For Discussion #2: The Sound of Gaming
|
This may surprise you, but our weekly discussion post is supposed to go up on Monday every week. Last week we had a delay for reasons I forgot about. This week we had Irene the timehurricane. You might be saying, “Tom, Irene was just a tropical storm. Hell, I know for a fact that when Irene came it was so mild you went outside, tried to fly a kite, and there wasn’t enough wind. You’re full of shit.” Well, nice try, gentle reader, but you’re wrong. You see, Hurricane Irene came, it brought with it a much more dastardly problem for the lovely little hamlet of Amherst, Massachusetts than flooding or wind or your pithy earth problems: it brought time compression. You see, fair friends, right now it is any time between 4:35 PM Monday and 5:58 AM Wednesday here in western Massachusetts. Truly, such a horrible fate shouldn’t be wished on anyone. But that’s not why you’re here! You’re here because you want to discuss something, and discuss something we will! This week: sounds. What’s your favorite game soundtrack, song, sound, or audio-related moment? As long as it’s a noise heard through your ears or a pumping bass felt through the whole of you, we want to hear about it! Especially if you want to talk about how incredible the soundtrack to Chrono Cross was. That’s my pick: the world map of Chrono Cross. The best world map themes (and so many of them!) this side of Friday. See! That’s how easy participation can be! So tell us things about sounds. Don’t leave me alone, somewhere between yesterday and tomorrow, the only participator. |
Epic list time again! Though this time I’m going to restrict my list to only a few entries (at least for now):
– As far as entire soundtracks go, I love a number of them, but to name just a few: Castle Crashers, Iji, Kloanoa 2, Cave Story, Mirror’s Edge, Treasures of the Deep, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Crash Twinsanity and LittleBIGPlanet
– Individual songs: “Monty on the Run” (aka IWBtG’s “The Guy’s Castle”) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93nIljXpqUY and “Drone Mile” in Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B88ZLp3Sx9k
– Usage of sound in general: The Silent Hill series deserves praise for its excellent ambient soundwork, but I’d also want to mention Viewtiful Joe for the necessity of listening to sound cues on Ultra V-Rated as well as TES: Oblivion for its sound-based lockpicking minigame.
– Oddball mention: The GameStop Harlequin commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTp2REwC8oo
Blasted spelling mistakes. That should be Klonoa 2, not Kloanoa 2.
Also, how I could forget about Ape Escape? Such an awesome old game. The entire soundtrack was great, but I’m particularly fond of TV Tower http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaaVypW1jxg and Crumbling Castle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2uy2-eeOD8
Completely agree on GTA. I play the Vice City songs in my car all the time while I try to fight the urge to jump sidewalks and hijack expensive cars. My favorite song to play when I go running has to be the opener to Metal Gear Solid II: Sons of Liberty but I will throw in some of the heavy guitar riffs from Incubus’ contribution to the Halo games. You can’t go wrong with the melodies of Uncharted 2 and Final Fantasy X either.
In terms of soundtracks, pretty much everything Bioware and Black Isle have spewed out (especially for Mass Effect 2). Fallout 3 has a great soundtrack too, both in terms of ambient music and the music available at the radio stations. Bioshock as well. And the theme songs to Planescape: Torment and Vietcong 1 & 2. And Capsized, Mirror’s Edge, Assassin’s Creed, Frozen Synapse.
But by far the best soundtrack I’ve heard ever (or at least so far) is the one for Bastion. Everything is simply perfect about it. It fits so perfectly to the mood of the game.
+1 Mirror’s Edge
Battlefield Vietnam (And probably the DLC version too?)
The soundtracks of Tony Hawk and Skate games usually have some gold (Admittedly there is usually a lot of filler too)
Final Fantasy 9 has one of my favorites. “Not Alone” is one of the best game tracks ever written in my opinion. It just fit the mood of the sequence it was in so FREAKING well.
Hands down, the Monster Hunter theme song, particularly the one from Portable 3rd (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmDAz0TEQ7w).
No other piece of game music has stirred me so much, except maybe the theme from Terranigma.
Other soundtracks I liked: Megaman Battle Network, Megaman Zero 2, Final Fantasy V.
Oh, wrong link. This is the Monster Hunter theme song, the one above was MHP3rd’s intro.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhDK0Krdabo)
I’d also like to add Rayman as another all around amazing OST (on top of an already amazing game). Plenty of great tracks, but just to list a few: The music for the first stage of the Skops boss battle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idPasy9FxBo , the bonus level / magician music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUvFKf00orI , one of the Band Land tracks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbbrDYHjWH0 , the first Mosquito boss battle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQtr5HsRTkw , and the flooding music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_h8a-t0C44.
Special mention goes to the loading screen music (http://hosting.raymanpc.com/raytunes/music/58%20-%20PS1%20~%20Level%20Loading.mp3 is one of the closest I could find), which didn’t last nearly as long as the full track does in the actual game, but always got me pumped to face whatever new challenge awaited me.