There are certainly a lot going on in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Well, actually, there's already too much happening in the game. As a result, a few tracks didn't see that light of day. For this update, we present you The Lost Tracks. Details can be found by clicking on the "read more" link.

We got a double whammy for you on Nintendo's much awaited Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Nintendo's Wii. For this update, the treats we have for you are the Super Mario Bros. Ground Theme and some Nostalgia-inducing screenshots of the Mushroomy Kingdom.

Catch the theme and screenshots after the jump!

Whether it's Turkey Day or Christmas, we feel the need to thank the greatest figures in video game history for their contributions that made gaming as fun as it is today. For decades, we've seen creative minds emerge and bring forward games that amaze the world, but they don't get much recognition. But now, we have enough time to list down some of the greatest geniuses behind phenomenal landmarks like Mario, Wolfenstein 3D, and even The Sims.

Geoff Keighley, host of Gametrailers' special feature Bonus Round, is back as Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter and Japanese games importer Pink Godzilla co-owner Nathan Paine discuss what's hot in Japan, and why American games have never been big in the land of the rising sun. You'll find a lot of interesting bits, much Nintendo love, and the secret of Japanese developers in making games that explode worldwide.

Pachter believes western developers, American or European, know how to please their respective audiences, and there's no reason to snatch an idea or two from Japanese game creators. Publishers in the west follow effective formulas to sell, he said.

He went on, saying only odd or Americanized Japanese games will sell outside Japan. Another worth noting is how, according to Pachter, gamers think of Sony and Microsoft when talking about games, and Nintendo is just an afterthought.

Paine, however, expressed his confidence in Japanese games right off the bat. He doesn't think there'll be any gaming industry in the U.S. today if it wasn't for Japan, particularly Nintendo which revitalized gaming after the 1983 crash. With the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) synonymous to fun back in the day, and Mario being the first widely popular superstar from a video game, it's difficult not to agree.

Paine mentioned other Japanese game franchises that have been successful worldwide, like Metal Gear, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, and the likes. After naming Square Enix, Konami, and Capcom as the big three developers and publishers, he pointed at the three F's that make their titles hit: fun, fantasy, and freedom. By freedom, he meant how Japanese developers are able to be creative and are not obligated to make movie tie-ins or yearly football games.

For the U.S., the three R's come into play: rockets, realism, and rights. Realism is all about how Americans love their games oozing with detail in eye-bleeding graphics, while rights concern acquiring copyrights or licenses.

Rockets symbolize the hunger of American gamers to shoot things and cause big explosions, something that the Japanese don't like. Simply put, as Paine learned from Nintendo's Koji Kondo, gamers in Japan don't like mindless violence. Metal Gear Solid games, for example, pits players in the shoes of a super agent involved in political affairs. Good and evil forces battling each other like in Gundam games are also more attractive to Japanese gamers than murdering the covenant en masse.

To find out more, check out the Bonus Round by clicking on the Read link below.

All this hype and build-up for the coming Tokyo Game Show is getting us tense. So, to wind down before the storm of updates, confirmations, and gossip clean-up, we bring you some light content for Sunday leisure reading to cap the week. Well, not so much of leisure reading as it is leisure listening and watching.

This is RobinHoodFR's take on the Hyrule Field main theme from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. What's impressive about this piano version? Well, if you haven't played the game, much less heard the Hyrule Field theme, it's as orchestraic as you can get - complete with drums, flutes, bass, and violins (unless this blogger needs his ears checked).

Now think all those instruments but only recreated on the piano. That's the hook here. Yes, it's not Wind Waker's Great Sea theme, but impressive nonetheless. Given how musically complex the original piece by Koji Kondo is, this guy's put in some serious effort to play this tune out.

Our hats off to RobinHoodFR for some good music this weekend! Definitely brings back memories of all those times we went Golden Bug hunting and Heart Piece searching all over Hyrule.

In an interview with Koji Kondo, Kikizo was able to delve into the mind of Nintendo's Beethoven of game music and extract a few things that inspires the legendary music composer and director to create scores for games he works on. For a musician, he looks only to more music to inspire him for more varieties of musical scores.

 

But most musicians, especially some independent game developers, have a limited musical influence - a core influence, to put it bluntly. This influence keeps our game music selection very limited. Hard rock or techno may not strike pretty well with, for example, slow-paced puzzle games.

But essentially, like game conceptualization, a creator has to broaden his mind and his choice of options. Kondo may have started out with Punch Out up to the phenomenal Super Mario theme, but he also looks to other forms of music as well. He stated in one part of the interview:

I guess it's just different with each piece that I create, and what piece for what game, but there are lots - nothing really specific. Basically, I am always looking for inspiration in different places, in all the music that I listen to - I try to find things that inspire me.

...To name names, someone that I find very inspiring and someone I admire a lot is Mr. Henry Mancini, who is a movie music composer. I really like the different genres that he's able to do, to incorporate into his music, and I really finds his melody line to be very inspirational. I would love to be able to create music on that level.

Kondo creates his music in parallel with development, often gaining ideas for musical scores based on finalized concepts, such as the game's characters. And just as he had mentioned many times before, he creates a musical score as a whole, adopting it to a single theme. All individual pieces are then weighed for coherence, balance and flow, to create a memorable music experience.

Koji Kondo is currently at work on Wii Music, soon to come out for avid musical composers on the Wii.

Aside from actually seeing the latest technological innovations and trying the latest and upcoming video game titles, another cool thing about attending game conferences is that you get to meet and hear from the industry's big shots. We have some bad news for Koji Kondo fans, though...

Yesterday, we had a report on GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Australia, which currently boasts of a commanding list of speakers. Quite unfortunately though, Nintendo's resident composer and musician Koji Kondo said that he couldn't make it to the said event. Aside from missing GO3, his cancelled trip to Australia will also be affecting his publicity drive for "PLAY! A Video Game Symphony," which is set to be performed in Sydney's Opera House this June.

"Koji Kondo was looking forward to speaking and attending the conference. Unfortunately it is with much regret that due to an unforeseen clash of work commitments, Koji Kondo will no longer be able to make it to the GO3 conference," announced a spokeswoman from PLAY! in behalf of the music maestro.

Koji Kondo is mostly known for his work on the Super Mario Bros. series as well as the The Legend of Zelda series, dating back to as early as 1984. GO3 for this year will be focusing on the following topics:

• Problems facing the industry
• Future direction of the industry
• Latest technologies
• Licensing
• Publishing
• Game development
• Mobile gaming

Live remakes of gaming music aren't entirely new. From the professionals like Video Games Live to high school bands just having fun, seeing videos of these kinds of stuff are always a treat, especially for a Nintendo geekoid (me included). Over at Kotaku, Andrew (the guy in the Mario suit) sent in a video of his high school percussion band doing a retro medley of NES songs. Their repertoire: Zelda (Intro and Labyrinth), Double Dragon (Riot - Industrial Area), Super Mario Bros. (Underworld, Overworld, Invincibility, and Game Over).

To cap things off, the percussionists are fully choreographed (all of them, including the guys up front and the marching band at the back), with matching video game cosplay to boot. Try to see if you can recognize them. We'll leave that up to you to decipher. If anything, their repertoire of songs should give you a clue as to their individual costumes. *wink wink*

All the effort sure paid off. They won first place in their Everglades High School Winter Percussion band competition. We're not surprised. They deserve it. Way to go guys! Send us any word if Koji Kondo and Nobou Uematsu contact you guys or something. They might want to take you guys under their wing.

We all know by now that Hideo Kojima, the brains behind Metal Gear Solid, will be at Australia's GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo 2007. Now, GO3 organizers have revealed that renowned composer, Koji Kondo, has been confirmed as a guest speaker at GO3. Now, we wonder if a Video Game Live concert isn't far in the organizers' plans...

Unless you've been living under a rock for like forever and you don't know who Koji Kondo is, he is a composer of some of the most recognizable themes and soundtracks of Nintendo games. Other speakers for the said event are Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Epic Games producer Rod Fergusson, and Masaya Matsuura (creator of Parappa the Rapper).

We'll be giving more updates about the upcoming G03 Expo as more info comes our way.

Paired with Shigeru Miyamoto (a.k.a. the Einstein of game design), Koji Kondo forms the winning team for Nintendo's game development camp. Kondo, who discussed his game music composition secrets at the Game Developers Conference last week, also can be remembered for his piano solo performance at the Video Games Live concert.

But Koji never started out wanting to be a game music composer. In fact, he started out as a pianist, after pursuing that direction in his life at the age of five. Tapping into his love for keyboards, he was drawn into the popularity of synthesizer boards and MIDI-capable computers. Soon, he was able to code BASIC programs for creating music on his own PC.

Suddenly hooked into the idea of music from computers, he jumped at every opportunity to play local arcade games like Miyamoto's classic (but newly released back then) Donkey Kong.  Kondo said, "I was really interested in them, because they were the only place where you could find the kind of sound creation I was looking for."

He joined Nintendo in 1984, where he was instantly put at work to create music for the bout-classic Punch-Out. Soon after, he found himself tasked with coming up with six cohesive, but whole pieces for Super Mario Bros., which was under development then.

If you can guess which song he found the most trouble creating, you'd probably have picked the main theme. As he had discussed in his game music composition lecture, he had to tie the rhythm down in order to match Mario's energetic running and jumping. But after pulling it off, Super Mario Bros. as a whole became a title to remember: in gameplay, story, and song.

If you've got the time, hop over to the Billboard ringtone charts. Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. theme still jingles there for 126 weeks (topped the charts once) and still running.