Enter the Game Music Thunderdome

Quake 2 and VVVVVV

VVVVVV and Quake 2

I don’t love either, but think both are decent to good. Reactor and Bioshock did nothing for me.

Bioshock and Quake 2 for me this round.

Quake 2 and VVVVVV

I felt the Bioshock track was missing something. It sounds like bits and pieces of a Jerry Goldsmith score for Alien but lacked the punch in the middle to complete it.

Bioshock and VVVVVVV

(I copied and pasted from someone else, so don’t blame me if I got the wrong number of Vs!)

Bioshock and Quake 2.

I think I had a pirated (or shareware?) version of Quake 2 as a kid so never heard the soundtrack, presumably because it was the easiest thing to cut to keep the file size down. I remember NIN’s soundtrack for Quake, which we owned on CD-ROM. Either way, I liked the Quake 2 tune from the first listen and I wish I’d been able to hear it while fighting the recoil on my machine gun.

Love VVVVVV and its soundtrack (which is called PPPPPP because every track begins with P). As I mentioned up thread ‘Passion for Exploring so perfectly suits Captain Viridian venturing forth from his spacecraft into the wilds of the overworld’. It’s not my favourite tune from V but it’s still great.

The Reactor theme has this amazing dot matrix printer kind of sound with a pumping heartbeat-like pulse, and I love those voices too.

Good observation. Yeah, I wasn’t feeling the Bioshock theme quite as much as I expected. It’s a sad song still.

Hmm. VVVVVV and… it’s a toss-up between Quake 2 and Reactor. Reactor, I can’t resist that dot matrix printer sound chewing everything up.

I’ll vote for VVVVVV and for Bioshock!

(And now I’m curious what everyone’s favorite VVVVVV songs are because I nominated that one and I had a hard time choosing.)

Quake 2 and VVVVVV.

While the VVVVVV track is a little…fart-y? for my personal tastes, I can hear the artistry there.

I don’t really know what to make of the Reactor tune. It’s interesting, but more as an “impressive they did what they did with what they had” than anything I especially want to listen to.

Quake 2 and VVVVVV.

I didn’t think there was enough there in Reactor. Same with Bioshock – it’s evocative and very appropriate for the game, but I just don’t wanna listen to it again, you know?

Group G

Featuring nominations from @krayzkrok, @BrianRubin, @Shimarenda, and @soondifferent

Although I got to see David Arkenstone and his band perform live at the Cataclysm launch event, and he can do tavern jingles like nobody’s business, this Tauren music doesn’t do much for me compared to the vanilla WoW music by Jason Hayes et al.

I’ll go with Interstate 76 and Persona 4.

Legend of Grimrock for sure.

The next one is tougher. I like parts of Interstate '76 and Persona 4, but parts I really don’t like too. P4 is wayyy to repetitive. I76 has too much of a funky sound, but I like the bass.

I guess I’ll go with Interstate 76 just because it has more variety to it.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve heard it a million times so already love it but Persona 4 really does it for me this round.

Next is close but I think I prefer Legend of Grimrock to Interstate '76.

Persona 4 for sure. A bit of context for those who haven’t played it, it’s the character-select-get-pumped-up music that plays while you choose your party just prior to entering a dungeon. So it’s a fairly short loop, but not really a song you’re meant to dwell on (though I’ve had it on repeat quite a bit)

Grimrock for my other pick, though Interstate was funky and close behind.

As soon as the sax hit, Interstate 76 was top dog. None of the others really stood out to me. Actively disliked Persona, Grimrock was bland, and WoW was generic folk styled. Which gets it from me I guess, World of Warcraft second.

Man, thats why I loved it. May be just my background playing jazz music though.

For some reason I just don’t like the sound of jazz or blues. I’ve never really understood why. I like a many Led Zeppelin songs, but I don’t like the ones that ooze more of a bluesy sound. I’m sure there are exceptions.

I mean that’s fine. I’ve got pretty solid, somewhat contrarian, definitions of what I do, and do not, like in music.

Take Persona, the second it went into that hip hop sound, I was done. Anything like that instantly grates. That has nothing to do with the quality, and everything to do with my own peculiar tastes.

I hear ya. My big nemesis is most country music. It just irritates me when my wife puts it on. Again, there are a small handful of country songs that I’ve found I enjoy - but definitely not most.

Well that’s this whole thread in a nutshell, really. :)