Music Genre Games example essay topic

INTRODUCTION The game I have chosen to critically examine is "Drummania 7th Mix" by Konami. The game is an arcade style music game in which the interface is an electronic drum kit. The user must play the appropriate drums corresponding to what is displayed on the screen. At two dollars a game it is relatively priced. The game is focused around the new phase of music genre games.

It involves the use of hand-eye co-ordination and requires a sense of rhythm. The arcade console consists of a Yamaha electric synthesised drum-kit, which is connected to the arcade machine, in which the player plays the drums to the music supplied. REVIEW Konami's 'Drummania' is very similar to other music genre games that are currently on the market and enjoying a period of relative popularity. The only requirement of these music genre games is a very basic sense of rhythm. The visual interface of Drummania is very expressive and exciting with bright flashing lights which gives the person playing the game the feeling that they are up on stage or out on the town having a great time. While doing research for this assignment I played several of the other music genre games available and found 'Drummania' to be superior in several important aspects...

Firstly the sense of realism in terms of the sound which is bass, big and very real and secondly the actual simulation makes you feel like you are really playing the drums and producing this sound. It is a proper drum kit set up which inspires the rock star in every young teenager. Another game I researched was the Guitar Game. This left me a bit cold, as it is not very realistic in terms of simulating the actions of playing the guitar. Rather than strumming the strings in a rhythm tic motion you are required to move a knob in an upward and downward motion. 'Drummania' is definitely superior in terms of realism.

The professional sound of the drum kit in 'Drummania' I believe contributes to the addictive ness of this game. It uses a Yamaha synthesised drum-kit, which is a top class instrument. The sound produced really sounds professional and makes the player believe that they can actually play the drums regardless of experience. Being an experienced drummer myself I am curious if this game has had input from professional percussionists or is it simply a high tech game of whack-a-mole?

Drummania is actually made for the Japanese market, as eighty percent of the game's text is written in Japanese script. This caused abit of difficultly as I could not understand the characters and as a result did not know the levels, stages or music I was selecting. I was playing with little idea of what settings I was selecting which did cause some confusion. Another difficulty I encountered also related to the musical text representation. The aim of Drummania is for the player to follow the music and play the appropriate drum when it is displayed on the screen. However because the game is in Japanese text the music on the monitor was set out to be read down the screen.

The Japanese language is read from the top of the page down to the bottom as opposed to the English language, which of course is read from left to right. This created a lot of difficulty as I found my eyes reading from left to right regardless of how hard I tried to go from top to bottom. However regardless of the above-mentioned frustrations and difficulties this game is extremely addictive and very popular. The Yamaha synthesised drum kit is of such good sound quality that no one can sound bad. I believe it makes people think that they have undiscovered talent. I found myself playing it for about 40 mins and then lining up again for another go.

The addictive nature of the game is definitely the selling point. I have not walked past the gaming parlour for some time now and seen this game vacant. CONCLUSION Overall this game has some very sound aspects. The Yamaha Synthesised Drum kit used is definitely one of these; producing such a good sound that no one can sound bad.

The fact that players sound so good with relative ease makes them want to continue over and over. It actually becomes quite addictive. However the down side is that the game is really for the Japanese market and its full potential will not be realised in Western countries unless an English version is produced. The fact that it does attract a large following regardless of nationality is proof that the game is sound and has incredible potential. The dynamics of the game actually transcend language and nationality. 'Drummania 7th Mix' is a very well designed, yet inadequately marketed game.

Taking into account all of its strengths as well as relative weaknesses the game has amazing potential. Being the 7th and by far the best in Konami's Drummania series, we can expect to see much bigger and better things coming from this series in the near future. n / a.