Monday, May 28, 2012

Video Games Live Kuala Lumpur 2012

Video Games Live had a concert at Istana Budaya on both Saturday and Sunday night, and after having a great time at the last concert way back in 2010, I managed to convince a few fellow gamer friends to come along with me.

And it was gloriously fun.



At its core, Video Games Live is basically a concert started by Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall, that celebrates video game music performed by a live orchestra with video game footage and synchronized lighting and effects.

It's always hosted by Tommy Tallarico, who is a fantastic musician and excellent host, he always manages to entertain the audiences with his jokes, although I did notice that he reused a few jokes from the last concert.

But it doesn't matter, he really, REALLY knows how to rile up the audiences and get us all excited for any song.

Only at VGL, can they turn a Tetris Opera into something EPIC and AWESOME.

Quite a number of songs played were new, while some of the songs from the previous concert were used again, notably the Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross medley, Halo, Shadow of the Collosus, Castlevania, and my favorite (thanks to VGL 2010) is Snake Eater from Metal Gear Solid, partly because just like the last time, they managed to get FUCKING NORIHIKO HIBINO all the way from Japan to play this song!!

That man is a god on the saxophone.



The new songs that were played here included Mass Effect, Starcraft II, Lament of the Highborne from World of Warcraft, Liberi Fatali from Final Fantasy VIII, Pokemon (which according to Tommy Tallarico, was one of the most highly requested ever), a Mario medley and a Zelda medley (both performed by the lovely Laura Intravia aka Flute Link).

They also played music from Assassin's Creed II, but they played it with the cutscene with the sound effects and dialogue intact, which made it all the more awesome.

This cutscene to be exact.

They had a few interactive segments as well: two members from the audience got to play Frogger onstage; a Guitar Hero segment playing Foo Fighter's The Pretender and at the start of the show, there was a short cosplay competion featuring Frank West in his Lego head, Ghost (Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2), Tron, NCR guard (Fallout: New Vegas), Zero (Megaman Legends I think) and the Pyro (Team Fortress 2), however it was damn obvious who was going to win. The guy, or girl, who dressed up as the Pyro stayed in character through and through, eventually got the most cheers from us and won.

The concert ended surprisingly with Portal's Still Alive, but drove the crowd completely crazy. And we all got to sing along with the lyrics appearing on screen.


Shh....
Too bad they didn't play One Winged Angel (Final Fantasy VII) or the theme from Max Payne, that would've really made my night.

It was a great time.

This is one of those times that make me feel like I'm part of a great gamer community. The first concert took me by surprise, that there were so many gamers, just like me, excited over the prospect of having the chance to listen to their favorite video game music brought to life by a full orchestra.

So many gamers, just united by a single passion.

For just one night in Istana Budaya, we were all just gamers engulfed in joy.

Looking at this pic, brings me tears of joy, that there are that many people, just like me, who just love games.

Thank you Video Games Live, for a wonderful night.

I hope to see you guys again next year.

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