Top Ten Top Ten Video Game Soundtracks

Hey y'all.  So it's about time I did another top ten top ten, right?  Well, actually, it's about time I updated this thing regularly, but y'know, one thing at a time.  And for right now, that one thing is this top ten top ten.

Man, I really enjoy doing these lists.

In any case, this time it's a TTTT for video game soundtracks, as in the set of songs in a video game that is the best.  I have my own opinions in that area, but given that I haven't played as many games as other people have, it's probably not enough content for an entire blog.  I really only have three soundtracks in mind to consider for such a list.  Let's see if they appear.

As usual, my own votes do not count.  I'll be going on youtube and counting the votes done by people there.  Any soundtrack mentioned on their list, regardless if ranked higher or lower, is given one point each.  If anyone has a list greater than ten, only their top ten counts.  In the case of a tie, I'll rank the ties as the same place.  Normally I like to have some sort of objective means of why I list one over another in the case of a tie, but music is pretty subjective, so there's nothing really I can do about that.  Get ready for some really weird numbering.

Yeesh.  This was the single hardest list I've ever had to do.  There were so many people who defined "soundtrack" either too narrowly or too broadly.  That is, they seemed not to understand that there's a difference between "track" and "soundtrack" -- come on, there's a clear difference between one song and a collection of songs.  To make it worse, some people even said the entire franchise, like all the Mega Man games or all the Sonic games.  No.  Just no.  Not only do most franchise soundtracks go up and down in quality over time, but the longer-running franchises have transitioned from the MIDI bleeps and bloops of the past to modern orchestral stuff.  You can't compare those.  I had to throw out a lot of potential votes.

Seriously, it was hard to get votes this time.  Much harder than any list I've had to do before. Not to mention that Youtube is about as helpful as dirt in trying to search for things.  This isn't the greatest top ten top ten I've ever done, but it is what it is, and if you're entertained, well, that's what counts. 

Okay, so for right now, let's start with the hairly barelies, that is, those that almost, but not quite, got a spot on the top ten soundtracks. Note that all of these have equal votes.

Almost Made Its:
The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker
Final Fantasy VI
Metal Gear Solid 4
Metroid Prime
Castlevania Symphony of the Night
Okami
Mass Effect
Battlefield 3
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Kingdom Hearts

And now to the top ten.

Anime and Manga Overview

Hey y'all.  So I haven't posted in a while, huh?  Yeah, due to a combination of things, it's been...well, interesting.  I honestly just need to stick to a schedule, but at the same time, I don't want this to become a chore, especially since there are other things I need to be doing with my life at this point. This blog is here more or less to contain my rants on things, and is a pressure release.  All the same, nothing can be entirely self-serving, or else it won't be fun for others.

The good news is, I've been writing a lot of drafts over my break.  So I do have some blogs on their way to being ready to go.  One is even nearly complete, I just have to finish some work on it before it can be ready to go.

For now, let's move on.

I've been reading/watching a lot of manga and anime, because I want to know what to recommend to people who come into my bookstore.  I could nitpick them in detail, but is that really necessary?  Not so much.  There's a difference between a story one can surgically dissect and one that is easy to summarize.  For simplicity's sake, I'm just going to talk a little about each.

Manga: Kitchen Princess

Project Runway Seasons 11-13 Commentary

Hey y'all.  Whoo, watching these later seasons is tough.  Not only have I been a bit spoiled by critical bloggers, the show makes it all too easy to be critical of it.  It's pretty painful, and I have to talk about it.

Since I would argue that the later seasons of the show aren't really worth watching, I don't mind some spoilers.  For people who really want to watch, these spoilers probably wouldn't discourage you anyway.

Season 11:

Project Runway Seasons 6-10 Review

Hey y'all.  Let's rant about Project Runway some more!  Though I'll try to avoid spoilers, for the time being.

Okay, so season 6 is the first season where Project Runway showed on the Lifetime network.  It's a bit of a strange channel choice, as Lifetime is more about propagandizing women than plain being entertaining (there's a reason why people make fun of Lifetime original movies, much in the same way everyone makes fun of Syfy channel fare).  On the other hand, it makes sense in one way, as women are a huge part of the Project Runway fanbase.

However, this is part where producer manipulation becomes much, much more evident.  Not only are there questionable judging sessions, but there's questionable winners, manipulated circumstances to promote certain contestants, and obvious favoritism.  While this is not as extreme in some seasons as in others, it's there, and it only gets worse past season 10.

Then again, I'm someone who became a fan of the show when season 9 was on air, and that didn't stop me from watching as much of this show as I could.  There's entertainment to be had here, and you can enjoy it, especially if you watch seasons 6 through 10 before watching the previous seasons.

Season 6:

This season suffered from various things.  One is a location change to Los Angeles, despite the show having been filmed in New York for all seasons before (and since).  Apparently there was also some kind of lawsuit going on, either with the channel or with the producers of the show.  I don't know the details, but there was some question of the show not airing.  It eventually did, but this ghost still haunted the season.  There's a sense of unease in the season that's there even despite the fact that the lawsuit was never mentioned on the show.

Project Runway Seasons 1-5 Review

Hey y'all.  So one of my guilty pleasures is Project Runway, a show that has been running for 13 seasons, at the time of this writing.  So is it worth watching?  What if you're in a used bookstore, and you see some seasons of it on a shelf?  Which one should you get?  Well, it's all a matter of taste, but I'll go ahead and try to get across the general feel of each season, so you can make a choice.

Or I can use that premise as an excuse to rant about a favorite show of mine.

Keep in mind, however, that I have not seen every single PR thing there is.  Oh, pretty darn close, but not quite 100%.  I've seen seasons 1-10, most of them more than once.  I've seen PR All-Stars 1-3. I've seen a couple of episodes of season 11, a tiny bit of season 12, and as much of season 13 as I could tolerate.  I haven't seen the Under the Gunn show, but I plan on watching that.  Maybe it'll be fun.

For the record, the basic premise of this reality show is that 16 contestants are shipped to New York and forced to create an outfit based on some kind of twist or challenge.  The best outfit wins, and the worst one sends its designer packing.  The last few contestants (3 or 4) get to design a small collection and show it at New York's Fashion Week, and the best collection becomes the winner of Project Runway, with cash, cars, sewing supplies, and other fun, fashion related things.  It's hosted by Heidi Klum, and her fellow judges are Nina Garcia, Michael Kors (later replaced with Zac Posen) and a celebrity guest judge of some kind.

George Lucas Disease: A Commentary

Hey y'all.  So George Lucas gets a lot of crap for ruining the Star Wars franchise.  The original trilogy he created back in the day was a fun romp through a science fiction world, and a great classic adventure.  And then he created the prequels, which ended up being everything the originals were not: boring, overly digital, unexciting, and having a plot so complicated no one's really sure what happened.  No one cares, that's for sure.

So what happened?  Did Lucas' head get too big?  Did he care more about the money than doing his job?  Is he really a terrible storyteller who needed lots of help from other people to create the original trilogy?  Well, I would like to submit that George Lucas is an extreme example of what can happen to potentially any writer.  Hence, George Lucas disease.

But wait, you protest, how dare I ascribe to all writers the possibility of Lucas' decrescendo? Lucas obviously lost his touch, and that doesn't happen to everyone.  Yes, it doesn't.  Not to that extreme.  It is, however, something that can happen when a writer works too much on one franchise or that franchise becomes extremely popular.  Chances are, a writer won't fall nearly as hard as Lucas, but keep in mind that Lucas had a much higher cliff to fall from; Star Wars is a franchise with lots of expectations on it.  Few writers reach that level.

So what is George Lucas disease?  It's the swelling of a story franchise to the point where people are sick of it, and the writer is incapable going interesting new directions.  There are many causes to it, but the results are all the same; people (besides uber fans) stop caring.

Reviewing Spawn Year

Hey y'all.  So one of the channels I'm subscribed to on Youtube is Geekvolution, a channel where a guy, Captain Logan (as he calls himself), and his friends commentate on movies, television, and whatnot.  I originally found the channel through his "Treksperts" videos, where he nerds out about Star Trek.  There's something inherently relaxing about reviews for me, and it's nice to have longer videos to play in the background when I'm doing something, so that there's a "noise" going on.  While playthroughs of Starcraft are generally my go-to for sewing projects, Starcraft has only four games at this point.  I have to have a spare something.

Captain Logan generally comments on Pixar films, superhero films, and television shows like Arrow. Since he does a lot of content, there's always something on his channel I can put on when I'm bored. By far, my favorite of the reviews he does, besides his Star Trek stuff, is his year long project, Spawn Year.  Spawn is a comic written (most of the time) by Todd MacFarlane, and apparently was pretty popular at one time.  I didn't know much about it before, but Spawn comics and toys appeared in my used bookstore from time to time.  They never looked appealing at all.

But Captain Logan is into comics, and given that Spawn was really popular, it makes sense that this would get a review.  Despite never being tempted to read Spawn, Cap really drew me in with a creative premise: it's New Year's Eve, and, after telling his wife he'll hang out with her in a minute, continues to work on reviewing Spawn.  However, one last Mountain Dew later, and he sinks into a sugar coma, waking in purgatory.  The evil DoomsVince, the clone he created of his best friend, tells him he can leave, but only if he reviews one Spawn related item every day for a year.  If he fails, he has to be buried alive in Spawn products for all of eternity.  Since DoomsVince hates Captain Logan, he continually does things throughout the year to get him to stop reviewing.