VGM of the Week #52

Somehow I got lucky enough to get the Sunday right before Halloween for my VGM of the Week so I knew I had to do something spooky. But what kind of spooky music can I pick being a guy who is too big of a chicken to play scary games?

Frantic Factory. That's what.



While Donkey Kong 64 is far from a scary game, the Frantic Factory stage used to scare the crap out of me when I was kid. I don't know, something about the dark corridors, the living toys, the giant machinery it was very atmospheric and that atmosphere was scary. I mean, when you're 10.

As an adult, I realize the reason I probably found this stage so creepy was because of the music. This little ditty is so chilling just in the way it presents itself. From the the wind-up toy noise at the beginning to the music-box like chimes that follow, it's very creepy and fits the stage brilliantly. It still kind of gives me the creeps even at 21 years old. But that also makes it my favorite music track in the game.

I love Donkey Kong 64 and I don't give a damn what anybody else thinks of it and this track is awesome.

The Top Ten Game Franchises That Need to Make a Comeback

The last few years have been pretty good years for older gaming properties. With the resurgence of sidescrolling games thanks to NEW Super Mario Bros. and the whole download market allowing developers to make smaller games, tons of game franchises both new and old are seeing revisits. Games like Rayman Origins, A Boy and His Blob, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Mega Man 9 & 10, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Yars’ Revenge and plenty of others have all brought attention back to long dead franchises. As well as other games returning still existing franchises back to their roots such as Sonic Generations, Donkey Kong Country Returns and Kirby’s Return to Dream Land. The point is, we live in a world where nostalgia rules, especially the gaming industry.

No, the other Bionic Commando reboot.

So it got me thinking about what other franchises I’d like to see get a facelift. There’s plenty of great gaming franchises from the past that are well deserving of making a comeback and for some, there’s no excuse. Not all of them need to be retail releases and most of them don’t even need to make the leap to three dimensions; all we need is for them to come back. So without further delay, let’s take a look at the ten game franchises I want to make a comeback.