I had the pleasure of going to NYCC 2011. It was from October 13th through the 16th. This event had a soundtrack all its own. There is the obvious music of the video games being featured – like Just Dance 3 and Dance Central 2, which succeed or fail purely based on if the soundtrack is varied enough for dance fans of all kinds to enjoy. Then there are the less obvious sounds of background music from the many other types of games being shown from the familiar chime of the finding a treasure chest in the new Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword to the more classical sounding period piece music from Assassins Creed: Revelations. These sounds being mixed with that of movie trailers playing, people chatting, and much more gave the convention a soundtrack all its own. A completely unique to this experience. During the course of NYCC 2011, I had the pleasure of meeting the guys from Kirby Krackle who were super nice and gave me their info so I could interview them. More to come on that in the near future. Here is their Facebook to check out.
Here is one of my favorite songs by them called “Ring Capacity”
One of the things I got to see at NYCC 2011 was the panel for Arkham City. The panelists were Game Director Sefton Hill, Audio Developer Nick Errandale, the voice of Batman himself, Kevin Conroy, and the lead singer of Coheed & Cambria, Claudio Sanchez, who worked on the song Deranged for the soundtrack of the game. It was great to hear these gentlemen talk about one the most anticipated superhero games ever. What struck me as most interesting was listening to Claudio talk about Batman not only as someone who worked on the soundtrack but also as just a fan of the character. I could go on about what they talked about as far as the game goes, but there are other articles who have done that plenty of justice. I want to talk in detail about Claudio and Nick’s involvement in the project. The song “Deranged” by Coheed and Cambria is the featured song on the soundtrack. Claudio talked about how excited and nervous he was when he first got offered this because he was such a fan of the content. He wanted to write this song from the perspective of The Joker and write a song that best reflected the constant struggle between The Dark Knight and the Clown Prince of Crime and the symbiotic relationship between these two characters. Nick also talked about the symbiotic relationship between Batman and his rogues gallery of enemies; when he was developing the main theme for Batman and the other villains, the player can hear that they are only a few chords off from each other. They sound similar without being the same to play on this symbiosis between the characters. Nick went on to talk about how some of the most iconic sounds from the universe were some of the most stressful to create, like the sound of Batman’s cape as he opens it to glide (a “wachunk” sound as he specifically called it). Listening to the main theme now, as I write this article having completed Arkham City, brings back a rush of emotions I felt playing the game and makes want to run over to my Xbox 360 and pop it in again. That is powerful song writing.
Here is “Deranged” check it out:
And this is the Main Theme of the game:
All in all, New York Comic Con 2011 was an amazing experience and I very much look forward to being there again next year. I’ll leave you with this picture of my friends and I cos playing as some of the cast from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. 
