Games that reference iconic rockers, pop stars, rappers, etc. in non-playable roles (so no Beatles Rock Band, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, Def Jam Vendetta, etc.) What I’m really interested in is something like this poster from Gitaroo Man for a band called “The Beans” referencing Abbey Road…
Then there are cameos like Ozzy’s in Brutal Legend which are of some interest while, for instance, David Bowie in Omikron: The Nomad Soul is not since he’s appearing as an actor in a role that has nothing to do with his rock star persona(s)
Knowing very little of Guilty Gear and even less about Enuff Z’Nuff, I had to educate myself and learn that fighter Chipp Zanuff is based on bassist Chip Z’nuff + Billy Idol and that his theme song is called ‘Suck a Sage’. Nice.
incidntally, rip-off is one of the t-rex songs that gets stuck in my head the most, along with metal guru and cosmic dancer. pretty much the entirety of electric warrior.
I guess a Koopaling with Paul Stanley’s eye makeup and Morton Downey Jr.'s name is what you get when you leave it up to a guy at NOA called Dayvv E. Brooks:
"Music has always been a big part of my life. I’ve been a DJ for years and have been a music collector for even longer. When I first saw the group of seven Koopalings, music was on my mind.
The hairstyle on one of them reminded me of Ludwig von Beethoven for some reason and Ludwig von Koopa was born. Next was the one with the glasses—that has to be Roy Koopa in homage to Roy Orbison, who almost always wore glasses. Then Wendy O. Koopa (Wendy O. Williams) [and] Iggy Koopa (Iggy Pop). One looked like a loudmouth, so he was Morton Koopa Jr. from [the] loud-mouthed talk show host Morton Downey Jr. And then there was Larry. There’s no real-world equivalent—he’s not Larry Mullen Jr. from U2 or Larry King—he just looked like a Larry.
That brings us to Lemmy. In addition to being a great name, it’s perfect for a video game character. This Koopaling struck me as being the kind of character who would do his own thing, no matter what anyone else thought. I think it was those crazy eyes. Lemmy Koopa was in the crew."
I guess Guilty Gear’s a pretty obvious case for references. I always liked that Zappa was a total weirdo. Seems like the references usually had some weird internal logic to them so the rockstar would come through in the character in some way.
One of the weirder music/game connections is the Suggestion that Guy from Final Fight is modeled after Guy Picciotto from Rites of Spring and Fugazi with that chin. The game does feature a character based off of Willem Defoe’s fishing waiter-wearing villain from Streets of Fire, so I guess why not?
Also I dunno if you really want to do music references (as in, the game music references some other non-game music) in this thread cause there’s already a whole thread full of those somewhere else I’m too lazy to find
i was watching a let’s play of the first silent hill game this afternoon and it turns out that the local middle school’s teaching staff appears to consist of 3/4ths of Sonic Youth
My avatar on SB1 is frozen in time as the Silent Hill Kim Gordon key, which was the FKW replacement for my previous Kim Gordon in NBA Jam avatar. It doesn’t really read very well and will give future internet archeologists even more reason to dismiss my posts.
