Thanks to GameTrailers and Xfire, all you video gamers can now vote for your favorite video game soundtracks for the upcoming 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. The '06 VMAs will feature two new categories: "Best Video Game Soundtrack," and "Best Video Game Score." Fans can vote from July 31 to August 28. While the winners will not be announced during the VMAs itself, they will be announced during VMA LIVE UNCENSORED on MTV Overdrive on August 31.

The nominees are:

Best Video Game Soundtrack:

Fight Night: Round 3 (EA/EA Sports)
Burnout: Revenge (EA/Criterion)
NBA 2K6 (2K Sports)
Driver: Parallel Lines (Atari/Reflections Interactive)
Marc Ecko's Getting Up (Atari)


Best Video Game Score:

Hitman: Blood Money (Jesper Kyd)
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (Tom Salta)
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (Leon Willet)
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Jeremy and Julian Soule)
Electroplankton (User-generated soundtrack)

Which game do you want to bring home the Moonman? Log on to GameTrailers.com or Xfire to vote now. Which game do you think will bring home the Moonman (or which games should have been included among the nominees)? Make bold predictions, quote odds, and otherwise comment on your favorite game soundtracks below.

Our previously reported Game Electroplankton hit stores today bringing the touch of music to all the music lovers out there. If your a music fan then you might want to give Electroplankton a try. Mix your own music via touch screen or speaking into the microphone, sounds can be sampled, manipulated, changed, and rearranged for someone of any age to create a #1 hit. Only the special features of the Nintendo DS make it possible for users to compose music, and being portable users can mix music anywhere and anytime a new beat pops into their head. Making music on the DS couldn't be any easier, simply pick one of 10 music making mods and create away. Designed by renowned Japanese electronic artist Toshio Iwai and rated E for everyone Electroplankton should be a big hit.

[Via, worthplaying]

If you're an international reader, you may have already played this game. But Americans will have to wait until January 9, 2006 to order this game/simulation/music generator. The title, developed by Nintendo, will only be available for purchase online via Nintendo.com or any other major e-tailer.

Anyone stoked for this? Less than a month to go.

In Electroplankton, art and music collide to create a wildly fresh interactive audio experience. Players will encounter 10 unique species that respond to their touch and voice to create unforgettable sounds and melodies. Interacting with this wide and wild variety of Electroplankton is as simple as sliding the stylus across the touch screen. Toy with Tracy plankton and listen to their music as they swim along drawn lines. Players clap their hands or use their voices to lead a microscopic synchronized swimming team of Nanocarp. There are 10 fascinating plankton to play with in all.

   

The latest work by world-renowned Japanese media artist Toshio Iwai, Electroplankton bursts to life exclusively on the Nintendo DS. A new interactive music and media experience awaits – watch it, touch it, listen to it ... and feel it.

   

How to progress: In Electroplankton, players poke, rub and draw on the touch screen to stimulate odd aquatic plankton and create their own music. Each of the 10 unique Electroplankton features a completely different sound and visual style:

Tracy: Draw lines through the water and listen as the plankton swim along the path to create mysterious music.

   

Hanenbow: Launch adorable plankton through the air and listen to the music they make as they bounce from leaf to leaf.

Luminaria: Tap arrows to create intricate paths the plankton will follow to create mesmerizing songs.

Sun-Animalcule: Use the stylus to plant plankton eggs. Marvel as they emit sound and light as they grow.

Rec-Rec: A plankton that acts as a sampler, allowing players to record up to four sounds and layer them over drum loops.

   

Nanocarp: Players clap their hands to set microscopic synchronized swimmers into action.

Lumiloop: Spin donut-shaped sea creatures with the stylus to hear them emit warm, humming tones.

Marine-Snow: Stir these delicate snow-crystal plankton to create haunting piano melodies.

Beatnes: Players tap these wriggling creatures to create their own funky NES

®

remixes.

   

Volvoice: Players use this plankton to record their voices (or any other sound they can think of), then warp and twist them beyond recognition.

Source: gamespy

Electroplankton, Nintendo's curiously unique experience for the DS, has been entertaining Japanese gamers for months. Now the company has announced that the game will make its U.S. debut on January 9th. However, if you're a DS owner looking to get your plankton groove on, don't go looking on store shelves for a copy of the game. In a press release, Nintendo surprised everyone by stating that Electroplankton will be sold exclusively online and at the Nintendo World Store in New York. According to the press release, the game will also be carried by "all major online retailers."

Created by renowned artist Toshio Iwai, Electroplankton breaks the traditional conceptions of what defines a video game by presenting a combination of art and music that unfolds in a different way with every touch of the screen. Players use the DS touch screen and microphone to interact with a series of unusual "electric plankton" in an underwater world. Through this interaction, the player creates what can best be described as a piece of interactive art.

"Electroplankton represents just one of the many ways that Nintendo is developing new kinds of software to reach new audiences," said George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Even if you have never played a video game, you can pick it up and start making amazing musical combinations with no instruction."

So far, there's no word on if and when Nintendo will eventually release Electroplankton to standard "brick and mortar" storefronts. It will be interesting to see how well this online distribution model works for Nintendo, and if the company will try to release more games through this method.

Source: joystiq

Electroplankton has finally received a release date for the DS here in the States: January 9, 2006.

[UPDATE: The product page now lists the Release Date as “Announced” instead of 1/9/06. What’s unknown now is whether this pushes the game further back or moves it up to the mid-November dates seen on your typical retail web site. Thanks, Nintendo Gal!]

The hard-to-describe music-interaction simulator (with cute digital creatures) fits perfectly with Nintendo’s recent strategy of releasing titles, like Nintendogs, which break the mold and don’t fit our traditional notions of what a game can really be. (Check out some “gameplay” videos here.)

 

If you’re put off by the primitive-looking graphics, keep in mind that ’plankton is the work of but one man, the “media artist” Toshio Iwai (who supposedly crafted the game’s Japanese manual as well). Get ready to sample some funky Mario remixes on your DS in the new year.

 

Source: gadgetmadness

I get addicted to cool things: Resident Evil 4, listening to the Figurines, you name it. My latest addiction is Electroplankton for the NDS. I recently imported it from Lik-Sang and can't put into words how much fun this super-sleeper is. This is the killer app Nintendo very much needs for the DS, and yet they haven't released it in the US yet!

To help put it into perspective: Electroplankton is like being pulled into a soothing yet fun underwater world of music, lights, and sounds. (NDS is region-free, which means Japanese games can be played on U.S. systems, and visa-versa.) The only title in recent memory that was this experimental was Seaman for the Sega Dreamcast, and even Seaman doesn't come close to this. I've demonstrated Electroplankton and handed my NDS to at least 10 people over the past few days, and every single one of them were enthralled by it. These were people who were young, old, gamers, ex-gamers, and never played a single game in their life. Every one of them were able to "get it" and were soon having a ball with it. I don't often recommend a product as strongly as this, but if you have an NDS, you must own Electroplankton. It's addictive and like nothing you've ever seen before. (If there is enough feedback on this post, I will post a demo video later. We don't really do game reviews, but this one is something else.) If they think the US audience won't understand Electroplankton, Nintendo need not be afraid. This title is a smash hit, easy enough for anyone, and addictive to all.

Buy Electroplankton w/ Headphones (Nintendo) For Nintendo DS / Japanese
Official Electroplankton Website
IGN: Electroplankton Preview

(Instructions and packaging are in Japanese, however are not needed to play.)