Music

In Episode 3 of the Let's GET!! Podcast, Eric and Andrew discuss modern games from the perspective of a retro gamer.

I suppose you could say Arctic Sunburn is already very much in this vein. My first gaming experience was a Nintendo Famicom in Japan (essentially a NES). When I really think about it, I guess it's possible that I played arcade games before I ever went to Japan, but frankly I don't remember. Anyway, I didn't really play on any Atari systems or anything like that before I got to the NES, so I guess you could say I got to the good stuff first.

My memories from those times are a little scattered at best, but I do remember that Super Mario Bros. had a pretty major impact on me. I watched in wonder at other players who knew all the secrets and exploits; could get infinite lives, and beat the entire game in a matter of 15 to 20 minutes or less.

I remember Excitebike, Donkey Kong, Contra, Punch-Out!!, among others. I remember when I first played Dragon Quest. It was several years down the line before any of those fangled RPG games made any sense, but once they did, I was hooked.

Regardless, this would be a fun subject to discuss in more detail down the line.

You can check out the Let's GET!! Podcast at their blog or on iTunes. Warning: the podcast contains some colorful language.

In episode 2 of the Let's GET!! Podcast, Eric and his friends interviewed a couple of video game or chiptune inspired musicians. I think it is somewhat trendy in today's music culture, but I think it is a cool movement regardless. I would love to work on a video game inspired music project myself. What are your thoughts?

You can check out the Let's GET!! Podcast at their blog or on iTunes. Warning: the podcast contains some colorful language.

In episode 1 of the Let's GET!! Podcast, Eric and his friends discussed their favorite video game music. They spent a lot of time discussing Mega Man music (which I think is terrific), but in my humble opinion, they forgot to mention the Gravity Man theme from Mega Man 5. Check this out and tell me it's not awesome, especially the robotic and mechanical sounding intro:

Listen to the Gravity Man stage theme

I know that it's impossible to cover the entire world of video game music in a matter of two to three hours, but there are a lot of other great moments that come to mind that they didn't mention. Music is a subjective thing, so obviously people have different tastes. The games I'm about to mention may seem too obvious, but I personally can't talk about video game music without thinking of the following:

• Seiken Densetsu 2 (aka Secret of Mana)
• Final Fantasy VI (the early Final Fantasy games had great music, but FFVI in particular has some of the best to date)
• Dragon Quest III
• Contra
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (OK, there really weren't any original compositions, but it had a great soundtrack)
• SimCity 2000

Undoubtedly, there are others I am missing. If you want to talk melancholy, Seiken Densetsu 2 in particular was really impactful for me. Great storyline (not easy to find, even in a Final Fantasy game these days), fun gameplay (albeit a little glitchy), and as I've already said, fantastic music.

Some others that I have enjoyed include Pilotwings, Bomber King, and the Super Chinese series (aka Kung-Fu Heroes or Ninja Boy).

Anyway, if you want to check out the Let's GET!! Podcast, you can check out their blog over here. You can also find it on iTunes. Warning: the podcast does contain some colorful language.