I still remember early sunday mornings in the late 80's, sneaking up in pyjamas featuring the short-fused duck sporting a pantsless sailor outfit in hope of getting an hour or two in front of our Commodore 64 and the matching 14" TV before the rest of the house woke up.

Flipping through a handwritten binder full of game titles and numbers was preparation for the sacred ritual of rewind, reset, fast forward and the iconic words still etched in my memories in bright blue: "PRESS PLAY ON TAPE"

I have selected a song from Last Ninja 3 which I've not played myself, however I spent a ridiculous amount of hours playing its predecessor. The game was released on the C64 in 1991 with music by Dutch composer Reyn Ouwehand who would have been around 16 or 17 at the time. The song I picked is "Tune 6 - Water level" which features an incredibly rich and groovy sound packed into the three sound channels the SID chip would provide.

I'd like to submit Parasite Eve's 'Primal eyes' please. The soundtrack to this game is great and you could choose so many tracks!!!

I first came across this game when my best mate came back from a family holiday in Boston, USA. It was one of those occasions when your mate calls you up and says you have to come over and check this game out, it awesome. He was right, I enjoyed the game a lot but what captivated me the most was the fabulous soundtrack. The moment I watched that theatre burn down to the track 'Se lI mio amore sta vincino [Vocalise] -Eva's Aria', I knew I'd never forget this game; a very "Carrie -esque" film scene. This game alone opened my eyes to what RPG's could be. 'Primal eyes' evokes great nostalgia for me and so buying an import copy not too long ago was an easy decision,, the graphics have aged terribly, so its a good job that the games music is top notch!!

I'm going to be super quick off the mark and suggest something from splatoon....







reasoning behind choosing the waiting room music is I think it the first use of dub/ska music in a videogame. If not ever, then at least for a very long time.

Another track from Parasite Eve as followup to Sound of Play 17....



(random trivia: the game is actually a sequel to a very low budget Japanese horror movie, the events of the movie are briefly mentioned by the Japanese researcher character that comes to New York to help the good guys)

Also, any excuse for more Splatoon... it's J-Pop time!

Been listening to the Crisis Core ost in the past few days and I realized something,sometimes many of the best tracks in a game arent the ones playing when you're fighting epic battles but the ones that play just when you're walking around carefree:

The first Mario game I played and played and played and played after getting my gameboy for Christmas. This is still the first music I think of when I think of Mario.

The sneeze is back , this time bringing wishes of dirty dirty rock guitar and soggy drums from ye olden days of the Amiga. The song I'd like to share is the intro music from a game called Chuck Rock by Core Design and composer Matthew Simmonds.

The game is a not-so-historically-accurate sidescrolling platformer where you take on the role of Chuck Rock, a "stone age" man on a mission to save his wife Ophelia from the clutches of dastardly handsome Gary Gritter. You'd hop around levels fighting dinosaurs using your massive beer-belly and the occational kick trying to recover your loved one.

The game was released in -92 on the Amiga and while the music was really good, the game itself was unfortunately really awful. I used to load up this game just to listen to the music and watch the animated band play.

I really like the Crisis Core soundtrack, good mix of acoustic pieces, rock pieces and new arrangements of FF7 music.

Speaking of FF7 and arrangements...

So I'd like to submit the track 'Leave earth' from the Mass Effect 3. Composed by Sascha Dikiciyan & Cris Velasco this track is moving and haunting. Put in context with the scene from the game its even more powerful, with Shepherd watching on helplessly as a reaper shoots down two evacuation shuttles carrying women and children. The music sets the game up superbly.



And with the original scene:

I'm currently going through the SoP archives and I don't think that this one has been included so far. If it has my apologies, please ignore!

It's the wonderful Demons Invasion by Nobuo Uematsu:



I'm not sure if the title of the song is some kind of translation error, as the mood of the piece is clearly very different to what the title implies. Either way, it's one of my favourite ever tracks from Uematsu, and the sadness of the piece is amplified by how few people have played Lost Odyssey and actually heard it. Despite the Final Fantasy pedigree behind the game, I like how the song actively seems to bypass the grandeur of the FF soundtracks in favour of something more intimate and sparse, with only the occasional orchestral swell. A beautiful game and a beautiful song

Shall we have a little bit more Halo 2? The Halo scores are pretty much as iconic as game scoring gets. Even if the melody is a new one, the instrumentation and orchestration choices mark it as being clearly Halo.




I'll have more to post when the podcast gets to Halo3, there's some really outstanding work there...

Lots of excellent choices. I only played through Halo 2 the once, but can't wait to get to it again when I finally fire up the MCC.

Does anyone happen to know if the music in the Master Chief Collection is all unchanged? I certainly hope so.

Not many video game music has truly stayed with me but, this tune from 1990 has. To this day, I'll be caught humming it around the house whilst doing monotonous jobs!

My mate's brother would allow us to play on his Amiga when he was out the house. We'd look through his shelves, full of big Amiga boxes. We always seemed to put on a Psygnosis game first. Clearly the box art, impresive intros, voice samples and crisp graphics captivated us. When we saw his 'new games' bundle, we threw this on straight away,, the game is 'The Killing Game Show' and the track I'd like to share is the one which you play along to.

Although some of the magic has rubbed off on this track, through time, I'll never forget the waling guitar and that little ED209 rip-off character. Some things just can't be forgotten

The Megadrive version was renamed 'Fatal Rewind'. I guess they didn't like 'Killing' in the title...

I'd like to suggest "The Only Thing I Know For Real (Maniac Agenda Mix)", by Jamie Christopherson from Metal Gear Rising. Like most of the soundtrack of the game it's bombastic and cheesy, and full of noodly guitars, but is also really exhilarating and compliments the game perfectly and never fails to get you excited. This particular track is the theme of Jetstream Sam, one of the main antagonist characters, so it has some extra instruments in it that evoke the character's backstory with Japan and Brazil. It makes the track stand out and gives it an extra layer to it.

Playing Metro: Last Light was a truly harrowing experience, crawling through pitch-black tunnels and fighting of hordes of radioactive mutants really got my heart pumping, but It was the human side to this post apocalyptic wasteland that really sent a shiver down my spine. Seeing young children thrown out into the cold, and grown men fighting over scraps of food certainly painted a bleak future for us once the bomb drops. Despite this grim dark future, the citizens of the Moscow underground were still able to find a light at the end of the tunnel, every so often you'd stumble upon some brave soul plucking away a his guitar. It's because of this, that when I think back on Metro: Last Light I always think of the music, the music that says' 'against all the odd's we aren't ready to give up yet!' And Metro's title track is the epitome of this.

Still working my way through the Sound of Play back catalogue so apologies if this has already been submitted. But this is a little different so hopefully not.

My submission is Woods Remix as featured in the relatively recent mobile only game Super Stickman Golf 2! It was written for the first game by Whitaker Trebella who is responsible for the soundtrack in both Super Stickman Golf games, and remixed by Jordan Schidlowsky to appear in the second. I enjoy SSG2 as a fun little asychronous game, but most of my enjoyment comes from listening to the music. The music doesn't exactly evoke emotions that I readily associate with a silly mobile golf game! But that, along with the chiptune simplicity, makes the quality of the songwriting stand out even more.

I strongly recommend a listen of the full soundtrack here. Alien and Mellower and other particular standouts.

I was so impressed by Whitaker's Super Stickman Golf 2 work that I sought him out on Twitter just to tell him so.
Great pick, we'll definitely feature this in an upcoming SoP.

And your ear worm for the rest of the weekend is...