Games Revue

Something a little different today. Bands covering game music are nothing new anymore, let’s be honest. It’s getting to be a played out formula: grab some random game from the NES (because it’s always the NES, no one ever had a Master System back then), throw in some guitars and let nostalgia take care of the rest. Simple.

Okay, that’s perhaps a little too cynical, but there’s very few bands who actually bother to do anything more than a straight cover. In Japan, they cheerfully fold, spindle and mutilate the originals til they bear only a passing resemblance to their parents. Over here in the West… not so much. The Adventures of Duane and BrandO, however, were something of an exception. If you know anything about them, it’ll probably be their version of the various Mega Man 2 tracks. Rather than the typical cover shenanigans we’re used to, they would rap over the music, telling the story of the game they were covering in a roundabout sort of way. I use the past tense, because they split messily earlier this year. They’re both continuing to do their own thing but it’s pretty much agreed that it just won’t be the same.

This here’s their version of Duck Hunt. And yes, the dog gets it. You’re welcome.

I know I give Final Fantasy a hard time: the games, the endless remakes, the character designs in recent years, the fact that Square Enix are physically incapable of going more than 3 months without releasing or announcing a new game in the series, it’s all fair game as far as I’m concerned. It used to be that a new Final Fantasy game was an Event, something to get excited over. Now, you’d be as well getting excited over it being Tuesday.

That said, the one department Square has never once dropped the ball in, is the music. Say what you will about the legions of androgynous girlymen, When it comes to the music, Square has never once lost its teeth. Crisis Core, while exemplifying many of the problems I have with current-day Square Enix, also had a solid OST, featuring a mix of redone themes from FFVII and Advent Children, as well as a variety of original work. This track, The Summoned, is a redux of the classic FFVII boss theme, arguably as it should always have been. If this doesn’t get the blood fired up, nothing will.

I know I give Final Fantasy a hard time: the games, the endless remakes, the character designs in recent years, the fact that Square Enix are physically incapable of going more than 3 months without releasing or announcing a new game in the series, it’s all fair game as far as I’m concerned. It used to be that a new Final Fantasy game was an Event, something to get excited over. Now, you’d be as well getting excited over it being Tuesday.

That said, the one department Square has never once dropped the ball in, is the music. Say what you will about the legions of androgynous girlymen, When it comes to the music, Square has never once lost its teeth. Crisis Core, while exemplifying many of the problems I have with current-day Square Enix, also had a solid OST, featuring a mix of redone themes from FFVII and Advent Children, as well as a variety of original work. This track, The Summoned, is a redux of the classic FFVII boss theme, arguably as it should always have been. If this doesn’t get the blood fired up, nothing will.

“A 13-year-old boy is invited into a magical fantasy land by a spirit, a world eerily close to Earth that’s under the rule of a dark sorcerer.”

Famous anime studio Ghibli, responsible for such animated masterpieces as Princess Mononoke, Totoro, Spirited away and many more has joined with games developer Level 5 to create a rpg adventure game with their trademarked beautiful designs sensibilities. The games feature movie quality animated cutscenes and the in game design by the Ghibli artists

Hopefully it will be released worldwide soon, and will start a trend of game collaborations with talented artists and creators.

Rez is another game I reviewed this year, which proved itself to be more than the sum of its samples. While the in-game music basically consists of various samples that are eventually combined to make the full song, the alum, Gamer’s Guide To, takes all the samples and mixes them properly to create a fully-finished song. It’s different from what you get in-game, but no less listenable for it.

This time around, we’ve got the first stage music, Buggie Running Beeps. As I said back then, even if you don’t dig dance music, give it a shot, it’s still fantastic stuff.

Rez is another game I reviewed this year, which proved itself to be more than the sum of its samples. While the in-game music basically consists of various samples that are eventually combined to make the full song, the alum, Gamer’s Guide To, takes all the samples and mixes them properly to create a fully-finished song. It’s different from what you get in-game, but no less listenable for it.

This time around, we’ve got the first stage music, Buggie Running Beeps. As I said back then, even if you don’t dig dance music, give it a shot, it’s still fantastic stuff.

No More Heroes was very much like Devil May Cry 3 in that a lot of the soundtrack was variations or remixes of a central theme. Here, however, it was taken a step further, where it seems like virtually every track in the game features the same central section, heard here at the ‘chorus’. The soundtrack was composed by Masafumi Takada, who’s best known for his work with Suda51 on killer7, and while it arguably lacks the variation of the previous game, due to the insistence of adhering to the same themes, that doesn’t make it any less listenable.

Again, we avoid going for the obvious shot, everyone and their grandmother having heard Pleather For Breakfast a billion times by now. Instead, we bring Ten Tons of Titanium to the table. And no, it’s not just you, yes, it does sound familiar, and yes, it is deliberate.

No More Heroes was very much like Devil May Cry 3 in that a lot of the soundtrack was variations or remixes of a central theme. Here, however, it was taken a step further, where it seems like virtually every track in the game features the same central section, heard here at the ‘chorus’. The soundtrack was composed by Masafumi Takada, who’s best known for his work with Suda51 on killer7, and while it arguably lacks the variation of the previous game, due to the insistence of adhering to the same themes, that doesn’t make it any less listenable.

Again, we avoid going for the obvious shot, everyone and their grandmother having heard Pleather For Breakfast a billion times by now. Instead, we bring Ten Tons of Titanium to the table. And no, it’s not just you, yes, it does sound familiar, and yes, it is deliberate.

System Shock 2 was one of those games no one really liked until everyone decided they did. Upon its original release, it received rave reviews, then promptly sunk without a trace. Then Bioshock came out, was a big hit and everyone decided to see what they’d been missing in the meanwhile (and promptly questioned why Bioshock wasn’t as detailed or in-depth as its ancestor). Still, better late than never, unless you’re a former member of developers Looking Glass Studios who, sadly, folded soon after.

Despite being, essentially, a survival horror game, albeit one played from a first-person perspective, Looking Glass decided not to go for the standard ‘soundtrack made of creepy noises’ approach, and instead went with something a little different. The OST consists primarily of a mix of dance, drum and bass and electronica, and this difference makes it stand out in a field of me-toos in the wake of Silent Hill, a game that showed everyone how grinding metal and chugging noises should be done – lessons that pretty much everyone ignored or didn’t quite get thereafter. Ops 2 is a great example of this approach – in game it accentuates the feelings of loneliness and isolation you’ll experience. Out of the game, it becomes a stand-out track from a stand-out OST.

System Shock 2 was one of those games no one really liked until everyone decided they did. Upon its original release, it received rave reviews, then promptly sunk without a trace. Then Bioshock came out, was a big hit and everyone decided to see what they’d been missing in the meanwhile (and promptly questioned why Bioshock wasn’t as detailed or in-depth as its ancestor). Still, better late than never, unless you’re a former member of developers Looking Glass Studios who, sadly, folded soon after.

Despite being, essentially, a survival horror game, albeit one played from a first-person perspective, Looking Glass decided not to go for the standard ‘soundtrack made of creepy noises’ approach, and instead went with something a little different. The OST consists primarily of a mix of dance, drum and bass and electronica, and this difference makes it stand out in a field of me-toos in the wake of Silent Hill, a game that showed everyone how grinding metal and chugging noises should be done – lessons that pretty much everyone ignored or didn’t quite get thereafter. Ops 2 is a great example of this approach – in game it accentuates the feelings of loneliness and isolation you’ll experience. Out of the game, it becomes a stand-out track from a stand-out OST.