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Holy crap! I'm, um, famous?
Apr. 14th, 2008 05:36 amIn this multi-media world where everyone is famous for 150 seconds (the inflation is inversely proportional to Andy Warhol's statements). They read a letter* of mine on NPR's All Things Considered regarding a piece they did yesterday on the evolution of video game music, and how there are actually symphonies performing some of this music, now. However, they did not have Lennie Moore's music from the video game, Outcast (or mention Moore at all). This was music composed for the video game, and performed by the Russian Moscow Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, and it's really beautiful.
mda and I are devoted fans of Outcast and play the game periodically. In fact, I'm writing from a computer that I got from mda a few years ago on my b-day after I had specifically asked for a computer powerful enough to play that game.
Anyway, I wrote NPR a letter last night, and they read it on the air, ending the piece with one of Moore's pieces from the game.
I walked out onto our side deck and mda was speechless. He knew I'd written NPR, b/c I told him last night, but he was really excited to hear the piece.
Yeah, it's small, but I'm glad that NPR mentioned it, and they played part of a piece from Outcast!
Outcast is a dear, departed video game that, in my neophyte opinion, has no equal. It is beautiful and fun in many ways (and allows you to swim, jump, ride animals, and blow stuff up--and shoot people, and things, w/a variety of weapons). But, more than that, it's incredibly complex. It's not "solve this puzzle and move on," or, "Oh, I know what to do at this point, b/c that's what I've done before." Although, certainly that comes into play when there are times that you have to, like, put totems into statues in a certain order. The thing is, though, that the game changes slightly every time you play it. There are something like 1,000 different characters you can run into, and they will change what they say depending on the game you're playing. One case is a guy you meet early in the game: he said something to my character that mda had never encountered in the times he'd played the game.
The game is centered around the idea that the main character, Cutter Slade (you) is thought to be the savior (the "Ulukai") of this world he's come to. He's foretold in this world (how he was "foretold" doesn't come 'til pretty late in the game), but he has to prove that he's their friend before he can get what he needs (b/c he needs help from the regions he goes to). So if he runs in, guns blazing, they won't talk to (help) him. And, certainly, any time he's around & is being chased by soldiers (which often results in a firefight), the citizens of the world will drop to the ground and won't talk to him for awhile after the gunfight is over (damn, I can't tell you how many times I tried avoiding the citizens all together, and how many times I yelled, "I'm trying to help! I wasn't trying to hit anyone!" while playing the game).
One of the things about the game, too, is that the "enemies" aren't in the expected place every time. There are certain places, every time you play the game, where you know soldiers will be, but the individual soldiers move randomly. So if you need to talk to so-and-so, and you get interrupted for some reason and have to start over (or you're just playing the game again), you can't expect that 3 words into the conversation that there will be enemies coming. They might come along at any time.
*The letter:
mda and I are devoted fans of Outcast and play the game periodically. In fact, I'm writing from a computer that I got from mda a few years ago on my b-day after I had specifically asked for a computer powerful enough to play that game.
Anyway, I wrote NPR a letter last night, and they read it on the air, ending the piece with one of Moore's pieces from the game.
I walked out onto our side deck and mda was speechless. He knew I'd written NPR, b/c I told him last night, but he was really excited to hear the piece.
Yeah, it's small, but I'm glad that NPR mentioned it, and they played part of a piece from Outcast!
Outcast is a dear, departed video game that, in my neophyte opinion, has no equal. It is beautiful and fun in many ways (and allows you to swim, jump, ride animals, and blow stuff up--and shoot people, and things, w/a variety of weapons). But, more than that, it's incredibly complex. It's not "solve this puzzle and move on," or, "Oh, I know what to do at this point, b/c that's what I've done before." Although, certainly that comes into play when there are times that you have to, like, put totems into statues in a certain order. The thing is, though, that the game changes slightly every time you play it. There are something like 1,000 different characters you can run into, and they will change what they say depending on the game you're playing. One case is a guy you meet early in the game: he said something to my character that mda had never encountered in the times he'd played the game.
The game is centered around the idea that the main character, Cutter Slade (you) is thought to be the savior (the "Ulukai") of this world he's come to. He's foretold in this world (how he was "foretold" doesn't come 'til pretty late in the game), but he has to prove that he's their friend before he can get what he needs (b/c he needs help from the regions he goes to). So if he runs in, guns blazing, they won't talk to (help) him. And, certainly, any time he's around & is being chased by soldiers (which often results in a firefight), the citizens of the world will drop to the ground and won't talk to him for awhile after the gunfight is over (damn, I can't tell you how many times I tried avoiding the citizens all together, and how many times I yelled, "I'm trying to help! I wasn't trying to hit anyone!" while playing the game).
One of the things about the game, too, is that the "enemies" aren't in the expected place every time. There are certain places, every time you play the game, where you know soldiers will be, but the individual soldiers move randomly. So if you need to talk to so-and-so, and you get interrupted for some reason and have to start over (or you're just playing the game again), you can't expect that 3 words into the conversation that there will be enemies coming. They might come along at any time.
*The letter:
I was sad, but not surprised, that Lennie Moore's music from the 1999 video game, _Outcast_, was not mentioned in this piece. _Outcast_ was an amazing game that, unfortunately, has not been equaled. And Lennie Moore's compositions--played and sung by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra--changed according to mood, the activity of the main character, whether enemy soldiers were in proximity, and which "region" the character was in. Moore's music for this game is among the most beautiful music I've ever heard from a video game, and some of my favorite contemporary "classical" music around.
If you have the time, check it out:
http://www.lenniemoore.com/sounds.html#Outcast
