What's Hotta And What's Notta

Going to be a short one today (Famous last words...) because I don't have time for a long one and I haven't bookmarked much for the Grab Bag that this is going to have to be. Oh well, onwards and outwards or whatever it is...

Wotta Hotta

Did you know the studio behind the best-named game we're likely to see for a very long whle also has a great name? I didn't until yesterday, when I read this at MassivelyOP. 

The game, of course, is Neverness To Everness, which might just be my favorite game name ever. The studio is called Hotta, which is a very good, memorable name although for once not as good as the game they're making. Have you ever noticed how studios tend to give themselves much better names than they give to their games?

The news is that both beta sign-ups and pre-registrations are open for everyone. The closed beta is global and so is the game, thank heaven. 

I signed up and pre-registered immediately. Literally immediately. I went straight from the MOP page to the website and did the thing. I was that excited.

Only problem was, I couldn't tell if it worked. It was a super-simple process, just an email address and a confirmation code to paste back in. I was expecting a questionnaire and there was the briefest flash of a question about where I was located in the world but it shot off the screen in a micro-second and the whole thing ended, saying it was done. I tried resubmitting my details just in case something had gone wrong but I got told I'd done it already

And that was that. Since then, nothing. I'm used to getting a welcome email right after signing up but not here. It is possible, now I come to think of it, that Hotta already had my details. This may not be the first time I've tried to register my interest. 

Not that I actually want to beta test the thing anyway, you understand. I just want to plaaaaaaaay.

Sorry, I sounded about thirteen then. Still, nice to be excited about a game for once.

Crossover Artist

I don't get too many opportunities to cross the streams between gaming and music here. I am not much of a fan of music in games. No matter how good it sounds when I'm playing, it's very, very rare for anything I hear in a game to sound anything other than just okay at best if listened to on its own. 

Music is famously effective at bringing back memories, so listening to game music on its own can make me remember the fun I had when I played but that's a side-effect at best. The problem as far as I'm concerned is that the very great majority of all music made for games is instrumental and I hardly ever listen to instrumental music by choice. And if I did, it very definitely wouldn't be the kind of cod-classical, orchestral scores that burble along in the background of most games I play.

The shortcomings of game music, though, is a topic for a different post. One I probably should have written before this, now I come to think of it. I'll have to add it to the list.

This isn't about that, it's about a very odd news item that popped up in the NME the other day. I haven't seen it come up anywhere else so I thought I'd share.

Apparently, Caroline Polachek, the much plaudited, hard-to-pigeonhole solo artist and ex-lead singer of  cult favorites Chairlift, has written a song specifically for the sequel to the much-plaudited but never played by me game, Death Stranding. 

In fact, she's doing the title number. It's called "On The Beach". 

The game is called "Death Stranding 2: On The Beach", which is a weird title if you ask me. I can't hear "On The Beach" without thinking of the ultra-depressing, why not just kill yourself, Neville Shute novel. Apparently Death Stranding auteur Hideo Kojima is "a big fan" of Caroline's and the pair of them got into some kind of mutual appreciation thing online that ended up with her asking him if she could write something for the sequel and him saying hell yeah!

The Death Stranding franchise, in contrast, has Caroline Polachek, Chvrches and Woodkid and maybe Nine Inch Nails and Bring Me The Horizon, too. I constantly see comments on YouTube threads for every kind of indie obscurity, thanking the likes of FIFA and GTA for introducing them to some tiny act they'd never have heard of otherwise. I'm clearly playing the wrong games when it comes to music. 

As I said, just about every game I play has faceless instrumental music behind it, some of which works wonderfully to enhance the gameplay or the narrative but none of which I ever think of for a second after I log out. Mostly it's because I play a lot of MMORPGs, I guess. The gameplay there is so endless and endlessly repetitive it demands music that can be ignored. 

I think the only MMO I've played that has real music from out in the world inside it is Once Human and I absolutely love it there. Clearly it can be done. I can see how contemporary sounds might not fit a high-medieval setting but there's no excuse for modern-day or science fiction MMOs. Come to think of it, The Secret World has that record store...

Yeah, I really ought to think about doing a whole post on this. I mean, I just drafted it ...

And that's it for game news. Since we're on the subject of music already anyway, though, I guess I'll just throw out a couple of good tunes and call this done.

 

 

Free Association - Friendship

Now, this is the sort of thing I could imagine in the background of an MMORPG. It could easily be looped to play indefinitely. That's a compliment, by the way. People do that nowadays to songs they really like.

I'd do it to this one. It's from their upcoming album with the great title "Caveman Wakes Up", which I thought was the name of the song until I wrote this post. I dunno if there is a song on the album called Caveman Wakes Up. I hope so.

Cloud Without Tear - R. Missing

Only went up on YouTube eight hours ago so don't try and tell me you heard it already. I think my aunt used to have a sofa like that.

 Diet Pepsi - Blondshell

I wouldn't hang about with this one. Listen to it right now. I've been waiting a week for it and I'm going to have to figure out some way of downloading it before it disappears because I wouldn't count on it staying on YouTube long. Thanks a million to Sonny Graham for uploading it (All the comments are people thanking him.)

What it is is a cover Blondshell did for the weird in-car-only radio station SiriusXM. I had to look up what that was and I still don't really get it. That's get it as in understand it. Get it as in get to hear it... not a chance in hell.

I'm hoping it'll eventually come out in some format I can acquire legally. It's a great song and she's killing it. Shame it cuts off before the end but at least there's what there is.

And finally, since we just had my second-favorite current artist (No prizes for guessing #1), why not have the second runner-up too?

 Devotion - Sunday (1994)

They have a new EP out of the same name. Every track is genius. Her lyrics especially. She's a wonderful writer.

I just bought the first album on CD. I had to go to an independent online record store for it because even though it's a major label release (AristaRCA) it's not on Amazon. I mean, the album itself is - I could listen to it on Amazon Music or buy the MP3 download but the CD? Nope. What's that about?

Modern music distribution is at one and the same time incredible and abysmal. I can get anything for nothing any time but try to buy something to keep and it's a duck shoot. Oh well, I did get it, eventually, so I'm happy. I guess I'll have to make do with a download of the EP though...