Wii will rock you...

I'm guessing that most Giant Robot readers if they own a current games console, own a Nintendo Wii (or more likely, a DS). The Wii has been a juggernaut, still a difficult product to find that sells out everywhere it is stocked. It's success has been so staggering that it has created a new attitude in the business side of games, where expensive narrative heavy titles aimed at adults are now seen as hardcore and a niche market while it's much easier to make money off of what they call the casual gamer. Nintendo's success has bolstered this claim, and given that those niche titles cost a lot more money even in art development assets to create, one could say that their success is a staggering leap backwards. Grand Theft Auto IV cost admittedly around a hundred million dollars to develop, while Metal Gear Solid 4 was at least some 30 million. But there's an important distinction there, where Nintendo's vision has gaming something like playing with a toy, and those other titles aiming for a whole new medium.

Now, I know playing plastic instruments evokes in most people a response similar to what an episode of South Park did: that it makes you a total loser. But somehow Nintendo, with their aim at casual gamers, in which gaming is more like playing with a toy than becoming immersed in an experience, have made even playing Rock Band look cool if you ask me. From yesterday's E3 conference, a yearly event where games companies ply their wares to the media:



An event that most commentators flat out agree upon, Nintendo made the worst showing at.

I'll never skip posting about Kubrick

You probably already caught this, but last night in the UK Channel 4 aired a new documentary about Kubrick's exhaustive archives, titled Stanley Kubrick's Boxes. They recreated in painstaking detail behind the scenes elements of The Shining to make this quite incredible promo to advertise the series. Funnily enough, one of the few genuine portraits we have of Mr. Kubrick is from his daughter Vivian's footage filmed during the Shining documenting the production...



...And this beautiful ad doesn't have the same atmosphere as that footage but it's interesting nonetheless.

Anyway, go to this link to find Youtube of the entire documentary, which isn't likely to be shown in the US any time soon.

Netflixbox360

Pictured above is an interface for the Xbox 360 that's starting this fall that will enable you to display on your tv any of the videos that you can stream from the Netflix service - all it requires is a Netflix subscription and the standard yearly Xbox Live fee. That adds thousands of instant on demand videos to the Xbox 360. Granted, they'll be in standard definition, but for those of us who choose Macs or Linux and subscribe to Netflix (and therefore can't access the streaming library), and are wondering what games machine to buy, this is pretty killer.

The future of music, plastic toys no longer

I spent long enough in the periphery of the music industry directing videos to get to know some people who are really well and truly part of the music business, and I've seen their dire prognostications, and I've also seen musicians laugh or mock... But the fact of the matter is the rhythm music game is here to stay, and not only that, it may be one of the true futures of the music industry.

Pictured above are the Ion drums for Rock Band 2. This time they're going beyond plastic toys to a whole other level. These are a stripped down electronic drum kit with an interface replacing the typical brain for a midi drum kit. It can be adapted and modified to do so and thus act as an actual electronic drum kit. The game also will feature drum lessons, a trainer to teach people the basic rhythmic patterns real drummers use. Fender are also modifying actual stratocaster bodies and replacing their electronics with Rock Band's. Rock Band 2 will also feature a new track from Guns N Roses Chinese Democracy.



At this point the lines become blurred. This morning it was announced that the next iteration of Guitar Hero (now completely upstaged by Rock Band to the point of Guitar Hero now copying what it can from Rock Band including a shabby drum kit) will feature the entirety of Metallica's next album day and date as the record release.

Most of the musicians I know don't care for these games, which I can understand on many levels. Other would say that the experience is beyond stupid and childish and for the time invested one could learn to play a real instrument. That's missing the point.

As Rock Band will have functionality with a close to low end electronic drum kit, and lessons, it's quite obvious that someday people will be plugging in their real instruments into their consoles. I think this is only a great thing: Rock Band is best when you play it with people, producing a communal experience that no other game has done before... It engages you and your friends into focusing on a piece of music together. Musicians should embrace this. It shares the joy of performance in an albeit stripped down format for the fans in a way, say, music videos never could. Who wouldn't want their fans to have an even deeper connection to music to the point where individual instrumentations are memorized? Anyone who's played Rock Band with friends knows exactly what I'm talking about - an exalted sensation of harmony that you share, not just with friends, but music you love. And to be proficient at Rock Band you don't need to invest the time necessary in a real instrument by any means. Dan-ah who claims no musical skill whatsoever moved up from easy to medium difficulty on the bass in a single day.

Anyway, here's the Rock Band 2 tracklist which now boasts AC/DC, Elvis Costello, Fleetwood Mac, Modest Mouse, Devo, and even freaking Bob Dylan. Did you know that the entirety of Pixies' Doolittle is now available?

Comeback, kid? A new focus for this blog.

Being absent from this blog for so long I have to admit any excuse or words wouldn't be worthwhile. Needless to say, sometimes real life intervenes heavily. Other times I find blogging inimical to the subconscious process required to write something. I did manage to file a big story about a portion of my trip to Cambodia for issue 54 which you can check out now. Martin had to laboriously cut down my original 4500 word draft to a manageable thousand for which he deserves a lot of credit. If any of you are interested though maybe I'll run the longer version here?

I did get to hang out with Martin in L.A. a few weeks ago and I discussed doing one thing in particular with my blog going forward, which is focusing on one thing for the most part. I'll always be unable to avoid writing about movies on some level, especially when moved to (I can say that Wall-E deserves your time and money like few movies do, and if I were 8 years old it would probably be my favorite movie, and that Hellboy 2 contains the most outlandishly original production design and creature effects I've seen in years). For awhile I was really excited about sharing great clips, but look at the top videos on youtube any given day and it's fake porn, the same weird z axis non celebrities, and amateurish attempts at copying what tv already does. Music videos are so on the wane at this point that I've pretty much given up on them, so much so that I've left my production company as they aren't worth the psychic energy and investment of time and creativity I put into pursuing so many dead ends that won't even earn me a living.

I'm going to start writing here about video games. Before you flee, let me at least try to explain why I'd bother, given the amount of sheer text about said subject saturating the web.

Games are an ascendant, emerging art form, despite what wiser cultural commentaters would have you believe. All pop art, especially when it goes hand in hand with a technological advance, starts out being considered lowbrow junk for the masses. Movies started in county fairs with carnival hucksters.

But it took to some degree proper criticism to advance movies into true cultural legitimacy. That requires more than what constitutes game criticism today, which is either aimed at consumers and interested in attributes, or dry dissertation style papers on mechanics.

I am constantly arguing that what games need are a Lester Bangs, a Roger Ebert, a Griel Marcus, Denis Diderot, a Godard or a Truffaut. We need writers to start placing games within the context of culture - not just pop - as a whole. We have a few who are close, like the excellent N'gai Croal, but these are beat reporters. We need people who review games without the confines of consumer advice, who piss off or enlighten or give us a historical perspective to come, who suggest subtexts that may or not be there. And everyone in games talks about how they wish there was an arthouse cinema of games, freed from the financial pressures requied to make games today. That requires someone who can write about games in a way that any culturally invested person can read the review and come away with a thought about what gaming can be. We need writing about games, in other words, that's compelling to people who don't play games.

I do believe there's a very specific bit that's missing constantly in games criticism: discussing what it is about games that no other medium can do. That's a very important distinction, I believe. There are emotional depths and experiences to be plundered in games that have not yet been explored, while on the other hand I believe there are already games that show distinct auteurs at work, with themes, subtexts, and unique emotional properties.

I love ignored art, art on the margins, the bits of genius that get overlooked because of the medium its attempted in. Here's a great page from a never finished graphic novel by Alan Moore and the insanely underrated Bill Sienkiewicz (who is on a par with Ashley Wood in my book).



Click here to see the full page

I like to use this example a lot. Big Numbers has gone down in obscure comics lore as a lost mastepiece, but I believe that many overlooked what was so unyieldingly ambitious about the book which perhaps led to its dissolution... It did things with the arrangement of art and words that no other medium could do. Look at the panel with the people planning, an image as a whole that contains individual images that read left to right while telling the story. That's intrinsic to the medium, and despite our natural assumptions of adaptation in culture, I love this marginal stuff, the inherent bits and pieces that you couldn't do any other way.

I believe while playing games I've had similar experiences. Vastly dislocating, new emotional responses. They are far and few between, embedded in tiny little parcels of art on the margins, and no one seems to discuss them at large.

Games now earn equivalent sums in revenue and Nintendo have proven once and for all that games are not just for teenage boys, thankfully. When it comes to art direction I believe that games right now may be even more ambitious than the realm of films, as there are no physical production requirements and unifying aesthetic is easier to achieve. Several games have pushed at the boundaries of what that imagery is supposed to be, from stylized art deco ruin to graphically bold cel shading.

But again, it's that unique quality I hope to write about. And I'll still be discussing little bits of ephemera when it strikes me.