Frogger gave our group something to be excited about. It was an "Interactive Symphony" game, like Space Invaders, but this was a game for two players, and one of them was Clint, one of my friends. He was up against a larger guy named Roy, and they were playing Frogger to win $100 worth of gift cards for Future Shop. Roy was up first and got a score of about 3000 or so. Clint (whose name Tommy must've forgotten, because while he kept referring to Roy by name, he seemed to avoid saying "Clint") clearly played better than his opponent. Even after overtaking Roy's score, the crowd got more excited when Tommy pointed out that the highest score ever was over 5000. When Clint got over 6000, that clearly beat that, and there was much applause. They were then given their prizes. They both got a goody bag, which included an autographed program booklet and a volume of manga (Clint got a volume of Ragnarok), and while Clint got the four Future Shop gift cards, Roy was given a home version of Frogger (one of those plug-directly-into-the-TV thingies) as a consolation prize.
The audience got immediately excited for the next segment. As soon as Tommy asked if there were Disney fans, it was pretty obvious, and then he asked if there were Square fans. Some people were already shrieking the title of the game, so Tommy asked everyone to do it in unison by the count of three. "One, Two, Three,
Kingdom Hearts!" Because of Square-Enix's insistence that their footage not be used, it was pretty much a montage from Disney movies. There were clips from
Aladdin,
The Beauty And The Beast,
The Lion King,
Pinocchio,
Sleeping Beauty,
Winnie-The-Pooh, some shots with Goofy and Donald, and it ended with a shot of Mickey from
Steamboat Willie. Watching it made me think of
Fantasia...it's good orchestra music with matching visuals, but unless you were a huge Kingdom Hearts fan, you wouldn't think this had anything to do with video games if you saw this anywhere else.
The video for the
Sonic The Hedgehog series was similar to the Myst montage in that it took music from the various games in the series, and played them in chronological order. This was made very evident with the title screens included in the montage, as most people would have trouble telling the first few games apart. The lights showed patterns of yellow circles, meant to be like the Rings that Sonic collects in each game. Everyone got a laugh at the opening when the choir sang "SEGA!" as normally chanted at the beginning of many of Sega's own games, especially in the Genesis era. The music was a medley of stage music from
Sonic The Hedgehog,
Sonic The Hedgehog 2,
Sonic The Hedgehog 3,
Sonic & Knuckles,
Sonic Spinball,
Sonic 3D Blast,
Sonic Adventure,
Sonic Adventure 2, and
Sonic Heroes. I remember thinking "why won't he run?" as the
Sonic The Hedgehog video showed Sonic running into things just as often or more than just plain running. I was hoping for Chemical Plant music when it came to
Sonic The Hedgehog 2, but alas, it was not performed.
Sonic Spinball's inclusion was a surprise to me, as it must've been for others, as it got some chuckles and applause when the title screen came up...same with
Sonic 3D Blast.
Sonic CD was absent; or else I must've missed it. While I don't mind the later games' J-pop, I know there are many of you who do mind it, but thankfully then, none of that was included. The final shot was of
Sonic Heroes, where Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were in their "Mission Clear" poses. Now that's how you do a montage!
I'm not a big fan of
World Of WarCraft. I know that many people are, though, including one from our group. Again, it was booming, epic music, fitting for a fantasy setting. If memory serves, I think some of the footage was actually from trailers of
WarCraft III. And if I am mistaken, most certainly a WarCraft fan will point that out. I would've liked it more if it were a WarCraft montage spanning the whole series, actually...I do have fond memories of the music from
WarCraft II.
The
Final Fantasy series (piano solo) was next, and performed by Lee Ann Leung. As far as I know, there's no relation to myself, however, she is the sister of Martin Leung, the "Video Game Pianist" made famous on the Internet for playing tunes from the Mario games while blindfolded. Martin performs at many of these concerts, but not this one. He was mentioned as having arranged this medley, and the original composer Nobuo Uematsu was also credited. This piano solo began with the Final Fantasy theme (you know, the one that goes up-and-down the keys) and went through the various games. There was applause when she played the ones I also recognized instantly, including the opening theme of
Final Fantasy VI, "One-Winged Angel" from
Final Fantasy VII (if I'm not confusing this with the finale), "Liberi Fatali" (again) and Waltz For The Moon (the dance scene) from
Final Fantasy VIII. The applause she got at the end was thunderous.
Tommy got the crowd excited again when he shouted, "Have you played...
Baldur's Gate? Have you played...
Neverwinter Nights? Have you played...
Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic?" He made the point that BioWare developed these games, and BioWare is based right here in Edmonton. The upcoming performance was from
Jade Empire, a game that they developed and that Jack Wall himself composed for. Because the show changes depending on the location, this was actually just added, and it was the second time ever that this was performed (the first time was at the first Edmonton concert on the previous night). Unfortunately it was not memorable to me, probably because I hadn't played the game, but I do remember enjoying it at the time, like some of the earlier pieces.
Jack took the microphone here and joked that he does speak too, as up to now he had been pretty silent. He said that after playing something that he wrote it would only be fair to play something that Tommy wrote. So up came music for
Advent Rising. I had heard that this game was very cinematic, and it certainly looked that way, and had the music to match. The game footage looked interesting, but it felt longer than the other pieces, and even included a scene with spoken dialogue in the middle. Considering that the game didn't sell as well as hoped I almost wonder if it was only this lengthy because of Tommy's involvement in the soundtrack and intended as a push to sell the game. One of my friends made a comment after the concert that he was interested in this game, so I guess it might have worked, at least to get our attention.
What's a video game concert (or anything about video games) without Super Mario? Tommy joked that this was the other "short Italian" that we were all looking forward to seeing. The video for the
Super Mario Bros. series was introduced with another clip of Koji Kondo, remarking that he didn't think that twenty years later, people would be enjoying a full orchestral performance of the Super Mario Bros. theme. That, along with the underwater and underground themes of Super Mario Bros. made up the music for this sequence. The video showed off not only the "main" Mario games, but also
Donkey Kong,
Dr. Mario,
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins,
Super Mario Kart,
Mario Kart 64,
Mario Golf,
Mario Power Tennis,
Super Smash Bros.,
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga,
Mario Vs. Donkey Kong, and possibly others. There certainly was a lot of variety here. The synchronization between the music and the video was really impressive here.? I had seen a video of this on YouTube, but seeing it again live seemed so much better.
After that, Lee Ann Leung came out and performed a
Super Mario Bros. series (piano solo), much like the one that made Martin Leung famous. She didn't do it blindfolded, but she also has lightning-quick fingers. The close-up of her playing was as impressive to watch as it was to hear. She received a standing ovation.
Halo & Halo 2 have a recognizable theme, even one that I can appreciate despite only playing the first game on the PC once through. With clips from both games, the powerful theme seemed to energize the audience. Probably many Halo fans were present.
Once that was finished, Tommy came out in more casual attire and a guitar. Screaming "finish the fight", the
Halo 3 teaser played. The Halo theme came on again, and Tommy joined in with his guitar. I suppose if I was a Halo fan that would've been a nice encore of sorts, but I found it to be somewhat redundant considering we'd just heard the theme. At least it was really short, but that made it seem a little more out of place.
To finish off a video game concert, you have to have boss music, right?
Final Fantasy VII's "One Winged Angel" was the final tune. Again, lack of footage meant that we couldn't see the evil Sephiroth doing his thing, but hey, the music was still pretty moving. No doubt the audience was excited as the choir chanted "Seph-i-roth!" The concert ended with more thunderous applause, right at 10:00 PM.
I didn't stick around for the meet-and-greet post-show (despite being
invited by Tommy himself at the NintendoWorldReport (formerly Planet GameCube) forums). Tommy Tallarico, Jack Wall, Lee Ann Leung, and probably some others were signing posters and the like. The line-up was already really long by the time we got there, and so we didn't bother. Oh, why did the concert have to be on a Tuesday?
Jack and Tommy did say that they hope to be back again next year. It was the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra that wanted Video Games Live to come here in the first place, and as the home of BioWare, they said they'd be happy to return here. Since the show changes a bit each time, I would also be happy to see the show again. Maybe next time they'll play some Castlevania, which is one of the game series they do perform, they just didn't do it here. Pretty much my only major gripe.
I'd recommend this show to gamers, obviously...but what about other people? Well, good music is good music, no matter what it is originally composed for or where it came from. The visuals make it more exciting than most other orchestral performances. So, yes, non-gamers will have a good time too, but clearly, gamers will have the most fun.
