The post The 12 essential video game soundtracks now available on iTunes that you cannot afford to be without appeared first on Game News.
]]>But remember, I myself was once that handlebar moustached hunter of bespoke electronic tunery. So just imagine that I’m giving you all of this information with a curmudgeonly “You don’t know you’re born” look on my face. Oh, and don’t forget to argue over my choices in the comments. That’s always the most important part, after all.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Composer: Michael McCann Buy it here (opens in new tab)
Alternately frenzied, soaring and soothing, the original score to Deus Ex: Human Revolution is perhaps the best new game soundtrack of the last couple of years. With insistent electronic percussion blending with cool ambient synth and subtly-powerful abstracted human vocals, it’s an accessibly complex soundtrack with sound and a mood both unmistakable and untouchable.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Composer: Anamanaguchi Buy it here (opens in new tab)
The retro-gamey soundtrack to the game based on the film based on the retro-gamey comic book. Arriving as the result of so many resonant stacked levels of brilliant, the Scott Pilgrim OST is an absolute stunner. Basically, it’s the most potent and fast acting cheer-up music money can buy.
Silent Hill 2
Composer: Akira Yamaoaka (soundtrack credited to Konami Kukeiha Club) Buy it here (opens in new tab)
This one shouldn’t need any introduction, but in case it does, know this. Akira Yamoaka’s soundtrack to Silent Hill 2 is one of the most revered in gaming for a reason. It’s one of the most touching, chilling, and deeply beautiful soundtracks ever to grace any piece of media. Combining soaring rock, ethereal synth and abstract soundscapes, it’s powerfully affecting on a level you just will not be able to imagine if you haven’t already heard it. So hear it. By buying it.
Heavy Rain
Composer: Normand Coubeil Buy it here (opens in new tab)
Repetitive and one-note as it may be in the game, Heavy Rain’s melacholic, ominously fatalistic score works a lot better in separation. Free from over-use, the various character-specific themes shine as pieces in their own right. The overall tone might rarely stray from ‘sad and a bit doomy’ across the selection of tracks, but it’s a strong and unique set of tunes with a personality all of its own.
Batman: Arkham City
Composer: Nick Arundel and Ron Fish Buy it here (opens in new tab)
Forget that dodgy “Music inspired by…” album that’s knocking around, attempting to purvey its array of unrelated licensed tunes off the back of the game’s high profile. This is the real thing. The orchestral score. The pounding, sweeping, at times damnably emotional stuff that actually appears in the game. It’s bloody brilliant, and up there with the very best Batman scores ever to grace the cinematic adaptations. In fact it’s a good blend of the best bits of all of them.
Bionic Commando Rearmed
Composer: Simon Viklund Buy it here (opens in new tab)
Halfway between the exhilarating abrasiveness of 8 and 16-bit chiptunes and the layered finesse of modern electronica, the soundtrack to Capcom’s pitch-perfect NES remake is as fun and imaginative as it is pulse-poundingly exciting. One of the most vital game soundtracks around right now, in both senses of the word. It’s that simple.
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The post The 12 essential video game soundtracks now available on iTunes that you cannot afford to be without appeared first on Game News.
]]>The post New Music of Journey trailer goes backstage with orchestra on Jenova Chens adventure appeared first on Game News.
]]>Citing the influence of mythologist Joseph Campbell – whose impact can be felt in every game ever to begin with a sleeping hero, and almost all the rest as well – Wintory says he resisted the urge to provide Journey’s epic narrative with the customary, heavy-handed sonic extravaganza. “While there are definitely some big moments,” says Wintory, “I would actually describe it as intimate.”
Above: Woven Variations, a clip Wintory calls “an exploration of the [larger score], taken to entirely different places”
Wintory’s insider impressions of the game are positive: “[If] Journey did not exist and you asked me what my ultimate dream of a game would be (both to score and to play), I suspect I would basically end up describing Journey.” You’ll have your turn on the title when it releases in Spring of this year. In the meantime, if you want to hear the music of Journey, the best way to do so is obviously via Mega Man? Oh, you’re so very welcome.
The post New Music of Journey trailer goes backstage with orchestra on Jenova Chens adventure appeared first on Game News.
]]>The post The Binding of Isaac, Cave Story 3D, and crying at poop: an interview with composer Danny B appeared first on Game News.
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Above: The Binding of Isaac isn’t what we’d call a “happy” game.
GamesRadar: For people who may not know you; can you start off by introducing yourself and giving a little bit of background on how you got into making music for games.
Danny Baranowsky: I’m Danny Baranowsky and I do music for movies and games… mostly for games nowadays, though. I started by doing music over at Overclock Remix about ten years ago, and over time I got better and met game developers. I did a game called Cannabalt, and then I did a game called Super Meat Boy, and it just kind of grew from there.
GR: How early did you get involved in The Binding of Isaac?
DB: Pretty much as soon as Edmund started thinking out loud about it. Back when it was going to be a flash game that he was going to do in like ten days. I was out of the town when he actually started it, so I couldn’t do it right away, but as soon as I got back I started doing some sketches and stuff. We did a very symbiotic thing, where he would send me art or builds and I would write music, then I would write music and he would do art to the music. It was very intertwined.
GR: Is that your ideal way to work on a project? Do you like being involved in the process?
DB: Absolutely. It has to do with how well I get along with the developers – and that’s not to say that there aren’t a lot that I don’t – but if we work well creatively together, which me and Edmund of course do, it’s the best way to do it. I think you can kind of feel that in Isaac, it’s very cohesive. Everything about it feels fluid and solid, and I think that’s why.
Above: Disturbing doesn’t begin to describe Binding of Isaac.
GR: Absolutely, and Isaac is a very, very dark game, and the music is extremely fitting. Have you ever done anything this dark before?
DB: It’s sort of my preferred music. My favorite kind of music is sort of… dark. One of my favorite bands growing up was Stabbing Westward, who did that song “Save Yourself,” and it was super-crazy gothic-angsty pop. But people keep saying that Isaac is dark, but I don’t see it that way. I guess the music is sort of dark, but I see the game as sort of… melodrama for sadness. I guess. I don’t know a good word for it.
I guess if you think of it in human, real-life terms it’s dark: it’s a baby killing his mom, and blood and poop and all that stuff. But it’s so silly… I really tried – and I did this in Super Meat Boy, too – to not take it too seriously. Meat Boy, in the end, got super dramatic and epic music, but I was trying to be melodramatic and tongue in cheek. Maybe I failed, since everyone thought that I meant to be super epic, and that’s the same thing with Isaac. I guess it’s dark, because of the way the music is written, but in the back of my mind there was always this voice saying “Well this is a pretty silly game. You’re crying at poop. And coins come out.”
GR: I guess the reason I find it dark is because when I hear the music I see the game. When I hear the music I see a crying child, it matches the game so well.
DB: And I have to draw another parallel to Meat Boy. With Meat Boy it was match the old-school feeling, and that was sort of the whole mantra of it. With this one it was dark, but sort of silly. It’s a little slower and more tense, punctuated with stress. It’s always on the top of my mind: how is this music going to match the pace of the game? The setting? All of it. I don’t think you can just write music from the art of a game, it has to match the feel of it. I was one of the number one testers for the game, and before I did a bulk of the music I was familiar with how it played.
Above: Danny’s work on Super Meat boy turned the awesome, silly game into an awesome, silly, epic game.
GR: It comes across, the game and the music work well together and that’s something not every developer appreciates yet.
DB: Oh no. Oh no. Not at all.
GR: Have there been any games you’ve played that you feel like the music is working against the game?
DB: Some Star Wars games, when they just put Star Wars music in it from the movies… like, when I was a kid I played Shadows of the Empire and I thought it was amazing. But I was a kid – I didn’t think of things critically at all. It was a cool game, but they just dropped music from the movies into it. I remember running around Hoth and having that music from random scenes from Star Wars in there randomly crescendoing and going up and down… when nothing was happening. Like, some Star Wars games have custom soundtracks and do an amazing job. The Force Unleashed series, as criticized as they were for other reasons, I thought the music was done really well. It was made for it, and it matched the pace of the game.
GR: It felt like Star Wars music without actually already being Star Wars music.
DB: Right.
Click to the next page to hear about why Danny isn’t too worried about Cave Story 3D fans…
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The post The Binding of Isaac, Cave Story 3D, and crying at poop: an interview with composer Danny B appeared first on Game News.
]]>The post Game Music of the Day: Star Wars: Republic Commando appeared first on Game News.
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Song: Vode An
Composer: Jesse Harlin
Vode An (Brothers All) is the title screen music for the criminally underlooked Star Wars FPS Republic Commando. To me, it is an extremely well done war chant that captures the spirit of brotherhood and camaraderie pervasive throughout the game. The lyrics are sung in Mando’a, the fictional language of the Mandalorian race in the Star Wars universe. A translation for the lyrics can be found here (opens in new tab). This game is filled with great music, such as the pulse-pounding Dha Werda Verda (Warriors of the Shadows):
Above: If you are not nodding your head or tapping your feet in 20 seconds, I’ll be forced to conclude you have no soul
Above: Through the Canopy, a slower, more subtle offering
Above: The prologue music
Above: The aforementioned prologue, one of the best intro movies for a game I’ve seen
The soundtrack was available for free download at the official website, until it was shut down. However, it can still be found here (opens in new tab).
Today’s entry comes from Star Wars and GamesRadar fan Jake Peterson, who magnanimously donated this GMOTD article to help fill in the gaps as we prepare for E3 2011. If you’d like to submit your own GMOTD entry (with MP3 and image) fire it off totips@gamesradar.com and we’ll slowwwwwwly get to it. Thanks, Jake!
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Hyrule Castle by Koji Kondo
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Kickin’ drum and bass tunes from the N64 days
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Gate Area by Jonathan Dunn
The post Game Music of the Day: Star Wars: Republic Commando appeared first on Game News.
]]>The post Supertrailer: Week 04/03 – 04/09 appeared first on Game News.
]]>More importantly, Sonic just so happens to star in one of the FINESTVG CINEMAS EVER MADE! Of course I’m referring to theSONIC ADVENTURE INTRO (opens in new tab), which I struggled to recreate usingspankin new footage from Infamous 2, L.A. Noire, Duke Nukem Forever, Red Faction: Armageddon, and tons of others. See all the trailers featured in their entirety below.
SONIC 20TH ANNIVERSARY- teaser
L.A. NOIRE – Vice Trailer
INFAMOUS 2 – Quest for Power trailer
DUKE NUKEM FOREVER – Babes trailer
SPIDER-MAN: EDGE OF TIME – teaser trailer
RED FACTION: ARMAGEDDON – Kara trailer
PORTAL 2 – Turrets
SHIFT 2: UNLEASHED – Dangerous Corners trailer
WARHAMMER 40K SPACE MARINE – Behind the Scenes: The Universe
MORTAL KOMBAT – Shang Tsung proile trailer
RIDGE RACER UNBOUND – MT1 trailer
DRAGON AGE II & MASS EFFECT 2 – Sequel Celebration trailer
MX VS ATV ALIVE – Bar to Bar trailer
THE SIMS 3 – Generations trailer
VIRTUA TENNIS 4 – World Tour trailer
SOCOM 4 – Single Player Campaign trailer
BATTLEFIELD PLAY4FREE – Launch trailer
Apr 9, 2011
More importantly, Sonic just so happens to star in one of the FINESTVG CINEMAS EVER MADE! Of course I’m referring to theSONIC ADVENTURE INTRO (opens in new tab), which I struggled to recreate usingspankin new footage from Infamous 2, L.A. Noire, Duke Nukem Forever, Red Faction: Armageddon, and tons of others. See all the trailers featured in their entirety below.
SONIC 20TH ANNIVERSARY- teaser
L.A. NOIRE – Vice Trailer
INFAMOUS 2 – Quest for Power trailer
DUKE NUKEM FOREVER – Babes trailer
SPIDER-MAN: EDGE OF TIME – teaser trailer
RED FACTION: ARMAGEDDON – Kara trailer
PORTAL 2 – Turrets
SHIFT 2: UNLEASHED – Dangerous Corners trailer
WARHAMMER 40K SPACE MARINE – Behind the Scenes: The Universe
MORTAL KOMBAT – Shang Tsung proile trailer
RIDGE RACER UNBOUND – MT1 trailer
DRAGON AGE II & MASS EFFECT 2 – Sequel Celebration trailer
MX VS ATV ALIVE – Bar to Bar trailer
THE SIMS 3 – Generations trailer
VIRTUA TENNIS 4 – World Tour trailer
SOCOM 4 – Single Player Campaign trailer
BATTLEFIELD PLAY4FREE – Launch trailer
Apr 9, 2011
More importantly, Sonic just so happens to star in one of the FINESTVG CINEMAS EVER MADE! Of course I’m referring to theSONIC ADVENTURE INTRO (opens in new tab), which I struggled to recreate usingspankin new footage from Infamous 2, L.A. Noire, Duke Nukem Forever, Red Faction: Armageddon, and tons of others. See all the trailers featured in their entirety below.
SONIC 20TH ANNIVERSARY- teaser
L.A. NOIRE – Vice Trailer
INFAMOUS 2 – Quest for Power trailer
DUKE NUKEM FOREVER – Babes trailer
SPIDER-MAN: EDGE OF TIME – teaser trailer
RED FACTION: ARMAGEDDON – Kara trailer
PORTAL 2 – Turrets
SHIFT 2: UNLEASHED – Dangerous Corners trailer
WARHAMMER 40K SPACE MARINE – Behind the Scenes: The Universe
MORTAL KOMBAT – Shang Tsung proile trailer
RIDGE RACER UNBOUND – MT1 trailer
DRAGON AGE II & MASS EFFECT 2 – Sequel Celebration trailer
MX VS ATV ALIVE – Bar to Bar trailer
THE SIMS 3 – Generations trailer
VIRTUA TENNIS 4 – World Tour trailer
SOCOM 4 – Single Player Campaign trailer
BATTLEFIELD PLAY4FREE – Launch trailer
Apr 9, 2011
More importantly, Sonic just so happens to star in one of the FINESTVG CINEMAS EVER MADE! Of course I’m referring to theSONIC ADVENTURE INTRO (opens in new tab), which I struggled to recreate usingspankin new footage from Infamous 2, L.A. Noire, Duke Nukem Forever, Red Faction: Armageddon, and tons of others. See all the trailers featured in their entirety below.
SONIC 20TH ANNIVERSARY- teaser
L.A. NOIRE – Vice Trailer
INFAMOUS 2 – Quest for Power trailer
DUKE NUKEM FOREVER – Babes trailer
SPIDER-MAN: EDGE OF TIME – teaser trailer
RED FACTION: ARMAGEDDON – Kara trailer
PORTAL 2 – Turrets
SHIFT 2: UNLEASHED – Dangerous Corners trailer
WARHAMMER 40K SPACE MARINE – Behind the Scenes: The Universe
MORTAL KOMBAT – Shang Tsung proile trailer
RIDGE RACER UNBOUND – MT1 trailer
DRAGON AGE II & MASS EFFECT 2 – Sequel Celebration trailer
MX VS ATV ALIVE – Bar to Bar trailer
THE SIMS 3 – Generations trailer
VIRTUA TENNIS 4 – World Tour trailer
SOCOM 4 – Single Player Campaign trailer
BATTLEFIELD PLAY4FREE – Launch trailer
Apr 9, 2011
The post Supertrailer: Week 04/03 – 04/09 appeared first on Game News.
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