from Victor Farentina. Each one is a design sketch that takes the sensibilities and color schemes of popular sites like Yahoo, Twitter…
By Kirk Hamilton Published April 19, 2012 -
UncategorizedIn Dust 514 PlayStation 3 Armies Will Do Jobs For PC Players, Until It’s Time For a Double-Cross
Dust 514 is an upcoming free-to-play first-person-shooter on the PlayStation 3 that will connect to the massively-multiplayer online game Eve Online. This much we’ve known for several months, but pardon me for still having trouble processing how it’s going to work. Enter David Reid from CCP, the company behind both games, CCP, who demoed 514…
By Stephen Totilo Published April 19, 2012 - Uncategorized
Trials Evolution Leaderboards Crash Under the Weight of 100,000 Rabid Fans
Microsoft, publisher Ubisoft and developer RedLynx all thought they were ready for the release of Trials Evolution on Xbox Live yesterday. Turns out they weren’t. Players logging onto Xbox Live on Wednesday were met with long load times, missing ghost replays and an inability to connect. Just how many people were crashing their way on…
By Evan Narcisse Published April 19, 2012