The videogame music thread

[Flabyo]

Sometimes repetition of a rhythm relentlessly works...

[Ash]

i used to goto a local leisure centre to swim and always look forward to playing this after, with the semi deluxe cabinet sat between the upright version of Turbo Outrun and normal cab of Operation Wolf

I used to play a Power Drift cab that was next to Operation Wolf in my local leisure centre too. I wonder if we're from the same place...

[ratsoalbion]

The mean streets of Milton Keynes?

[handsinthejam]

Afterlife was a management sim released in 1996 by Lucasarts in which the player was placed in the role of a Demiurge (essentially a spiritual architect), tasked with building and maintaining an efficient Heaven and Hell for an earth-like planet. In Simcity style, you placed differently coloured zones on a grid map which grew into ever evolving buildings to reward or punish the souls within, based on the seven deadly sins in Hell, or the seven heavenly virtues in Heaven. Along with the needs of the damned and the blessed and managing a workforce of demons and angels, the game required the player to deal with the finances of the afterlife (pennies from heaven) and sort out astral plane levelling disasters (Disco inferno and Hell in a handbasket) with a solid dose of the Lucasarts trademark humour.

The game featured a wonderfully atmospheric soundtrack composed by Peter McConnell, who went on to work on Grim Fandango, Psychonauts and Broken Age along with sound editing on virtually every Star Wars game to ever be released. From choral chanting and pipe organs to violin-led disco and twangy surf rock the soundtrack veers wildly in all directions, but makes for a perfect accompaniment to one of the most unusual and creative takes on the management sim genre I've ever played.

[ratsoalbion]

Music Monday: Diddy Kong Racing
http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-diddy-kong-racing/

Issue 156 of the Cane and Rinse podcast is out now, and it’s all about the jolly japes of Rare’s 1997 kartie/kitey/kraftie klassic, Diddy Kong Racing.

Much of our lingering affection for the game revolves around our fondness for David Wise’s irrepressably bouncy music – some of which you can hear on the podcast itself – and some of which we should gather around the virtual log fire and share together here.

We’ll start with Darren’s favourite, Hot Top Volcano, as he selflessly elected not to squeeze it into the show.

If you’d like to try to sing along with Taj (?!) in this sitar and tabla treat then here, apparently, are the lyrics you need:

Garmane hula mungna
Garmane hula muckna
Hula mungna hula muckna
Hula mungna mungna mungna

[DomsBeard]

Music is the most important thing for me in games. Here's a couple of my all time favourites:



This always reminds me of the day I fell in love with Skyrim. I walked into Whiterun and this starts and slowly builds. It captures the game perfectly for me and is one of the highlights of a thoroughly beautiful OST. Every time I'd hear it whilst playing it felt like coming home.

Also this belter is one of many I could pick from my well spent youth in the arcades:





My local arcade always had every machine turned up to full volume and Parodious was definitely a game that benefitted from it. A superb quirky mix on a song every one has heard before and was a highlight of a thoroughly enjoyable game.

[Scrustle]

Today I started on Halo 2 Anniversary. A similarly impressive upgrade to what they did with Halo 1, although perhaps a bit less so since the original Halo 2 looks way better than the original Halo 1. It's less of a drastic improvement from the original, but I digress. One thing I've noticed a lot more in this version is how improved the soundtrack is, with a couple of tracks standing out to me in particular. This one for example really caught my attention. Although the original had similar stuff, I wasn't expecting to hear something like this. Some pretty legitimate progressive metal:

[DavidHartley]

Hello, hello. Very much enjoying the Sound of Play podcast - the inclusion last week of the Majora's Mask theme was particularly pleasing.

My choice for a future SoP comes from the ever-burgeoning world of indie gaming and the delightful, if infuriating, spaceship simulator FTL: Faster Than Light. The game itself is a perfect pick-up-and-play top-down strategy thrillride with a deceptively cute aesthetic that lulls you into believing that, one day, you might actually beat the thing. Not happened yet. The music, composed by Ben Prunty, is a brilliant accompaniment and stuffed-full of nostalgia for the Gameboy days, bleeping and blooping its way into your head to paint a glorious picture of star commands and laser guns, warp drives and holodecks. I've picked out Civil (Battle) which clicks into action if you happen upon an enemy in a Civilian-controlled realm. The track demands sudden seriousness: battlestations, all hands on deck, then softens at the end with the triumphant main theme. Enjoy:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjqZS4q9Dq8

[Grimsgrams]

David Wise's Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze soundtrack is the best I've ever heard in a video game. One of my favourite original tracks from the game is Homecoming Hijinx which is based on the villains' main theme. And here it is!

[Todinho]

Great credits song from Sh3:


Merry christimas everyone

[Scrustle]

For this suggestion I want to submit something from Nier, which has an excellent soundtrack that is quite unlike anything else out there. It has a very wistful and mysterious tone to it, which gives it a dreamlike quality. It really sucks you in to the world and story and drenches the game in an atmosphere that I utterly fell in love with. While any song from the soundtrack would be an good choice, I'm choosing the track named Song of the Ancients, since when I first heard it in the game, it grabbed me like nothing else. It first appears being sung by one of the major characters of the game in the protagonist's hometown, and when I came across them, I couldn't help but stop what I was doing and just sit there for a while doing nothing but listening. It was a magical moment, and I still can't listen to it without getting a lump in my throat.



(By the way, there are four versions of this song. I'm picking the "Devola" version.)

[ratsoalbion]

Music Monday: NiGHTS into dreams...
http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-nights-dreams/

I’d posit that NiGHTS into dreams… is as much of a synaesthetic experience as Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Rez.

It’s inconceivable that the game would offer the option to mute the uplifting, symbiotic music provided by Tomoko Sasaki (Ristar, Space Channel 5 Part 2), Naofumi Hataya (Golden Axe II/III, SEGA Rally, The Rub Rabbits!) and Fumie Kumatani (Sonic Adventure, Phantasy Star Online, Shinobi (2002)).

In fact, as discussed in issue 158 of the Cane and Rinse podcast, Sonic Team’s innovative A-Life system plays into the soundtrack, remixing each of the six main stages’ music based on how kindly the player is treating that area’s indigenous, cherubic Nightopians.

This extended nine and a half minute version of Suburban Museum (from the level named Soft Museum) – as featured on the NiGHTS into dreams… Perfect Album CD release – seamlessly blends together the various mixes and melodies which prevail. This is probably my favourite in-game piece from NiGHTS...

http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-nights-dreams/

[Flabyo]

With the introduction of the CD as the medium on which our games were delivered came a new era for game music. Vocal tracks, mainly over a games end credits, became a thing. Eventually publishers would realise that meant they could leverage big name stars for their tracks, but there was a short window where we got a little experimentation...

For consideration I offer 'Anu Orta Veniya' (or, 'When the Day Breaks') from the end credits of the Xbox shooter 'Panzer Dragoon Orta'. It's not going to be to everyones taste, but it's so far removed from everything else that was going on in game music at the time that I doubt many people will have heard anything quite like it.



Composers are Saori Kobayashi along with Yutaka Minobe (who you might know more from the score to Skies of Arcadia).

On vocals here is Eri Itoh, not a household name in the west, but the singing voice of Belle and Mulan in the far east dubs of Disney movies (and regular collaborator with Yuki Kajiura on anime soundtracks)

If this is too rough to fit, then I submit this lovely bit of Celtic whimsy from the end credits of Metal Gear Solid instead...

Spoiler: show

[DomsBeard]

Here's my stand out from Destiny, love it when it kicks in when fighting the Cabal. A piece of music that fits perfectly with who you are fighting.



Annoyingly there's a piece of music that I would love to put on here but cannot find anywhere. It's the music that slowly builds when the Alien is getting closer and closer to you at certain points in Alien Isolation. It's a terrible, tense yet brilliant use of music.

[mikeleddy83]

Enjoying the Saturn love here since it arrived earlier this week but that ultra enthusiastic music is too much for one man alone so I'm distributing it here to avoid injury.

[Scrustle]

That Sega Rally song reminds me of something I can't believe I haven't posted here already. The similarity is certainly not a coincidence considering the game it's from:

[Todinho]

So I was listening to sound of play when Leon played Sakura's theme which immediately reminded me of another theme from the EX series so I've been hearing this all day:



that saxophone man

[mikeleddy83]

I'm certain I've heard that before but I've never played EX 3, regardless I'm here to share the saxophone love!

Never seen Drift Stage but I'm on the way to giving it a quick go (http://supersystems.itch.io/driftstagealpha), looks like this year's a good one for retro influenced racers.

[Flabyo]

There's a little bit of a Power Drift feel to that Sakura piece.

My favourite SF character theme is still Juri's though...

[Flabyo]

I SHOULD GET A MEDAL FOR FLOOR PEDAL!



One bass pedal? Castle Crasher's final boss requires you to play the bass drum with both feet...