This Thanksgiving be thankful for Mass Effect

Mass Effect is pushing the envelope of what is considered "next-gen" with its graphics, and is highly anticipated for its life-like conversations that are controlled by the player. A release date has finally been announced, November 20th, which places it squarely at the beginning of the holiday shopping season.

From the creators of the critically-acclaimed “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” and “Jade Empire,” comes an epic space saga for Xbox 360 that spans the entire galaxy. Combining RPG and tactical action elements, “Mass Effect” offers an engaging mix of gameplay set against a deep, multi-directional story.

“With ‘Mass Effect,’ BioWare is delivering an incredible next-gen gaming odyssey. Our fans will journey through a vast, futuristic universe as they are challenged to make impactful decisions that will determine the very fate of the galaxy,” said Ray Muzyka, chief executive officer, BioWare Corp. Added Greg Zeschuk, president of BioWare Corp., “The best games bring players into an immersive, realistic world that is fun to explore from beginning to end. We’ve achieved that in ‘Mass Effect’ by putting the player at the center of a compelling, cinematic storyline full of realistic characters and hundreds of exciting locations.”

A $60 game is not an easy purchase for most people, but the RPG elements allow the game to played in several different ways, with varying outcomes. By releasing before "Black Friday" on November 23rd, they guarantee the game will be available to be picked up by boys and men alike that are looking for a quality title to get or give this Christmas.

Realm Media Networks interviewed the man behind the music of Mass Effect, Jack Wall, when he visited Dallas with Video Games Live.

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Jack Wall discusses his work on Video Games Live, Myst and Mass Effect

Jack Wall is an award-winning video game composer who is well known in the industry for his engaging soundtracks. From older titles like Myst III to more recent titles like Splinter Cell: Pandora Tommorow, his music captures the feeling of the game, and enhances the experience beyond what graphics alone can do. He has also co-created Video Games Live with Tommy Tallarico, and has been conducting symphonies all over the world since the show began in 2005. Video Games Live brings music from both classic and current titles to life through orchestrated music and a synchronized video presentation.

Upon Video Games Live coming to Dallas, Texas, Realm Media Networks was able to sit down with Jack Wall and discuss some of career as well as what he has planned for the future.

Realm Media Networks: To start with something a little more specific about what you do: not every video game theme was ever designed to have this big orchestral sound. Donkey Kong never had a wind section, a string section...

Jack Wall: (Laughs) Really?

RMN: How do you approach reworking games like that for Video Games Live?

JW: Well, you can orchestrate anything. Just because the part isn't there doesn't mean you couldn't put it there and make it make musical sense. So, that's kind of our approach. When you learn how to orchestrate in college, you basically take a piano piece, for example, and as an exercise you'll add voices to create a full orchestration. and of course that's need to be applied big time when it comes to Pong, for example, which is just bleeps and bloops when the ball hits the paddle. You figure out some creative ways to do that, and that's how it works. That's kind of what we do. And then of course there's pieces that were all bleeps and bloops like Zelda and Mario that were orchestrated for the orchestra, and they sound like they were written for the orchestra. So certain melodies certainly lend themselves to that sort of treatment. And then beyond the classic arcade era, we start getting into the classic games on the console. I mean, that's kind of what happens. And then some of the more modern stuff was originally recorded with an orchestra.

RMN: For example, Myst 3. That was a big departure from the previous installments. Instead of it just being synthesized sound that was just ambient noise, it was a real soundtrack with vocalists. Was there any initial trepidation from changing over like that and making it a more dynamic soundtrack?

JW: Yeah, I think that certainly I was worried about it, but the publisher, that happened in an era when the publisher was looking for somebody to guide what the music track would be. Their approach to hiring a composer was: who was going to have a real vision for what the score should be? And so when I did the score I actually wrote up a design document for how the score was to be written and played in the game. And there was a couple factors that enabled us to add melody orchestration, vocals, things like that to the score of Myst 3 over say Riven and Myst. The biggest factor was the simple fact that the technology had advanced. We could play pretty much full quality symphonic music, and the audio engines were advanced enough to handle what I wanted to do. I definitely got on the phone with Robyn Miller who wrote the original scores and created the game with his brother Rand. And we talked about it. He said, "No I don't care what you do." I sort of got his permission to do what I wanted to do. And he said "No, I didn't write melody into the score at all" because he found that it detracted from the experience. And having played the games and being a big fan of the series, I loved the music, but the one drawback I felt was... that there wasn't a hook, ever, in the music. It was just this ambient kind of sound going through it. It was beautiful, and it really gave it a kind cool vibe and everything. But I definitely wanted to add in some light motif, and I actually did a heavy analysis of every track that Robin wrote, and tried to pick out little melodies that he didn't really intend to be melodies. Atrius's theme for example, Atrius's theme was originally played in his office, like when you first when to his place. And I orchestrated for Myst 4, I orchestracted a six minute piece for that, I think I had a three minute piece in Myst 3, and it was all built off of that motif. I did what I could with that, and then the technology for the engine itself... I created this sort of sequencer, I designed it and worked with a programmer. I started with the original idea of a game audio engine which was what they call loops and stingers, where they have a looping piece of music and then they would just put little stingers on top, and it was very simplistic engine, and I took that and expanded on it. I would write a melody, and then I would chop it up into phrases and have them play in sequence, but at random intervals so it wasn't too distracting. Because that's what Robin didn't like about melody, right? But it also gave it a personality. And then as you play through the game we designed it so that it would come in right at the right time, we never really really get sick of that music. We actually had the music go away, completely, for a while, which never happened in Myst 3 either. It always played, everytime you went back to the same place it would play the same thing. So we just had this kind of meandering score going on, and then it would go away. And then after you were in an area for a while it would start to creep back in again. It was very effective.

RMN: When you're doing that, where do you get inspiration besides the previous melodies and little pieces you pick out?

JW: Well, of course we get artwork and things like that, and they're all like "Hey, don't worry too much about the original scores from Myst and Riven, just kind of do you're thing." What I did was go through all of Myst and Riven and not only did I pick out the melodies and things like that, and I picked out the palette that Robyn used. And then I took that basic palette which was things like certain drones, certain... I'm trying to remember, it was a while ago. I took certain instruments that he had used and I expanded on that palette with some ethnic instruments, an orchestral choir... And then when we got to Myst 4, I did the same thing, I expanded that palette to this Eastern European thing cause we had female monks, and I thought, you know the Bulgarian Women's Choir was always, I was always a big fan of them. And if you've never heard them you should definitely check them out, they're amazing. The most amazing vocalists you'll hear, and their style...