I thought of two computer games when I saw this thread, Loom and Star Control II . Both games have excelent music. No computer game music appreciation thread would be the same without mention of these two classics.
The kids and I walk around and hum old game boy or arcade game songs until someone notices: “Dad, you’re humming a game again!”
“I know. I’ll stop when you tell me which one.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!”
(it’s usually something insipid, e.g. “Boom”)
BTW, WHAT is the Burning Monkey (in Burning Monkey Solitaire, of course) singing?
Some Eastern European folk song… “Booszh-i-onny-ah / Ay mah-too-rain…” i’ve tried to find out for years.
I like the music LucasArts uses in its Star Wars themed games, but then, they have a leg up compared to most other computer games. (Bastila’s Theme from SWKotOR is good. I belive that can be obtained from the LucasArts website if you don’t have the game.)
(Side note: I hate it when the CD key is on something other than the jewel case or on the CD itself. Lose that bit of paper, manual, whatever, and you’ve lost your key. Grr.)
<< I’ve got a cat in my lap and I can’t get up. >>
Going back a year or two, I remember finding the music in the Sonic The Hedgehog games quite catchy, I also used to like the (crappy) arcade driving game Outrun, where you had a choice of three different backing tracks when you started the game.
I’m strictly old school when it comes to video game music. Cosmic Avenger, Omega Race, Burgertime, all ingrained into my head and will never leave.
Here’s a related story - for several years I would get this piece of music in my head. I knew it was from a video game, and it would drive me mad trying to remember it. Some of my friends even recognized it and started singing it themselves but we couldn’t remember the damn thing. Finally about two years ago it just popped into my head: it was the theme from Bonk, the only decent thing to come out for the TurboGrafx 16. (Well, Splatterhouse was pretty good).
And now for some shameless thread promotion - in case you missed it, you gotta see this guy play Super marios Bros. on the electric guitar.
Lot’s of good ones mentioned. I remember especially liking the Sonic music at the time, too. Another one I enjoyed from back then, was from Super Mario World, for the SNES. If you made it to that secret area in the center, after opening up the star paths, there was a variation on the theme song (if you let the game sit idly for a bit) that had a Caribbean twist. Along the same lines as Myst music I enjoyed, are the Atlantis games. Almost as good as major-league baseball for making me feel relaxed and sleepy, particularly the music from the Mayan world in Atlantis II.
First thing I thought of too.
As I recall, Total Annihilation had some decent music, and Command and Conquer: Red Alert had one song that would always get put on loop, but I can’t remember what it was called.
The Douglas Adams game Starship Titanic has a puzzle where you have to manipulate the settings for a robot band. When you get the settings correct, the song is really lovely and memorable. It was composed by Douglas Adams, himself. He was a talented guy.
My biggest vote is for American McGee’s Alice. I believe the soundtrack was done by a member of the Nine Inch Nails and to say the least, it was creepy and freaky; fitting the game perfectly. Another vote for the music of Blood 2 and Shogo-MAD. I’d emphasis Morrowind some more if it had more than 2 songs :(.
A little off the beaten track, the game Meridian59 has some of the best MIDI arrangements I have ever heard. I still have every song from that game on my computer and I listen to them regularily. I believe the game is now owned by a company called “Near Death Studios”, and they run the game quite well (though it still is kinda pricey).
Everytime I here the music that plays when you warp back to your home planet and find it destroyed, I can hear the voice saying "Higara is burning, blah, blah, blah.
F-Zero - the Big Blue theme was great. The title theme from Killer Instinct, called, simply, The Instinct, is one of my favorite pieces of music of all time. It’s a “guitar chords in series with a steel pole banging on concrete percussion bit and synthy stuff and the end of each bar” type-deal. (If anyone has an mp3 of it, or better yet, the Killer Cuts CD, e-mail me… I’ll pay through the nose for the CD)
The Amiga was great because its sound capabilities were waaaay ahead of their time. Apidya, Battlestorm (on the CDTV… the first personal computer with a CD-ROM drive as standard, but otherwise a piece of junk), and Shadow of the Beast all had great in-game music.
Chris Huelsbeck, who wrote the music for an unbelievable number of games in the 80s and 90s, used to have the Apidya Level 3 music on his mp3.com page, but since mp3.com is now deceased, I can’t link to it. :mad:
The very horn-heavy soundtrack to Warcraft II was just distinctive enough to really stand out in my mind. I thought it was appropiately exciting and epic-sounding.
Seconds for Monkey Island, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Bonk’s Adventure.
Command & Conquer had some great tracks too. I bought the soundtrack on CD and was surprised, and a little disappointed, to find that they’d added extra voice samples to most of the songs.
I loved the music in Pinball Dreams (can’t remember if it was I or II)
Killer Instinct.
Freelancer. I love eerie space music.
Syndicate Wars. Not so much music as atmospheric sound. But it was good.
I know there’s something I am missing. Some music to top the list. But I can’t remember either the music or the game. All I know is that there is something.
OffT: Someone mentioned Douglas Adams. I think the main tune for HHGTTG is pretty cool. And the tune for Battlestar Galactica.
AH! That name is familiar. But I can’t remember the game. Jog my memory someone?