User 73706
Banned
So, just like any other fictional medium, video games bring a lot of alien or even downright esoteric ideas to the table, with varying degrees of success from conceptualization to implementation. Playing as fantasy races, geometric shapes, aliens, robots, superhumans and even black people are just a taste of the possible elements at your disposal. One facet that gets commonly overlooked in mainstream games are just how well the actual score complements the ideas at play. Call of Duty's modern titles are scored to bombastic Hans Zimmer brass in portamento and guitar riffs, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn abandoned the notably high-fidelity unique sound the original titles had used in favor of Motoi Sakuraba's hip new french horn samples, and Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood was, well... we don't talk about that one. The point of this thread, though, is to highlight music that truly captures unique, the-only-limit-is-your-imagination scenarios presented in games. A lowly car chase scored to Drive-esque synths and beats isn't really what's meant to be at focus in this thread. I'm talking much more alien scenarios, so here's a couple of examples:
Shatterhail (Theme of Glacius) - Killer Instinct (2013) Season One Original Soundtrack
As of late Mick Gordon went from zero to sixty with regards to soundtrack output; all of his recent work is absolutely insane. The thing that really blows my mind the most is the Shatterhail track, though. Killer Instinct 2013's design philosophy for characters so far has been something along the lines of "take generic fighter concept (e.g. zombie, mummy, werewolf, bare-fisted monk) and then modernize and/or up-to-eleven the shit out of it," with pretty fucking successful results. As a result, Glacius ended up getting one of the more substantial makeovers, going from "generic humanoid ice dudebro guy in a rubber suit" to a mutant-looking, possibly silicon-based crystalline lifeform running all sorts of crazy cryokinetic shit from his integrated power suit. His backstory's still mostly the same: UltraTech somehow intercepted his intended vector and forced him to crash-land on Earth, requiring him to fight. If he wins the tournament, he'll be allowed to return to his home planet. While you can't necessarily pick that up from his design or even his stage (which doesn't really show off the "UltraTech was responsible" elements), the music manages to perfectly set the tone of his encounters. An alternating call-answer series of movements conveys in equal parts tragedy and brutality, all the while being punctuated by crunchy and delightfully icy-sounding, post-processed Dubstep synth percussion. It's not often a score alone makes you feel with a character, but if you're capable of empathy you'll be greeted with a substantial irony in that one of the most alien characters in Killer Instinct is perhaps the most deserving of sympathy.
Between Beams - Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Original Soundtrack (Original)
Possibly the most out there example, Between Beams (originally "Shadows" in the Combat Evolved soundtrack) was the primary leitmotif that stuck in terms of musically characterizing the Flood, a pretty well-known race of space zombies that operate on vaguely fungal properties before amassing enough assumed intelligence through assimilation to form bigger and badder entities that run the show known as Graveminds, or more formally a Compound Intelligence. In contrast to the sharply intelligent Covenant units you fight throughout the games, the Flood generally abandon calculated precision in favor of rushing the player from all sides until their numbers run dry. This change in gameplay, the overall frenetic pace of Flood-dominated levels in the Campaign, and Marty O'Donnell's preference towards pitch-shifted, string ensemble sample weirdness (due to technical limitations during production of CE's score, understandable being it happened in 2001) gives us the aforementioned track as a result. Sometimes, especially in the Combat Evolved Anniversary soundtrack, the Flood's themes are marginalized into more middle-of-the-road "psycho string" pieces, but the most recognizable theme of theirs is undoubtedly the recurring "duaa, duii, duaa, duii" string riff that shows up in just about every game they're present in. In the case of the CEA soundtrack, whose sounds are more controversial, the direct orchestration made it difficult to recreate the string riff effect and as a result the approach makes it sound more like a score to a cumbersome Bollywood horror movie. A more accurate remastering can be found in Halo 3's soundtrack, albeit it still makes use of the original sample. Overall, though, the Flood's motifs somehow manage to accurately convey the claustrophobic, musky air of impending doom and then un-doom. (Undeath.)
Immaterial - Halo 4 Original Soundtrack
One of my favorite tracks in the entire franchise, Immaterial was done by Neil Davidge, whom - along with Kazuma Jinnouchi - scored Halo 4 as per the exchange of hats when the Halo franchise was moved over to 343 Industries for development. Broadly speaking, Halo 4 can be a sore spot for more vocal purists in favor of "classic Halo," but that's neither here nor there. In addition, the actual implementation of the sound design in Halo 4 had some issues from a technical perspective - the massive upswing in graphical fidelity presented 343 with some memory issues, and as a result most of the sounds in-game (particularly audio in cutscenes and background music in the mainline Campaign mode) were compressed way further beyond what was usually done in Halo titles. However, looking past that, Davidge's composition style for Halo 4 really shines with Immaterial in that it's the epitome of musical techniques he used throughout the score: recurring call-answer overscore themes (particularly with strings, also evident in tracks like Escape and Nemesis), darkly ethereal ambient synths, hyper-slow harmonics post-processed into pads or atmospheres for overall tracks, the eerily John Williams-esque piccolo-glockenspiel combo he uses to punctuate tracks with an air of mystery, the rapid slam-bam synth percussion and associated effects he employs in moments of action, and the benefit of a live orchestra, particularly the cello solos in this track. While dark / gritty sci-fi sound design like mimicking Geiger Counters, overwhelming crunchy white noise and backmasking isn't uncommon, the unsettling, almost nauseating air of a "fugue cosmic" presented in this track is one-of-a-kind. Having to convey "you're an aging supersoldier reject trying to keep your AI, who's on the verge of thinking herself to death, sane enough to remain stable until repairs can be made while concurrently combating a legendary war hero-gone-insular madman whose superweapon can immolate swaths of organic life into digital proverbial biomass as everything's going wrong around you and you can't save everyone" is a pretty big job to do, but damn if Davidge doesn't nail it with this track.
Phendrana Drifts - Metroid Prime Soundtrack
Honestly, the Metroid Prime series has way too much good shit going on to really highlight a single track, but Phendrana Drifts is usually the go-to and I couldn't find a good picture of the Torvus Bog so we're going with it. While snowy or icy areas are usually pretty well-known in gaming culture as having good music, Phendrana Drifts takes it a step above and beyond by mixing elements of Metroid old and new into something unbelievably pleasant-sounding. While "cool music in ice level" isn't exactly an out-there theme to convey, contextually the location's pretty unique (or was for its time) in the Metroid universe because cold is the paramount weakness of the eponymous Metroids, and as a result an icy area hadn't really been explored before in a Metroid title. The Prime series' sound design is pretty flexible, but ultimately encapsulates a lot of elements that go far in fleshing out beautifully atmospheric locations even more: recurring theremin arpeggios, flanged synth pads, recurring choir pads, and distinctly techno-sounding percussion whose beats are further compounded by deep, booming bass drum hits that add an additional air of openness and even isolation to the score. That's what makes the Metroid Prime score so unique. Metroid's played with its own characterization plenty, but the successful formula usually employs non-linear exploration limited only by your gear and the player's own resolve, all framed around the idea of isolation: having to fend for yourself and complete missions and objectives alone against the teeming hordes of enemies, precusrors and grisly automatons that may stand in your way. And, somehow, the music complements that perfectly.
Shatterhail (Theme of Glacius) - Killer Instinct (2013) Season One Original Soundtrack
As of late Mick Gordon went from zero to sixty with regards to soundtrack output; all of his recent work is absolutely insane. The thing that really blows my mind the most is the Shatterhail track, though. Killer Instinct 2013's design philosophy for characters so far has been something along the lines of "take generic fighter concept (e.g. zombie, mummy, werewolf, bare-fisted monk) and then modernize and/or up-to-eleven the shit out of it," with pretty fucking successful results. As a result, Glacius ended up getting one of the more substantial makeovers, going from "generic humanoid ice dudebro guy in a rubber suit" to a mutant-looking, possibly silicon-based crystalline lifeform running all sorts of crazy cryokinetic shit from his integrated power suit. His backstory's still mostly the same: UltraTech somehow intercepted his intended vector and forced him to crash-land on Earth, requiring him to fight. If he wins the tournament, he'll be allowed to return to his home planet. While you can't necessarily pick that up from his design or even his stage (which doesn't really show off the "UltraTech was responsible" elements), the music manages to perfectly set the tone of his encounters. An alternating call-answer series of movements conveys in equal parts tragedy and brutality, all the while being punctuated by crunchy and delightfully icy-sounding, post-processed Dubstep synth percussion. It's not often a score alone makes you feel with a character, but if you're capable of empathy you'll be greeted with a substantial irony in that one of the most alien characters in Killer Instinct is perhaps the most deserving of sympathy.
Between Beams - Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Original Soundtrack (Original)
Possibly the most out there example, Between Beams (originally "Shadows" in the Combat Evolved soundtrack) was the primary leitmotif that stuck in terms of musically characterizing the Flood, a pretty well-known race of space zombies that operate on vaguely fungal properties before amassing enough assumed intelligence through assimilation to form bigger and badder entities that run the show known as Graveminds, or more formally a Compound Intelligence. In contrast to the sharply intelligent Covenant units you fight throughout the games, the Flood generally abandon calculated precision in favor of rushing the player from all sides until their numbers run dry. This change in gameplay, the overall frenetic pace of Flood-dominated levels in the Campaign, and Marty O'Donnell's preference towards pitch-shifted, string ensemble sample weirdness (due to technical limitations during production of CE's score, understandable being it happened in 2001) gives us the aforementioned track as a result. Sometimes, especially in the Combat Evolved Anniversary soundtrack, the Flood's themes are marginalized into more middle-of-the-road "psycho string" pieces, but the most recognizable theme of theirs is undoubtedly the recurring "duaa, duii, duaa, duii" string riff that shows up in just about every game they're present in. In the case of the CEA soundtrack, whose sounds are more controversial, the direct orchestration made it difficult to recreate the string riff effect and as a result the approach makes it sound more like a score to a cumbersome Bollywood horror movie. A more accurate remastering can be found in Halo 3's soundtrack, albeit it still makes use of the original sample. Overall, though, the Flood's motifs somehow manage to accurately convey the claustrophobic, musky air of impending doom and then un-doom. (Undeath.)
Immaterial - Halo 4 Original Soundtrack
One of my favorite tracks in the entire franchise, Immaterial was done by Neil Davidge, whom - along with Kazuma Jinnouchi - scored Halo 4 as per the exchange of hats when the Halo franchise was moved over to 343 Industries for development. Broadly speaking, Halo 4 can be a sore spot for more vocal purists in favor of "classic Halo," but that's neither here nor there. In addition, the actual implementation of the sound design in Halo 4 had some issues from a technical perspective - the massive upswing in graphical fidelity presented 343 with some memory issues, and as a result most of the sounds in-game (particularly audio in cutscenes and background music in the mainline Campaign mode) were compressed way further beyond what was usually done in Halo titles. However, looking past that, Davidge's composition style for Halo 4 really shines with Immaterial in that it's the epitome of musical techniques he used throughout the score: recurring call-answer overscore themes (particularly with strings, also evident in tracks like Escape and Nemesis), darkly ethereal ambient synths, hyper-slow harmonics post-processed into pads or atmospheres for overall tracks, the eerily John Williams-esque piccolo-glockenspiel combo he uses to punctuate tracks with an air of mystery, the rapid slam-bam synth percussion and associated effects he employs in moments of action, and the benefit of a live orchestra, particularly the cello solos in this track. While dark / gritty sci-fi sound design like mimicking Geiger Counters, overwhelming crunchy white noise and backmasking isn't uncommon, the unsettling, almost nauseating air of a "fugue cosmic" presented in this track is one-of-a-kind. Having to convey "you're an aging supersoldier reject trying to keep your AI, who's on the verge of thinking herself to death, sane enough to remain stable until repairs can be made while concurrently combating a legendary war hero-gone-insular madman whose superweapon can immolate swaths of organic life into digital proverbial biomass as everything's going wrong around you and you can't save everyone" is a pretty big job to do, but damn if Davidge doesn't nail it with this track.
Phendrana Drifts - Metroid Prime Soundtrack
Honestly, the Metroid Prime series has way too much good shit going on to really highlight a single track, but Phendrana Drifts is usually the go-to and I couldn't find a good picture of the Torvus Bog so we're going with it. While snowy or icy areas are usually pretty well-known in gaming culture as having good music, Phendrana Drifts takes it a step above and beyond by mixing elements of Metroid old and new into something unbelievably pleasant-sounding. While "cool music in ice level" isn't exactly an out-there theme to convey, contextually the location's pretty unique (or was for its time) in the Metroid universe because cold is the paramount weakness of the eponymous Metroids, and as a result an icy area hadn't really been explored before in a Metroid title. The Prime series' sound design is pretty flexible, but ultimately encapsulates a lot of elements that go far in fleshing out beautifully atmospheric locations even more: recurring theremin arpeggios, flanged synth pads, recurring choir pads, and distinctly techno-sounding percussion whose beats are further compounded by deep, booming bass drum hits that add an additional air of openness and even isolation to the score. That's what makes the Metroid Prime score so unique. Metroid's played with its own characterization plenty, but the successful formula usually employs non-linear exploration limited only by your gear and the player's own resolve, all framed around the idea of isolation: having to fend for yourself and complete missions and objectives alone against the teeming hordes of enemies, precusrors and grisly automatons that may stand in your way. And, somehow, the music complements that perfectly.
Great job! Your analyses are spot on.
