The videogame music thread

[Scrustle]

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.

Yeah it's such a fun looking game. I've been following it for a while, but they only recently released that demo. It's obviously already great though. They've just started a Kickstarter campaign too.

[radioprotector]

My request is from Kentucky Route Zero - the full band version of "Long Journey Home" from Act II. Composer Ben Babbitt's soundtrack is a hypnotic, hallucinatory blend of ambient electronic music and old bluegrass standards that score the nighttime highways, collapsed mines and subterranean government offices populated by the game. Musicians Ben, Emily and Bob appear in the game as a Greek chorus, playing games, holding conversations and playing songs, seemingly indifferent to the events unfolding around them.

Linky link >> http://benbabbitt.bandcamp.com/track/lo ... t-ramblers

[TomFum]

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...

If it was at stantonbury leisure centre here in milton keynes then maybe so

Great series so far chaps, much enjoying it with everyones different tastes in tunes. great idea for a poddy Will submit another soon

[Bakers_12]

My submission is Dangerous Bastard from GTA : vice city. The GTA games have a amazing wealth of Licensed tracks and Vice city in my opinion has the strongest selection but this little "gem" from the in game fictional band Love Fist is a spot on parody of 80's rock music a hair rock spinal tap!

[JaySevenZero]

My submission is Dangerous Bastard from GTA : vice city. The GTA games have a amazing wealth of Licensed tracks and Vice city in my opinion has the strongest selection but this little "gem" from the in game fictional band Love Fist is a spot on parody of 80's rock music a hair rock spinal tap!

Thanks Bakers but you'll need to put a YouTube link or something to the track if you want it to be part of the show.

[mikeleddy83]

Funny to see this game series mentioned in the forums, I've been playing it on and off all week.

[Flabyo]

Shall we have a little Path of Destiny? Why not...

(this is the Edge Master Mode ending version from Soul Calibur 2, which is my favourite of the four tracks that are called this across the various Soul Series games)



And how about my favourite ever piece of Blizzard music?

[ratsoalbion]

Music Monday: Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars
http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-br ... -templars/

The original Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (or Circle of Blood if you’re in the US) is one of those games of which I retain immensely lucid memories.

Almost as if the protagonist’s thrilling experiences of tracking and ultimately outwitting a sinister cult across picturesque Europe were my own, and not that of preppy Indy-lite George Stobbart.

As well as the smart, sharp writing of Charles Cecil, Dave Cummins and Jonathan Howard (light years ahead of Dan Brown’s painfully clunky prose on similar subjects), the lusciously rendered atmosphere is augmented by the accompanying soundtrack.

Employing the services a ‘known’ composer of television and film works was a relatively unusual strategy at this point, but Revolution Software brought in the opulently monickered Australian Barrington Pheloung to pen Broken Sword’s evocative soundscapes.

At the time Pheloung was best known for his work on ITV’s hugely popular Oxfordshire-based detective series Morse, but has since written scores for a number of projects including the critically acclaimed drama Red Riding for Channel 4, based on David Pearce’s era-spanning novels.

The first two Broken Sword games remain Pheloung’s only videogame work to date.

For the three pieces I’d like to feature, we’ll use -for obvious reasons – the crisper, cleaner restored versions from the Director’s Cut of the game, released in 2009.

We’ll start with this beautiful opening fanfare which correctly predicts adventure, intrigue and globetrotting, before describing the terrorist clown’s accordion bomb attack on a quiet cafe...

http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-br ... -templars/

[Wooben]

Of all the ways in which spacechem surprised me, the soundtrack was by far the most benign and pleasant. Smooth and catchy, the backing tracks to all the levels helped keep me calm and collected solving its' rock hard puzzles whilst also being compelling enough that I would barely wait before diving into the next one.

[Todinho]

Im replaying Metal Gear 2 and man I love this soundtrack it feels almost like a rehearsal for what would come later on in Snatcher and Policenauts

[mikeleddy83]

Yeah, MG2's ost is mega. My choices are probably best to listen to once you've completed the game as they'd potentially lose impact listening any sooner (they're also very close to the end of the game).

Spoiler: show

My personal crazy loop is this simple little ditty:

Of course that's way too frantic for most so my backup is its companion piece:

Here's my love of the week:

[Flabyo]

We haven't had any Jeroen Tel on here have we? Let's do something a little interesting...

As well as lots of great original pieces, the Maniacs of Noise often did C64 arrangements of Sega arcade machine pieces for the home conversions. I tend to think Jereon does a better job than whoever did the Genesis/Megadrive versions...

Compare and contrast...

Super Monaco on the Genesis:

Super Monaco on the C64:


Golden Axe on the Genesis:

Golden Axe on the C64:


(And this isn't a dig at the Genesis as it had some amazing music on it, but for some reason Sega's own arcade ports were pretty awful sonically)

[Resarius]

Sad but wonderful music by Yuzo Koshiro.

[radioprotector]

Just listened to the new episode, thanks for including my request from KRZ! In answer to your question - the Emily and Bob from the Bedquilt Ramblers are Emily Cross and Bob Buckstaff. Unwinnable Weekly 15 has a rad interview with Ben Babbitt about KRZ by Marshall Sandoval (http://shop.unwinnable.com/product/unwi ... ly-issue-0), which I highly recommend if you're into that kind of thing.

Anyway, am I allowed to make another request? I hope so, because I'm doing that. I'm not going to wax poetic this time round, New York chiptune band Anamanaguchi scored Ubisoft's 2010 Scott Pilgrim vs the World game and it is just the best.



-jez h

[JaySevenZero]

Anyway, am I allowed to make another request? I hope so, because I'm doing that. I'm not going to wax poetic this time round, New York chiptune band Anamanaguchi scored Ubisoft's 2010 Scott Pilgrim vs the World game and it is just the best.

Of course you can!

For the record, even though I haven't played the actual game itself, I love the soundtrack for that Scott Pilgrim game.

[Lyra_silver]

Final Fantasy X - The Sending

FFX was the first video game that really made an impact on me. It was a combination of gameplay mechanics that I didn't have to have lightning reflexes to use effectively, a good story line, beautiful graphics and an amazing soundtrack. This is the track that plays during Yuna's first sending and it's combination of choral vocals and the funeral march drums along with the stunning visuals really make you believe that those rainbow coloured wisps are starting on their final journey.

Lizz Atkins

[Flabyo]

Tha Map Screen! Has to be a decent tune cause you're going to hear it a LOT...

Uematsu has done a few of these over the years, here's one you might not have heard:


What if the map is of somewhere familiar like, say, New York? Yoko Shimomura has you covered...


For a long time this was my favourite piece of game music ever... Mitsuda demonstrating that the PS1 has far more legs than most composers ever knew...

[ratsoalbion]

Music Monday: Metroid Prime
http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-metroid-prime/

It was a red letter day for gamers, particularly those who hadn’t previously managed to buy a copy of the Metroid Prime Trilogy compilation for Wii.

I was fortunate enough to happen across a copy – minus shiny cardboard outer sleeve – in Brighton’s GAME store for £25 two or three years back having missed out, for no good reason, picking it up for full price on its 2009 launch.

No doubt collectors will still want their own, pristine physical copy and will pay the (presumably somewhat diminished, yet still hefty) eBay prices asked.

Tremendously enough though, Nintendo released the game on their digital store, the eShop. Not only that, but for a more than reasonable for an epic first-person adventure triptych £17.99.

Even better than that though, for its first week on sale the asking prices is slashed by 50% to a stupidly trifling £8.99*.

I owned and completed Metroid Prime 3: Corruption on Wii and enjoyed it very much. I’ve owned Metroid Prime 2: Echoes four times I think and still have yet to get very far with it.

I love the first Metroid Prime though.

As almost every review of the game (and the recent Martin Robinson retrospective) attests, Retro Studios did an incredible job of taking what was so captivating about the 2D Metroid games – especially Super Metroid – and transferring that sense of isolation, that weighty, alien atmosphere and that endlessly compelling exploration into the 3D space.

The reduced loading times, widescreen aspect ratio and elegantly implemented Wiimote and Nunchuk controls of the Wii version only improve the experience further.

I think it’s fair to say that the visuals have aged somewhat. This is no HD update and, while more than functional, the 2002 era graphics are no-longer as believable as they were on the GameCube.

What endures then is the soundtrack, which was always absolutely integral to the peerless immersion offered by Prime and if anything the ageing of the environments allows the music to shine even more.

While the game was developed chiefly in the United States, the soundtrack duties were awarded to Nintendo and Metroid series veteran Kenji Yamamoto – with assistance from Kouichi Kyuma.

From the moment the game boots up and the series’ trademark atonal bleeps and squeaky organic noises take over the title screen, you know you’re in safe hands. This promises a rich, sci-fi experience worthy of the Metroid brand...

http://caneandrinse.com/music-monday-metroid-prime/

[DavidHartley]

Ok bear with me with this one. I would very much like for you fellas to play the DK Rap from the pre-title sequence of Donkey Kong 64. I know its awful, I know its not particularly funny, or witty, or clever, I know its mostly just really annoying and dated BUT it's also kind of great. It symbolises a time in gaming history when there was a bit more freedom to be silly; when gaming didn't take itself so seriously. Rare were very much at the foreground of that spirit while also being very much at the top of their game. The DK Rap was born of the same daftness that hid bits of cheese in every level of Perfect Dark, that gave us 'Slappers Only!' in multiplayer Goldeneye, and, of course, that gave life to the Great Mighty Poo in Conker's Bad Fur Day. Donkey Kong 64 is a daft, loony-toon-like, romp of a game; exuberant, colourful and vibrant with a great heart for fun and a joy in its own ridiculous world. Composed by Grant Kirkthorpe, inspired by Run-DMC, eternally hated by many but well worth a revival for all those reasons and more: come on Sound of Play, take it to the fridge...

[hazeredmist]

Really like this from Destiny. Probably my favourite tune from a game truly spoiled in the audio department: