The Video Game Music Thread

[BlitzKitchen]

 

[Jashiin]

 

[Primordial Soup Nazi]

Ooh, how did I not see this thread until now? I wish I weren't brofistially-challenged; I'd be tossing them out left-and-right in this thread.


A few of the many tunes that have made my gaming career so enjoyable over the years; first some chip-tunes:

Shinobi 3-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjaW4ZYzVHI

Sonic 3-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtQtbWifobQ


More typical Codex fodder:

Might & Magic VII-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Anoc67QPMaQ

Wizardry 8-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRQR-nfUUnk

Baldur's Gate 2 ToB-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V6ayeiKkT4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrW6W02613w

Morrowind-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvAEcGKV6Fk


They may have gone down the shitter, but Blizzard has churned out some legit ear candy over the years:

Diablo 1&2-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbJcv2w2soY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI4iHTR_FUM

Starcraft 1&2-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRPD8xVIBiw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp7-AJZYkDk


And some miscellaneous tunes:

Unreal Tournament-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acN8sB1wJUg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bFUNKg0mzg

Half-Life 1&2-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leVIKBE_UPY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVNYuyv5tu4

Deus Ex:HR-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N2o-wL5Bes

Xenogears-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPxaZHJp_L8

Titan Quest-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16tpZuG0NDQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufJvNhcW04Y

Grim Dawn (not even out yet, and the music is already amongst my favorites)-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD1WDdOB9FA


I would apologize for any reposts, but...quality music is worth repeated listens. I regret nothing!

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Browsing through the old stuff, some capt. obvious music.

It blasts the black belt off all other martial arts games!!!



Cleve was helping developing it, not a coincidence.



Swedish a-capella International Karate theme .



Brilliant cover for a game.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Time for some update. Mirror's Edge had some really memorable art style, but swedish project Solar Fields made some truly remarkable soundtrack even on it's own.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

the fire-themed bosses are doomed to always have awesome music

 

[markec]

 

[Clockwork Knight]

 

[Excommunicator]

You should all write short descriptions of each piece or at least each game soundtrack you post (what you like about it and/or how you would classify it instrumentally). There's a lot to sift through and no information to go by other than "awesome" or "great music"

 

[Jaesun]

This is the Character Creation theme for our fan game "Ultima: Return" (http://www.ultima-return.com) courtesy of Panu "Grotto Dragon" Aaltio. http://www.panuaaltio.com/).

The idea for it is to be reminiscent of Ultima VI's Character Creation theme but with its own twist, so we hope you enjoy it!

 

[Destroid]

From Atlantis 2 by Cryo.

A haunting little solo guitar piece. The soundtrack is pretty nice, although I've never played the games, just enjoy Cryo soundtracks. Has a few tracks like this, some more orchestral style and quite a few native american wind instrument based tracks.

 

[Brayko]

Really dig this one, got an 80's twist to it.

 

[Destroid]

Jaesun Ultima has some great tracks. This is an especially nice performance of 'Stones' on piano.

 

[Jack]

Brayko, I prefer the soundtrack of the first Hitman.

just enjoy Cryo soundtracks.

Yeah, the games themselves were often bad to mediocre but they always had good soundtracks.

 

[Brayko]

 

[KidBoogie]

this shit's way too good for an indie bullethell

 

[Shadenuat]

Probably already posted here 7 times, but I really like these two versions:

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I've just spent a few days trawling through this thread, listening to all the tracks that still have valid links in them. It was weird. At times I was glad because there were really awesome tracks that got mentioned several times, although some of them showed rather late in the thread. At other times I was raging because tracks that I felt were OBVIOUS "awesome tracks" were completely omitted and didn't show up until I posted them years ago. Then there were the cases where I gave a listen and just stopped and wondered what the hell people were on to be able to like this. (Of course all of this is based on the YouTube vids that still work, I'd say about half of the vids before 2011 in this thread still do.)

But to each his own, and instead of ranting about it I'm going to necro this thread, throw my lot in and be damned for whatever.

I'm going to start by actually doing what so many others failed to do, and actually WRITE something about each track. My first track is aimed at the NES crowd with a cry of shame:



How could this thread get so far, have chunks of NES music and still miss out on this?!? This isn't Super Mario Bros, Contra, Zelda or some of the other big Nintendo tunes that are widely known outside of the game music scene, but it's still a NES track that has not only transcended the console, but survived for more than 20 years since. There are people claiming that the HD remake of Duck Tales will stand or fall depending on how well they remake this tune, which is an...interesting thing to say.

Someone posted the GameBoy version of the theme from the Robocop game from Ocean. I don't like that version, so I dug around and found this:



The Amstrad CPC version is used as the base for several remixes of the tune, and it doesn't have as much of the static as the GameBoy version. I'll admit that it doesn't really fit Robocop in any sensible way, but it's still a nice little tune.

For the SiD lovers there's this:



One of the most memorable puzzle games of the 80s, which also happens to have a kickass title tune. It has been ported to almost every computer platform in existence, though it was noticably absent throughout the 90s.



This is a medley of all the best themes from the Monkey Island games - the first two of them, anyway. I've had an MP3 of this for over 10 years now. Apparentely it's from a fan-film of the first Monkey Island game.

The last tune I'm going to link for now is in a playlist so I can't embed it directly to the forum, the link is below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVBCj5o-itM&list=PL9257A34DAC0ECAE8

This is the New Magincia theme from Ultima IX. As crap and bug-ridden as the game may be, the soundtrack is too good to be overlooked. In-game everyone hears this when they first reach New Magincia through the tunnels from Buccaneer's Den. The first time I did so, I was fortunate enough that the sun was just about to come up on the horizon. It was, at the time, one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen in a video game, and having this music playing at the same time made it an unforgettable gaming moment. Only one other game has managed to do something similar with a sunrise, and that was Risen.

 

[Excommunicator]

You've reminded me to go back over my earlier posts and write better descriptions for the pieces. (Here and here I can't imagine why I didn't do it at the time.

That Magincia piece is so sickly sweet. I like it, but I can't deal with too much of it, heh. It fits brilliantly with the very empty, humble, serene atmosphere they were trying to achieve in Magincia though. Makes me think of palm trees and white beaches (which the game is full of)

Skara Brae, Yew, Moonglow I listen to frequently.

 

[Suchy]

 

[skacky]

The Crusader soundtracks are still cool as fuck after all these years. The guys at Straylight were really gifted.
Speaking of Straylight, some of my favorite tracks from Unreal are actually tracks that weren't used in the final game, such as Soledad or the beta version of Night Vision (the music used in Terraniux).

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The Crusader soundtracks are still cool as fuck after all these years. The guys at Straylight were really gifted.

This reminded me of a thought that I had almost forgotten, and that is whether there is any place or reason for Crusader to exist nowadays. The answer, sadly, is no. The soundtrack survives and endures because it is a good testament to the era of gaming that spawned the Crusader games, but just about everything else about the game has aged badly, with the controls being downright obscene. Crusader could EASILY be remade nowadays and be a kick-ass action game with ALL of its features present and yet sport an easy-to-learn intuitive interface...but it just wouldn't be Crusader anymore. It would be something like the Syndicate remake when compared to its original: Virtually unrelated in any way except for the name. Maybe Crusader was a vital stepping stone on the path that led to games like Halo, but today it's just a dinosaur of its era.

But enough about that, let's get more music started. I'm gonna start up tonight's selection with a chiptune that came to my attention in an off-kilter way.



This is the loader tune from Sanxion on the C-64. Rob Hubbard at his finest. But I didn't hear it there first. No, I heard it first being used in a lovely little game called Seiklus. As a result the original doesn't really appeal to me, I prefer a version that was included in a compilation CD called "Back in Time".

Next up is one of the most underrated tracks from one of the most awesome and quirky gaming soundtracks ever made.



In Star Control 2, the Supox are the species with the least airtime - you spend the least amount of time talking to them as they're mostly just there to point you to the Utwig. Which means that most players will miss out on most of their theme, which truly takes off in the latter part of the track. If anyone hasn't done so yet, check out this game and ESPECIALLY the soundtrack.

And now for something completely different:



I haven't played any of the Crash Bandicoot games, but I was fascinated to hear that Crash Bandicoot: Twinsanity's soundtrack is a cappella - 100% vocal. I picked their rendition of "Flight of the Bumblebee" so people had something familiar to compare it to. It reminds me of the Earthworm Jim 2 soundtrack, especially the title theme.

Speaking of vocals, somewhere earlier in this megathread there's a discussion about why gaming music shouldn't focus on vocals (or have them at all). I'm going to present a case that can be interpreted either way.



On one hand, there is NOTHING about this ballad from King's Quest 6 that makes you think of a game. It could just as easily come from a Disney film. But on the other hand it is a very powerful ballad, and anyone who has played the game will remember this. I can imagine people loathing it just as much as people could love it.

 

[The Glitterdust Golem]

Whenever somebody brings up Star Control, I always have to immediately boot up the Yehat theme.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I was SO CLOSE to posting the Yehat theme instead of the Supox theme.

 

[ManjuShri]