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Game Soundtracks: Beauty in the Beep
powerss
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Post your favorite game soundtracks here.
All time favorite, an amazing score: Mechwarrior 2, you can even use the game disk in a CD player. Amazing, amazing soundtrack.
2nd place: Deus Ex. Even though it used the midi-like Unreal music format, it was absolutely breathtaking and just a pleasure 100% of the time.
3rd: Halo Series; the production value and feel is there.
All time favorite, an amazing score: Mechwarrior 2, you can even use the game disk in a CD player. Amazing, amazing soundtrack.
2nd place: Deus Ex. Even though it used the midi-like Unreal music format, it was absolutely breathtaking and just a pleasure 100% of the time.
3rd: Halo Series; the production value and feel is there.
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Great poll thread, or greatest poll thread?
2. Ace Combat Zero
3. Super Mario World
All game music threads are the greatest poll threads silly man.
Nobuo Uematsu.
An absolute legend in my eyes. And his work with The Black Mages is fantastic.
Also worth a mention are Jun Senoue (Most Sonic games from Sonic 3D through to the Sonic Adventure games), Tommy Tallarico (wonderful guy, met him when I went to cover video games live for my site) and Koji Kondo. Kondo in particular of those three - he's responsible for practically every major Nintendo game up until the N64 era - Starfox, Mario, Zelda.. practically everything. The guy he collaborated with on Twilight Princess and Wind Waker is also fantastic.
Did you guys know that the Zelda theme was composed just a few weeks before the game went gold?
It was supposed to be a classical orchestral piece for the overworld, but when the game was done Nintendo couldn't get rights to use it. Kondo composed what is now a world famous piece in a mere day and than it was ported into the game. That's the reason the piece is so short and has been extended on in subsequent games.
Uematsu's work I could talk about for an age, but I can confirm now he hasn't lost it - his Blue Dragon soundtrack is great stuff, and reaching up to his heyday of FF6, 7, 8 and 9 in places to me. Interestingly, I think his work with the Black Mages has effected his composing style for battle music a lot - it's a lot more rocking than some of his old ones were, like it was composed for the band.
EDIT1: Made a mistake. EDIT2: Typo. Woo.
XBL/PSN/Steam: APZonerunner
Close seconds:
Nearly every orchestrated Final Fantasy soundtrack, including piano renditions, live performances, and odd ones like the Celtic rendition (Celtic Moon, Song Book Mahoroba).
Personal favorites are the FFVI and FFVIII pieces.
Honorable mentions:
Dragon Quest VIII: Symphonic Suite
Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Symphony
Phoenix Wright: Gyakuten Saiban Orchestred
The Suikoden II soundtrack has a special place in my heart just for the Gothic Neclord track.
I also love the Persona 3 soundtrack because it is so completely crazy.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
1. Xenogears OST
2. Panzer Dragoon Saga OST
3. Project Sylpheed OST
A notable mention should be the arranged version of Waterside from Blue Dragon, it might be the best piece of work Uematsu has ever done. Most of the rest of the soundtrack is bad though.
Some other good tracks I've been listening to recently:
1. The Caravan (Arranged Version) from Super Star Soldier
2. Metalworks from Final Fantasy XI OST
3. Here She Comes from Xenosaga Episode II OST
4. Final Battle from Ys Origin OST (find this track, it has a dueling guitar and violin and is amazing), it's also known as Track 18 in some of the rips out there.
[spoiler:7e11bbf378]just kidding[/spoiler:7e11bbf378]
-SMT: Nocturne
-Digital Devil Saga
-Persona 1/2/3
-Devil Summoner
-Trauma Center
Also, Nobiyuki Iwadare is awesome.
(Lunar & Grandia primarily, but those two series alone make for one killer history.)
And he might not be a composer, but I'll throw his name out for the heck of it: DJ Kasson Crooker/The Duke of Belgium Waffles-Pannoken/Symbion Project/DJ HMX/Komputer Kontroller.
I love schizophrenic DJs.
(His music appears in Frequency, Amplitude, anything with Freezepop, and he's done system music for some DDR Ultramixes, if memory serves.)
/thread
1. Star Control 2 - apparently they held a contest to produce tracks for the game, and the results were pretty awesome
2. Outlaws - Spaghetti western pastiche
3. System Shock 1
4. Planescape Torment
5. Ultima 7
I'm a little curious about all the Japanese Game selections mentioned. I always found (generally, my opinion) that many Japanese games to be very shallow and "corny" in their Soundtracks.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Chrono Cross had a fantastic soundtrack, based just on prettiness and overall feel.
Phoenix Wright, the first one, had a soundtrack that really made you feel in the game. The music changed, the beats got faster, blood starts pumping, and you really knew shit was about to go down. I'm not digging Justice For All's soundtrack too much, but I haven't got too far yet. It's a bit more airy and lighter than the first, and it's more distracting than involving.
And Katamari Damacy gets a mention for sheer ridiculousness.
That man is a genius. He's also done all kinds of techno/electronic music in Beatmania IIDX.
-System Romance
-Lion Suki
-Space Fight
-Rislim
-iFUTURELIST
-Heavenly Sun (his best ever)
I'm sure he's got dozens more lying around somewhere.
Props to Yasunori Mitsuda too. Seeing his name with the London Philharmonic was more than enough to persuade me to get Xenosaga.
(Too bad it's really one of his most lifeless scores ever.)
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
So, I'm going to issue a [thread] here and reopen for discussion.
Anyway, it belongs on the list regardless. I'm seconding Shoki Meguro. I love the full four-disc Avatar Tuner (Digital Devil Saga) soundtrack.
Anyway, are we forgetting PC games? I think so. Tex Murphy: Under A Killing Moon, anyone? Max Payne? Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive? Future Wars?
My favorite closing song in a game is a toss-up between Late Goodbye by Poets of the Fall at the end credits of Max Payne 2 and Tex's Lament by Richie Havens in The Pandora Directive.
It helps that Richie Havens is a fuckawesome folk guy. And Nicole Tindall from the Parliament Funkadelic was in it, though Body and Soul was just a throwaway song.
edit: Shit, I forgot about Akira Yamaoka. Ok, my favorite song is a toss-up between the above two and "Room of Angel." I'm partial to "You're Not Here," too.
Yes. Also Toru Minegishi.
XBL/PSN/Steam: APZonerunner
Xbox Live Gamertag: Suplex86
Amon Tobin.
He creates the perfect music, filled with strings, quick, raspy and brilliant jazz drumming, unsettling and distant synth undertones and bass that fits perfectly with the drumming.
You know his work, it was in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. But the game doesn't do his breakbeat justice, do yourself a favour and just check him out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsysZQYBQU8
Sheer awesome ridiculousness. That one's probably my favorite soundtrack to date.
Command And Conqure Red Alert Sound Track
Hell March
Impressed with the advance of Foley's Room. Big time impressed. I hope he keeps going this direction rather than his slow jazzy brilliance (which I also love).
Good pick on vidgame composer.
YES.
2. Final Fantasy Series
3. Zelda Series.
Don't forget Guild Wars and it's expansions. I love those fucking soundtracks.
I couldn't find Lime in the color drop down.
(OH right.. hexadecimal.. )
Street Fighter II's music was pretty memorable. Same goes for Metroid's.
My favorite video game composer, though, would have to be Yasunori Mitsuda. His holy trinity of Trigger, 'Gears, and Cross is hard to beat. He's pretty good at jazz, too...Moonlit Shadow is a very good album.
Switch: SW-3515-0057-3813 FF XIV: Q'vehn Tia
Don't deny yourselves the truth
Oh, man. His second album, Bricolage, was all kinds of wonderful for me. I can directly see him turning back and looking at tunes like Chomp Samba as inspiration for some of the Splinter Cell tracks, Lighthouse being the most prominent one. I like what he does with some of his music, too, including unorthodox sounds that fit perfectly (bacon sizzling, water drips, etc). He's also perfect at creating tension in his music, which is kind of odd, seeing as how he's the master of laid-back, jazzy tunes.
I have all sorts of man-love for Tobin.
Super-kudos on being in the know.
edit'd'd'd
Whenever anyone mentions Megaman music, I just have to mention the Minibosses. By far, the best videogame cover band. I know, they're not composers, but what they do is good. Homage? Whatever. They're still great fun too listen to.
Also, I loved the redone Metroid tunes for Prime. It chilled my spine when I first heard them, in the opening menu. I just sat there for a while listening.
I used to play the first Red Alert and just let this song repeat over and over
Taking a game like Halo (yes, i'm well aware Bungie are more than a one-trick pony), the orchesral/choral compositions are, as far as i'm concerned, absolutely fantastic. Then there's the more electronic, synthesized stuff.. that just doesn't ring as true with me. There's still some that sounds okay, but it just feels a lot less comfortable.
Shadow of the Colossus, how you can not mention this soundtrack for so long is shameful. For shame.
Watch this space for more video game soundtracks.
I totally agree with you. Same goes for video game soundtracks in general for me. I mean, it's okay if it's like that ingame put if I'm listening to a video game soundtrack outside of the game I usually never look at synthesized stuff. I mean to me synthesizers are like vegetarian meat, if you want meat get the real thing, don't try to fake it with some artificial crap just use the real thing or make yourself a salad that's even better.
The Headhunter games
Anything Jesper Kyd has ever stood next to, let alone actually worked on
The Wild ARMs games
Unreal/Deus Ex (Brandon and Van Den Bos FTW)
XIII
Command & Conquer (The entire series, even Generals)
Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
Shadowgrounds
*AHEM*
Bleh... I can't stand most of the MiniBosses' stuff. The guitar sounds are never clear and the drummer seems to enjoy reminding people that he has a cymbol at his disposal. It's all so "garage band." Give me Virt any day.
Dwelling of Duels (dod.vgmix.com) holds monthly competitons for (generally) rock-themed gaming remixes, but it hasn't been all that great in a while.
Frogger (Just the main theme) (Atari 2600)
Final Fantasy VI
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