As I mentioned in my last post, the meet and greet didn't take place before the show. It took place afterwards. This was somewhat unfortunate as Koji Kondo had to go before I could give him the CD I burned of Jason Cox's Super Mario World tribute album. Tommy Tallarico was nice enough to say he would forward it to Nintendo PR though, so hopefully Koji will still get it.
Alex Brandon wasn't available. I loved his Deus Ex soundtrack, even going so far as to use "The Illuminati" as the background for a Toastmasters speech. Also, he did an interview in 2001 where he said it would take him at least 5 years to reach legendary status. I was curious to know if he thought he'd made it.
Also, John Romero wasn't there. I took some of my undergrad at Sierra College, near where he grew up in Rocklin, and played boatloads of DooM 2 deathmatch back in the day. My friend Chris and I even authored a full 32 level deathmatch megawad. Regardless of what you might say about his subsequent output, he gave us deathmatch. I would have liked to shake his hand.
I'm guessing they may have been told the meet and greet was at 7pm too and couldn't just hang out until 11pm.
Regardless, there were a lot of people to talk to.
There were four composers from Sony, all currently working on God of War 2. Sony tends to shuffle people around a lot. That seems to give the creative types a lot of variety in their work, and they seemed to enjoy that.
Not to be outdone, the LucasArts four were there as well. I didn't get to ask Michael Land his feelings about the new Sam & Max games, but Clint Bajakian and Larry Oppenheimer were personable and informative. Perter McConnell also had stories about band wrangling for Full Throttle that were entertaining (if mildly disconcerting).
In contrast to these "in house" teams there were freelance teams like Rob Abernathy and Jason Graves. There were a couple teams like this there. They usually featured composers of disparate ages, which makes sense if you want to be able to market yourself broadly. I'm probably just a sentimental chump, but I like to think the old guys are sharing a lot of wisdom and experience with the newer generation as well.
I didn't say too much to Spencer Nilsen, composer for Ecco the Dolphin, but I saw that a fan brought an Ecco CD for him to sign. I suppose I could have brought my Ecco and Ecco 2 carts, but I'm not much of a signature collector.
Tom Salta, composer for the GRAW series also turned me onto Game Music Radio, which should make my work days go by a little faster.
Richard Jaques hadn't heard of the Sega poll to bring back an old franchise. Even though he composed for Samba de Amigo, he was thrilled to hear that NiGHTS into Dreams was winning the race.
I got to ask Sasha Dikiciyan about the Faith No More influence on the Quake II soundtrack. He was completely candid in saying that Faith No More and Metallica were the sounds he was asked to go after. He even went a step further and admitted that the "nothing but metal" approach probably overstayed its welcome in that game. Thinking back on it now, I think I understand what was happening. After the industrial ambiance of Quake, id was probably trying to get back to the rockin' out style of DooM. Of course, even DooM didn't use 100% rock, and that was probably Quake II's problem. In more recent (and relevant) news, he and his partner Cris Velasco are working on Hellgate: London, which I'm looking forward to.
Lennie Moore, who scored the only voxel rendered game I ever loved, Outcast, was a joy to talk to. I assume orchestras in eastern Europe are less expensive than orchestras here because Lennie and many others had trips to Moscow or Prague to discuss. The composer for Brothers In Arms: Road to Hill 30, Stephen Harwood Jr. may even have spent time in the same internet cafe where I very first played the game, in Prague. :O
I got to talk with voice over artist Dee Baker about how much training it takes to stay employed in his line of work. I'm still amazed at the technique involved in making those sounds. My largely untrained voice would tear itself up trying to make those sounds.
Russel Brower, audio director and composer for The Burning Crusade, was cheerful and fun, although he could neither confirm nor deny that the Barrens music contains a phrase from "Do You Really Want My Love" by the Pointer Sisters. :)
One of the most lively conversationalists on the panel had to be Ken Lobb from Microsoft. He's a studio manager there. My understanding is that his job title could also be "Microsoft's liaison to Rare", which is funny because that's exactly the same job he did for Nintendo back in the day.
We talked a bit about Viva Piñata. I thought someone had said there wasn't new content being released for the game, but Ken seemed to imply that it was a steady stream that would not be dying down in the near future. He was also jazzed about the franchise getting more traction in Europe. I think he said the cartoon, which is doing well in the states, was about to begin its run in Europe. Regardless, he's a booster and looking forward to sequels to Viva Piñata down the road.
He also had some interesting things to say about Crackdown. I haven't played the game, but being a big fan of Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, I was keen to hear his thoughts on the similarities between the two. He freely admitted that inspiration was drawn from the game and then turned around and said that he felt Mario was a bigger influence. He went into more than a little detail talking about how the architecture in the game was always built with the 5 possible levels of jumping in mind to try and make simply moving through the game world enjoyable in and of itself. I believe he even called Crackdown a platformer once or twice. I'm sure he wasn't trying to take anything away from the driving and blowing stuff up elements, though. :)
Finally, I got to talk to meet the organizers, Jack Wall and Tommy Tallarico. I blanked on what to say to Jack. He did fine work conducting and I at least said that much. But I forgot to thank him for telling me when to clap with the way he held his baton. :)
Listening to the young man after me in the line (Chris), I heard Tommy say that he's got a new review show which is playing in Europe and should be coming to an internet near you, so look out for that.
Overall the meet and greet was a wonderful experience. I got to talk with more people who enjoy their work than I have ever spoken to before. :)
I also talked to Vertexguy and was not the first to tell him that the guitar volume was too low. :)
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