I had been anticipating the Video Games Live concert for a few months, and I was not disappointed. The 2 key takeaways I had from the concert was:

#1 “video games music was just a series of bleats and toots.”

#2 “video games music is believed to make people more violent.” (the reply from the audience was ‘kill those people!’, but well, you know…)

The transition is obvious – when you had those 16bit games like Tetris, the music that had to go along had to be restricted to simple MIDI sequence as well. Music was never an important part of the game, it was a constant, irritating loop that you switched off to most of the time. (Think Tetris, Pac Man)

You have probably never even thought Super Mario would eventually be showcased in a concert hall with thousands of fans screaming for an encore. (Ask anyone, and they can hum that tune for you)

And it is amazing how the number of concerts these organisers do doubles by the year – a clear indication of how gamers has come to appreciate in-game music more and more.

Before the official start of the concert, there was a pre-festival where we could go round the booths collect goodies and watch the pre-selection of the Guitar Hero contestants.

During the concert, besides the usual symphony (did I say there was a harp on stage? It has the most exotic ensemble I’ve seen so far), the organisers have also slotted in mini programmes such as a Guitar Hero contest (here you see the 700 hit combo and you know how madly they have practised for it…), a Space Invaders challenge (a member of the audience has to move real time to shoot those enemy spaceships. Wow.), Cosplays (not very fantastic participants but at least we saw fantastic ones on screen during the encore), Lucky draws (i want the DSi!) and many, many special performances. Martin Leung was blindfolded and still managed a lightning fast playing of Super Mario on the piano, and did a wonderful FF medley. The emcee and the conductor started playing guitar to Chrono Cross music and the composer of Metal Gear Solid blew us off with his saxophone performance.

Those people who have always believed #1… you are sorely mistaken. Even singers are starting to catch on to this platform – for those who remembered when Granado Espadas first launched, it caught on such a craze that this Chinese song called ‘Fu Huo’ (or ‘Rebirth’) was developed with an MTV that centers on the characters in a game. Famous Japanese singers such as Ayaka, Angela Aki and Koda Kumi were also used in the FF series. Together with the high definition and beautifully rendered graphics we have these days… you will be stunned at how 3D characters are given more life and evoking more emotions that you could ever imagine.

And for #2, well, let’s wait till my next post then. (“,)