The videogame music thread

[ratsoalbion]

Music Monday: Rez
Fear (is the Mind Killer) - Area 5 - by Adam Freeland
http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-rez/

[hazeredmist]

Nice.

On the Mizuguchi tip, here's one of my favourites from Lumines 2 on PSP

[ratsoalbion]

Music Monday: ElektraGlide
RenderWare author Adam Billyard used to make Atari 8-bit games (and their tunes).
http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-elektraglide/

[ratsoalbion]

Music Monday: Bastion
http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-bastion/

After what felt like an interminable wait, SuperGiant Games’ finally released the gorgeous and lovely Transistor for PS4 and PC last week.

Like the studio’s 2011 debut Bastion (we discussed its isometric melancholy with guest Dan Bendon of Ready Up way back in issue 10 of the Cane and Rinse podcast), Transistor features Jen Zee‘s distinctive art and the music of Darren Korb (plus vocals from Ashley Barrett).

I really enjoyed Bastion the game, but even more its OST was one of my favourite albums of that year thanks to standout acoustic ballads like Build That Wall, Mother, I’m Here and powerful closer Setting Sail, Coming Home.

Tremendous stuff, however, Korb demonstrates some of his strongest composition skills on many of the instrumentals that can go partially unnoticed and somewhat unappreciated in-game while the player’s attention is on Rucks’ (Logan Cunningham) throaty narration and the sometimes hectic action.

[spasticmonkey2]

After blasting through Transistor this past weekend, I thought I'd share one particular track off the soundtrack (which is excellent)

I'd definitely recommend the game to anyone who enjoyed Bastion, as the gameplay is great

[Scrustle]

Had a bit of a journey in to videogame soundtracks today. First prompted by going back to play Mirror of Fate HD again for some reason. Just felt the urge to play that again, on the 360 this time. That got me thinking about the soundtracks for the games. I have the CD for LoS2, but have never really been entirely happy with it. It's missing several very prominent songs from the game, including my favourite. Never knew why that was, until today. I went looking for the soundtrack to the first game too, since I decided it was time to get that as well, and during that time I stumbled across a website that sells lots of game soundtracks digitally; sumthing.com. I had heard of them before, but it's not a site I was really consciously aware of. Turns out, they got their own special edition versions of both the LoS soundtracks, and that's where all the extra tracks from LoS2 had gone! So I decided to get both game's soundtracks from there. It's kind of annoying having to buy the same album twice to get the tracks I want, especially when they're hiding away on a relatively unknown site.

Anyway, I went exploring around their catalogue, and there was some pretty interesting stuff there. They had DMC4 for example. Turns out that soundtrack has forty tracks! I've always felt like those games don't really have a particularly large sountrack. You often hear the same few tracks over and over, but apparently there's forty of them in DMC4.

Another one that stood out to me was the Jade Empire soundtrack. I've always felt like it never really gets the recognition it deserves. It's pretty amazing. Just hearing this title theme makes me want to go back and start that game again. The intro drags on forever though. I've already got several old games that I've started a new file on and then just dropped. I shouldn't really add another. Same thing happened last time I tried to go back to the game a few years ago. I'm starting to think maybe I just can't enjoy the game like I used to back in the day. Still had a brilliant soundtrack though.

[Todinho]

After finnishing the Masterpiece that is Barkley Shut and Jam Gaiden the thing that strikes me the most is good the soundtrack is:

Here's the Main theme,take a guess to what it is:


Here's the boss theme my favorite theme in the game,sooo good!

[ratsoalbion]

Music Monday: Portal 2
http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-portal-2/

On the latest issue (130) of the Cane and Rinse podcast we talk about the three-pronged musical mash-up that further embellishes Valve’s already vividly realised Portal 2 world.

It makes sense to me then to neatly and conveniently lay out some of the highlights from an eclectic OST that covers a lot of emotional bases from intrigue, fear and discovery through to humour, melancholy and the bittersweet.

By the way, I wouldn’t recommend going any further (or listening to the podcast) if you haven’t played through Portal 2 yet. Spoiler potential, see?

The majority of the game is backed by Mike Morasky‘s (a fascinating polymath who, before making music for Valve games, was a visual effects technician/artist working on some of Hollywood’s biggest SFX pictures including Lord of the Rings, The Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean) oppressive score, Songs to Test By...[more]

[ratsoalbion]

Music Monday: Mario Kart
All of the Rainbow Road songs in one place. It's like a cheese fondue!
http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-mario-kart/

Having sunk something like thirty to forty happy, if sometimes sweary, hours into Mario Kart 8 this past week (including a highly successful Cane and Rinse online session last Saturday night), my internal jukebox is now a jingly-jangly jamboree of jauntiness as performed and, in the case of the returning tracks, breathed new life into by the jazzy, funky Mario Kart Band.

My personal favourite pieces on the new game are probably the accompanying hoedowns to power-sliding around Moo Moo Meadows and the maze-like Yoshi’s Valley (now, endearingly, a ‘Wild Yoshi Sanctuary’), but the reworked version of the N64′s Rainbow Road is a brassy, nostalgic treat too.

Each of the eight Mario Kart games has at least one Rainbow Road, so this week I thought I’d compile their themes (or in some cases the variation upon a theme) for a triumphantly cheesy Music Monday...

[ratsoalbion]

Be a goal-scoring superstar hero with this week's World Cup themed classic footy game special:
http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-wo ... y-special/

I tend to measure my life out in World Cups along with the memories of what soccer sim(s) I was playing at the time. Now, before the advent of licensed EA Trax and the like, association football computer and videogames tended to open with jaunty, bespoke musical themes.

Here, to coincide with summer 2014′s festival of hoof-sphere over in Brazil are some of my fondly remembered favourites.

First-up is Taito’s Mexico ’86 coin-op (1986), later re-released as Kick and Run this was one of the first arcade games – along with Double Dragon – that I could complete on a single 10p credit. And the crowd went wild!

This whimsical 80s-fest actually played during the matches. Better than that godawful Pukka Pies-sponsored official England band to my ears anyway...

[Cass]

Despite never having really paid that much attention to Superbrother: Sword and Sworcery EP, I had a listen to the soundtrack last night on a late shift and it blew me away. Probably going to have to go back and play it now.

[ratsoalbion]

Yes! And then you can listen to our podcast on the game afterwards

[Flabyo]

Is that Pro Evo 2008 one real? I... just... what?

[Flabyo]

Still, that's put me in a retro mood so...

The Megadrive version of Midnight Resistance had better music than the arcade machine did...


It was a tricky machine to push a distinct sound out of, a lot of MD soundtracks are very samey. This however is not:


The MD version of Turrican actually has one of my favourite versions of Huelsbeck's theme:

[ratsoalbion]

Music Monday: Smooth McGroove sings Street Fighter II
http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-sm ... ighter-ii/

Not that he needs any promotion from us here at Cane and Rinse but because I like him – and his cat Charl – Smooth McGroove (real name Max Gleason) is the focus of this week’s Street Fighter II-themed Music Monday.

Here the tone-perfect Smooth, a sort of Bobby McFerrin for the videogames generation, takes on three of Yoko Shimomura’s most instantly recognisable character/stage themes from Street Fighter II (Ken, Ryu and – of course – Guile) in his inimitable multi-tracked a cappella style.

This Music Monday ties in with issue 133 of the Cane and Rinse podcast.

[Flabyo]

The Street Fighter series has generally had pretty good music for every version. Sometimes a characters theme changes a lot from game to game, sometimes not much at all.

This YouTube playlist has pretty much every version of every characters theme in it...

Street Fighter Alpha 3 is definitely my favourite of the various scores, although some of the character remixes used in 4 are pretty impressive.

[Beck]

Nice find

[ratsoalbion]

My favourite Street Fighter in pretty much every department is Alpha/Zero 2.
That's a terrific playlist there - thanks for sharing, Flabyo.

[Beck]

I'm having a really productive day, it may be related to the Hotline Miami soundtrack

[ratsoalbion]

Music Monday: Laura Shigihara
http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-laura-shigihara/

The latest issue of the Cane and Rinse podcast closes with the tender, touching Everything’s Alright, composed by Laura Shigihara (a self-confessed “giant nerd”) for her friend Kan Gao’s game, To the Moon.

Laura has also provided pieces for, and been inspired by, a number of other games in the past, so let’s journey through her videogame back catalogue together.
Perhaps most famously she composed the soundtrack for PopCap’s Plants Vs. Zombies, including the much-loved theme song, Zombies On Your Lawn...