Music: I Love Video Game Soundtracks, Part II

Where the writer realizes his folly in trying to fit his passion into one blog post.

Yesterday, I went on quite a yarn about my love for video game soundtracks, and I managed to name some of my top picks for composers. But the sad truth is I just wasn't done. I simply felt bad for you, the reader, who would be forced to endure a year-long blog post, so I split it into two for your convenience. Without further ado, here are my remaining notable video game soundtrack composers.

Nobuo Uematsu
What I have heard: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

"Prelude." One could make an argument for many of his songs as iconic, but "Prelude," a repeated theme throughout the Final Fantasy series (most of which, I have not played), not only acts as an introduction to some of the iterations, but hearing it invokes the spirit and memories of every Final Fantasy game you've ever played. There are several versions of it, but oddly, my favorite it the live version, as performed by the Distant Worlds orchestra. If you ever get a chance to see them perform, it's amazing, and Nobuo is usually not far. Aside from the larger game themes, such as "Liberi Fatali" and "The Place I'll Return to Someday," many fans remember the smaller pieces clear as day. Some of my favorites include the latter portion of "The Planet's Crisis" (FFVII) and "You're Not Alone" (FFIX). Often, the best way to describe his work is very JRPG and very fantasy, but there's a reason he's famous. It may have something to do with the memorable tunes.



Michael McCann
What I have heard: Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Even if you have not played the game, you probably watched the first epic trailer that came out for the game, which revealed the main story arc. The background music is the vocally lush sci-fi piece called, "Icarus." This and the remainder of the soundtrack really make the case for orchestral music standing alongside electronic music. You are never taken out of the futuristic setting of the game as you peruse the tracks composed by McCann. Notable tracks include the exciting "First and Last" and "Return to Hengsha," which layer the action elements of the game successfully into the sounds you hear.





Andrew Hale
What I have heard: L.A. Noire

If you listened to the L.A. Noire soundtrack without knowing what it's from, you'd think you were listening to an old movie soundtrack. Emulating a time period without grotesquely mimicking it can sometimes be a challenge, but every track in this album is a trip to another era. You can feel the mystery and tension build with each track, and the navigation from sweeping orchestras to soft jazz successfully root the listener in the spirit of the late 40s crime dramas. What I also enjoy about this soundtrack is Hale's suites of songs, which serve as the background to specific chapters in the game. Although they waver through highs and lows, their tones are usually fitting for the moments in the story they represent.



Bill Elm & Woody Jackson
What I have heard: Red Dead Redemption

This soundtrack is one of utmost quality. Like Andrew Hale's L.A. Noire, it successfully invokes the era of the game's setting, but where it stands apart is in how it modernizes it. You'll hear authentically Western-sounding guitar arrangements and string movements, but they will be layered on top of drum-and-bass beats and jarring arrangements. The build of the drums and orchestra in "El Club de los Cuerpos" hook me every time I hear it, especially one the herd of trumpets chime in. I also adore the percussion-navigated trip of "Triggernometry," whose main brass melody served as my phone's ringtone for a number of months recently. All the tracks serve the Rockstar pulp fittingly.




Mike Morasky
What I have heard: Portal, Portal 2

Although most of us only recall Ellen McLain's singing on "Still Alive" from the original Portal soundtrack, there is so much more to take notice of with Mike Morasky's compositions in Portal 2. There are obvious star songs like "Science Is Fun" and "You Will Be Perfect" to enjoy, but many of the tracks on the 3-disc score were procedurally generated in the game, meaning everyone's first experience with these songs was unique. Still, the composer, under the pseudonym, Aperture Science Psychoacoustics Laboratory, managed to bring all his samples together for an intriguing journey through the rundown puzzle gauntlet of the game. "Love as a Construct" and "You are Not Part of the Control Group" are two good examples of songs culled from these moments in the levels, and they ultimately add to the atmosphere of awe and wonder the player feels while trying hard not to die. Of the soundtracks I've mentioned thus far, it's worth noting that the orchestral work takes a back seat to seriously creative and compelling electronic musical structures. They typically return during larger story moments, but it is hard to miss them with all this good music being offered.

And the honorable mentions...

Without pumping out the theatrical writing for every soundtrack I own, I did want to mention additional selections from my library worth owning and listening to. (Also in no particular order.)

Tim Larkin

Soundtracks: Myst: Uru, Myst V: End of Ages

Songs of Note: "Villa," "Great Shaft"

Vincent Diamante

Soundtracks: Flower

Songs of Note: "Sailing on the Wind," "Purification of the City"

Solar Fields

Soundtracks: Mirror's Edge

Songs of Note: "Heat," "Pirandello Kruger"

Akira Yamaoka

Soundtracks: Silent Hill 3, Silent Hill 4

Songs of Note: "Breeze - In Monochrome Night," "Room of Angel"

Adam Skorupa & Krzystof Wierzynkiewicz

Soundtracks: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

Songs of Note: "The Path of a Kingslayer," "For a Higher Cause"

Tomas Dvorak

Soundtracks: Machinarium

Songs of Note: "Mr. Handagote," "Gameboy Tune"

Normand Corbeil

Soundtracks: Heavy Rain

Songs of Note: "Lauren Winter's Main Theme," "Before the Storm"

Jami Sieber

Soundtracks: Braid

Songs of Note: "Maenam," "Tell It By Heart"

Thank you for indulging me in this journey through one of my many loves. Please let me know what soundtracks you love!

Images taken from Amazon, iTunes, and other Googled sources.

Never catching up with the present

Welcome to my gaming blog, From the Backlog. As the title should suggest, the video games I'll be focusing on are typically older, some of them by a few months and others by years. A while ago, I committed to playing only one major game at a time, which means awesome games come out, but I ignore them until I am finished with what I'm doing. (If someone wants to send me a review copy of a new game, I'm all ears.) Some people may be better adept to playing a few games at once, but I know that if I truly want to finish a game, I have to focus on it solely. Another reason I am behind the times is because I bought a Playstation 3 a few years after it came out, which means there were all kinds of games for me to play excluding new releases. Unless I quit my full-time job, I have games and will have games to play continuously for years. I also try to be frugal, so if I am only sort of interested in a new game, I will typically wait until it goes on sale for a price that meets my interest. (I will confess, I am a sucker for Steam sales.)

Beyond: Two Souls - One of those games I wouldn't mind receiving a review copy for.

Moving on, I'd like to note the kind of posts you should be expecting. Given that I will be playing games behind the times, I am not sure how relevant reviews will be by the time they go up. Instead, I'd like to offer up something possible more engaging: episodic blogging about my games, a subject discussed in this blog, which goes into why it is harder to review games in the same way one reviews movies. I often have a lot of insights into the games I'm playing, but I am not continuously taking notes. It would actually be easier for me to talk about the last couple hours of gaming as if I'm talking about my day. However, depending on how short a game is, I may still post reviews or post-mortems at the very least.

There are some games, which get me hot enough to buy them new and play them right when they come out. This year, I picked up The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings: Enhanced Edition, which was just amazing. Seriously, it is one of the best RPGs I've ever played, and compared to a lot of games you see in this HD era, the absolutely gorgeous graphics were the icing on the gameplay cake. More recently relevant, I played Quantum Conundrum, developed by Kim Swift, who developed Narbacular Drop, which laid the groundwork for the amazing Portal. The game was certainly entertaining, though it invites comparisons to Portal that end up becoming unfair; it's possible the game was marred by being shoehorned into a smaller digital download production, but I still would not play down its entertainment value. Games still to come that I am looking forward to playing upon release are Borderlands 2, Dishonored, Assassin's Creed III, Bioshock Infinite, and many others.

Seriously, The Witcher 2 is gorgeous.

Aside from just talking about games I am or will be playing, I'd love to blog about my opinions about the video game industry and journalism. I am also planning some dissections of video games themselves, looking into the mechanics to make the industry successful and how they hit our id. (Not to be confused with id Software.) Whether they will interest this blog's likely tens of readers is yet to be seen, but I hope my rambling hits home with some of you. Back to games for the moment, you will most likely see me talking about RPGs and adventure games. I lean on those genres the most, though the original Bioshock showed me that I can attempt first-person shooters with my PC on super easy mode. My only gaming consoles are a PS3 and a PC. I have nothing against the 360; I just didn't choose one in the store. (If you'd like to buy me one, I'll play on it!) In the past, I've owned a PS2, Gamecube, Saturn, Genesis, and Gameboy.

Hopefully, they didn't just up the ante in the graphics department.

So thank you for taking the time to read this long-winded introduction. I do hope you return as I will try to post often or die trying. In the meantime, you can hit me up on the Twitter: @gilmeansjoy.

Beyond: Two Souls screenshot taken without permission from GameInformer.com.
The Witcher 2 screenshot taken myself via Steam.
Borderlands 2 screenshot taken without permission from the official website linked above.