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Thanks from a last minute tip from a friend, I picked up tickets for Video Games Live here at Yale University for Saturday night. This was the first time VGL has been to a University and they packed in about 3000 people into Woolsey Hall. The concert lasted just over 3 hours and it was simply awesome. The song and arrangement selections were fun and inspiring. The pacing of the show was brilliant. They broke up the arrangements with interactive on stage contests, monologue, introduction from various video game composers and a 20 min intermission.

One part of the show was to bring up someone from the audience and have them win money from playing Space Invaders. The catch was the Orchestra would be playing the music in realtime and the person would have to play the game interactively. So you had to run around the stage to move your position on the screen. All they gave the kid was a firing button and a T-shirt to wear with the space invader ship on the back so it would like like the ship was moving on stage just like the screen. The kicker to this whole thing is the kid they brought up was about 350 lbs and the T-shirt they gave him was a medium at best, I don’t know who the hell he fit into this thing but it just added to the fun of the whole evening.

The highlight of the evening tho comes from the 104 year old pipe organ that the Video Game Pianist, Martin Leung, played different tracks from Castlevania on. Hearing Moonlight Nocturne was absolutely amazing.

I wish I got the Castlevania performance on video but i was so into it, I didn’t even stop to think until it was too late.

[Video of the Opening]
[Picture of the Stage]

Ikaruga, the pseudo-sequel to Radiant Silvergun, is probably the last great shooter. Originally released on the Dreamcast in Japan and then in the US on the Gamecube, it now looks like it may be headed to Xbox Live Arcade. The game has been seen in an unplayable form on the Xbox debug machines.

For those who haven’t played it, its a vertical shooter where you change “polarity” so you can absorb that color bullets. Its hard to explain but it makes it for a new (and difficult) twist on the classic shooter. I would love to see Radiant Silvergun come to XBL too but thats just wishful thinking.

First Castlevania: SOTN and now this. XBL is quickly becoming the “killer app” for the Xbox 360.

The September Issue of EGM (issue 207) is reporting that Konami’s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is headed to Xbox Live Arcade sometime Q1 of 2007. From what it looks like, it will be a port of the PlayStation version and not the Sega Saturn version. Oh well.

If this is true, this is a system seller for me. Castlevania is my all time favorite series and SOTN is up there next to Rondo of Blood as best game of the series. With titles like Galaga and Street Fighter II for XBLA already, I’m one good title away from going out and buying a Xbox360. Lets just hope that game is Guitar Hero II.