It’s fair to say that I’m not a gamer anymore than someone who’s taken a single guitar lesson is a musician. But I grew up with video games and still enjoy some occasional downtime in front of my XBOX 360 playing a little Halo or Modern Warfare. My girlfriend is entirely too generous and understanding of my occasional geekdom and fortunately was fond of saying that “geeks are the new sexy” before it became popular to think that way. So this past weekend she got us tickets to see “Video Games Live” at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas. Now before you start getting all judgmental on the state of my nerdia, indulge me in why this was a pretty cool experience then ridicule me the comments if you want.
Vide Games Live is an immersive concert experience featuring video, smoke machines and a bit of a video game carnival atmosphere. The concert features a full symphony orchestra, choir, vocal soloist Laura “Flute Link” Intravia (who also plays solo flute exceedingly well) and the host and co-creator of “Video Games Live” Tommy Tallarico playing electric guitar on a few of the pieces.
“Video Games Live” takes you on a tour from the early days of video games (Pong anyone?) to the modern cinematic video games we once could only dream about. There is a lot of interaction from the audience during the show, which is encouraged, and it’s a casual symphony experience which is a great way to introduce kids to the art.
I was also a little shocked at how many girl gamers were there. Now I know that a lot of girls play games but I was surprised that the ratio of boys-to-girls seemed to be about 50/50, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the guys were out-numbered, of the 8 seats in our box only 2 of us were male. (Notably they also had a live Frogger playoff between two audience members and the Girl won pretty soundly).
It was fun to relive the music of Donkey Kong and Frogger from my quarter dropping youth but without a doubt the highlight was the truly majestic and cinematic scores that often accompany modern video games. Scores from games such as Diablo, Halo and the ever popular Final Fantasy can easily rival all but the best film scores in their depth and quality. There were a number of games I didn’t recognize but whos musical pieces made me want to go buy the soundtrack. Chrono-Cross (I think, and which I’ve never heard of) was a particularly beautiful and melodic piece.
It was also fun to watch the videos and see, side-by-side, just how far things have come. We owe a debt of thanks to the video game industry for pushing computers and graphics, and giving us the awesome computing & entertainment options we now have.
If you think video games are just for kids consider this:
- The release of Halo 3 was the largest single day event (from a revenue perspective) in entertainment history.
- Games can cost tens-of-millions of dollars to produce, Halo 3 was reportedly in the $40 – $60 Million range.
- Halo 3 employed over 300 people to produce.
Those sound like big-boy numbers to me!
Even if you’re still skeptical listen to a few of the pieces below, you might be surprised at how beautiful the music is!
