Shinobi Ninja Makes iPhone Game The New Album

Brooklyn Rock/Rap outfit Shinobi Ninja have released their new iPhone App "Shinobi Ninja Attacks". The game itself is a beat 'em up where you play as the band members journeying through Brooklyn to make it to a show. What's unique about the application is the extent to which it integrates the bands material. Shinobi Ninja's music makes the soundtrack to the game, but fans are also awarded videos and more songs for completing parts of the game and a GPS link in allows the band to give extra material to those with the application that attend a concert. As the bands manager and the games co-creator Stephen Sternschein says "Shinobi Ninja Attacks’ replaces the tangible experience people used to have opening a record sleeve or CD jewel case, poring over the liner notes, and looking over the artwork while listening to the music play. It harkens back to recorded music’s glory days, because it helps music fans recover something that was lost with digital music -- the ability to interact physically with the music product itself."

Check out the promo video below and if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch be sure to download the app here

Music Games Need To Refocus

This one comes to us via Prof. Sam's twitter. Its a very well written and concise editorial article regarding what the music game genre should be focusing on as it moves from infancy amid criticism of waning sales. While I highly recommend reading it in its entirety (its a quick read I promise) he brings up three main points. First, backwards compatibility of peripherals needs to be a given. Secondly developers need to restrain their frequency of releases. And finally finding ways to integrate new gameplay features using what hardware players already have.

But again read the whole article. You're already in class not paying attention so what more would it hurt.

History of Video Games in 10 minutes

Here's a little something to help you get over the hump. This video was done by Remix artist Norg, originally premiered at a MAGfest listening party, and the rest speaks for itself.





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MTV/Rockband Exec Talks DLC And Audio Bundles

Paul Degooyer, SVP of electronic games and music at MTV, spoke at Midem about his thoughts on the potential of DLC and music bundling. "We would like to see a world where in your premium bundle of the next Muse album you can get the album for your favorite console." While this is similar to what Pearl Jam did earlier in the year, it seems like the call is now to make such a release standard operating procedure.

Although, one could argue that the opposite procedure, purchasing tracks from the Rock Band store and getting a download code for the audio sent to whatever email address is tied to the online account, is a more likely implementable next step.

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Aaaaaand We're Back!

Now that everyone has worn down their console's disk drive through execessive playing over winter break (or was that just me?), expect regular posts once again.

• While DJ Hero may have fell short of some of its sales projections, it was still able to garner a rank as the highest grossing new IP for 2009 in the US and Europe in addition to its massive amounts of critical acclaim, and "securing more than 15 Best Music Game Awards in the U.S. alone and was featured in more than two dozen year end "best of" lists including those from Time Magazine, USA Today.com and Official Xbox Magazine," according to Activision. Their CEO Bobby Kotick also recently confirmed to Game Informer Magazine that their will be a sequel and that they are going to " stick with it and get it right. But it's going to be less games, better games. That's our strategy."

• The Ivors a British award for excellence in songwriting and composition will feature a category for game composition for the first time this year. The award ceremony will take place on May 20th 2010. All entries must have at least a third of its composition contributed by a British or Irish composer. Source

• Fender has recently revealed a set of new products to reach out to the music gaming and overall digital age community. The first is its G-DEC 3 amp priced at $299. The amp comes equipped with its own "backing band", which allows the player to play along with previously recording backing tracks from various styles. It also has an SD slot so that users can play with their own mp3s. They've also launched a new site ejamming.com while its splash page is a bit hokey the site provides free software to allow you to jam with and record sessions with others on the site. The first month is free and then a $10 monthly subscription applies. Finally, fender has partnered with T-Mobile to produce an Eric Clapton version of the Android MyTouch. The shell has a sunburst coloring and the phone includes tracks such as Layla and Wonderful Tonight.

• If you ever Find yourself in Australia, or more specifically Brisbane's Fortitude Valley, be sure to look out for The Mana Bar come February. The bars owners, a bartender, a video game critic, a sega games developer and a game blogger and will feature a variety of easily accessable and social games (read a lot of wii play). However the bar will also act as a testing ground for game publishers, as the bar will also feature games still in its final stages of development.
  

Building an Interactive Portfolio

As a student at the 127th AES Convention attending the game audio track lectures, I found the best advice was given by Richard Stevens from Leeds Metropolitan University.

"If you don't have some sort of game or interactive project in your portfolio, you're just not trying hard enough."

This makes perfect sense, and I don't see why more people don't do this. It's all fine and dandy to have your Flash mp3 playlist of your demo reel on your site—potential game developers looking for an audio guy want to know if your music and sound design work is any good with a quick listen. But, how do they know you really know how to make this stuff sound good in an interactive setting?

Read more

Sick Puppies Face Fans In Smackdown Vs. Raw

The EMI/Capitol Music Group band Sick Puppies will be logging in to their Xbox Live user tag SICKPUPPIESband on friday Dec. 18th at 8 PM to face off with fans in WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010. The first single from Sick Puppies, "You're Going Down" is featured in the games soundtrack and acted as the WWE Extreme Rules pay-per-view event in June.

Another example of how artists can leverage interactive media to establish strong ties to their fan base.

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Spike Video Game Award Winners

Yesterday Spike TV broadcast its VGA 2009 award show. The music related winners are:

Best Music Game: The Beatles: Rock Band

Best Soundtrack: DJ Hero

Best Original Score: Halo 3 ODST

Best Voice: Jack Black as Eddie Riggs from Brutal Legend

Check out the full list of winners, show highlights and future schedules airings at the VGA 2009 homepage

Prof. Sam's Tweets Of The Week

Associated Press names Rock Band 2 "Game of the Decade"

Wait, Activision's suing No Doubt now in retaliation?

Activision Countersues No Doubt

Earlier in the year No Doubt sued Band Hero publisher Activision over their in game avatars availability for use in all game tracks, not solely their own. This week Activision has filed a counter suit. Activision claims that the bands request for limited avatar usage came only after the programming for the game had been completely. Additionally they claim that the band failed to promote the game, as was required in their contract and are asking for the bands payment back, legal fees and, of course, unspecified damages.

You can check out a hosted .pdf of the counter suit in the Hollywood Reporter article

Prof. Sam's Tweets Of The Week

Royal Navy sailors given PSPs as study aids.

Guitar Hero 6 team exploring Natal possibilities

A more in depth look at the SoundCloud iPhone App

Platform, baby. RBNetwork should be up early next year. Gamasutra: Rock Band Reaches 1,000 Total Songs, 60M Downloads.

The Escapist: Game Storytelling Should Look to Music, Not Film.

Stigmatization Fail

Delaware Online published an article today trying to dispel the notion that playing rhythm action games such as Guitar Hero or Rock Band, dissuades kids from trying out the real thing. The article highlights several kids and a music instructor who all attest the opposite.

While this is just a small step in erasing these negative assumptions, it is most likely the first of many.