Games Revue

Okay, not strictly in keeping with the theme of these videos, but it’s my list so shut up.

Everyone has at least one song on Guitar Hero or Rock Band that they like to play simply to show off: that one song that you can 100% with ease. This one would be mine.

(I do vocals in case you’re wondering)

This video doesn’t involve me, before anyone asks, but it’s surprisingly hard to find decent quality vids of this song which are also worth watching, so much kudos to the folks involved.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed was really more of an extended advert for the reboot game that came a few months after its release. However, irony of ironies, it not only proved to be more popular than its big brother, it was also a hell of a lot more fun. A remake of the 2D classic, it was a real labour of love, from the references to the original, to the music, which was largely updates of music from the earlier version. There's very little on the soundtrack that isn't worth listening to, but this, the theme to the last couple of stages, sits head and shoulders above the rest.

Earthbound has a reputation that precedes it by several light years or more. It's funny, it's subversive, it's creepy and twisted in a way that you can't quite pin down. If you know anything about the game at all, it'll no doubt be about how the final boss, Giygas, is the very personification of mind rape. Literally, since it was based on a traumatic experience the writer/director had as a young boy when he walked into the wrong cinema.

Today's track, as you've probably guessed, is the final boss theme from the game, and it's... well, it's probably a little different from what you'd expect from such a game. Then again, Earthbound's a little different from what you'd expect for an RPG, let alone a SNES game.




What's that you say? Still not traumatized enough? Made of sterner stuff than that, huh? Well then. Look upon the true face of madness, and know suffering, mortal! You cannot comprehend the true form of... Ronald McDonald?!

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.

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.

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.

Something a little different now, since this list isn't all loud and angry combat themes (just most of it). Hometown is the ending theme from Silent Hill 3. It's basically a re-imagining of the opening theme from the original Silent Hill as sung by Joe Romsera. I could've gone the easy route and thrown up You're Not Here, or any one of a thousand pieces of music from SH2, but that would've been obvious, and in case it's escaped yout attention, obvious is not how we do things around here! In any case, I found Hometown hideously cheesy at first, and frankly, still do. But it's grown on me over the years, and even though I cheerfully take the piss out of it while singing along, its still one of my favourite songs from the game, and the series as a whole.

If you remember the worryingly glowing review of Prototype I did back in June, you'll recall me gushing over the tutorial stage, of all things. Set right at the end of the game, it gave you an opportunity to dick around with some of the powers you'd later get to play around with right off the bat as the world goes to hell around you. I described it as one of the best intros I'd ever played, and the music that accompanied your carnage added immensely to the overall feeling that this, as I said back then, was Armageddon in hi-def.

Six months on, and my feelings haven't changed a bit. This is still one of the best games of 2009 and this track, Memory In Death, is one of the best pieces of music in the game. If you still haven't played this yet, rectify that ASAP.

Time for something a wee bit older now. To anyone raised in the 16-bit era, the name Yuzo Koshiro is one that will likely cause a twang of nostalgia, the man being responsible for some of the best soundtracks on the Megadrive (or 'Genesis' if you prefer) and the SNES. Streets of Rage is probably his best known work, and while the second game is usually seen as the best of the series, I'll always prefer the original above all. For my money, the soundtrack to this one represents some of his finest work, and the boss theme, Attack of the Barbarian, stands head and shoulders above them all.