Game Music 2: Beyond Thunderdome

Huh, I’ll have to listen to it again, but I don’t even remember that detail.

For what it’s worth, I still voted it a decent score, but the mechanical nature of whatever that sound was got to me.

I love Red Planet Nocturne (and indeed the OTC soundtrack as a whole) but since hearing Nils Frahm’s Familiar (from ‘Felt’), I’ve never quite looked on it in the same way. It’s got that slow contemplative piano, later the delicate tinkling piano, and, throughout, that creaking and almost metronomic sound of the mechanics of the piano. I can definitely see why those artifacts would bother some people but I think it gives the recording a sort of warm acoustic bed to lie in. Give Familiar a listen and let me know if it has the same effect on you!

As for the rest, thanks @Nightgaunt for the Curse of Monkey Island song! I do love a bit of fun in the thunderdome amidst all the Serious Music. I never played Curse far enough to hear that in-game but it was funny, clever and spirited. I loved it, particularly the ending.

BlazBlue wasn’t my cup of tea but I certainly didn’t dislike it either.

Defenders of Arrakis is the odd one here for me, I think. It’s got this weirdly artificial tribal sound to it with the horns and strings but the driven guitar wankery, shredding and electronic elements worked for me.

Group E:



@ForgeForsaken: House of the Dead: Overkill - Jasper & Brutus ()

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0 voters



@anonymgeist: Gods Will Be Watching - Nemesis (By Fingerspit)

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@Thraeg: Bionic Commando: Rearmed - Leap of Faith (By Simon Viklund)

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@Vesper: No One Lives Forever - Main Theme ()

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I’m not sure how everyone else feels but scoring tracks out of 5 is tough! And I can’t help but compare my current running scores with previous entrants. I’m looking back on some songs and thinking ‘Maybe I should have scored those higher/lower’. The moment I think to myself ‘In what order do I like the songs?’ it clears the whole mess up. Is that kind of poll possible? So ranking things, essentially.

This link should work for the HotD cover

The only polls that are built in to Discourse are single-choice, multiple-choice, and numeric. I suppose there would be 24 distinct voting permutations possible for each, so it would be possible to make a poll with each of them as a possibility. But then processing the results would be more complicated. Probably more trouble than it’s worth compared to just going back to “vote for any two to advance”. So far though I’m liking the current system because there is an element of comparing tracks outside of their groups, which gives a chance for the runners-up in a really strong group like C to advance rather than getting knocked out by the luck of the draw.

Thanks, updated.

That’s not my favorite track from HotD Overkill, but I do hope people dig it. That soundtrack is incredible and if you’ve never played it, my god, rectify that… @forgeforsaken Great job. :)

“No.”

“But there we were… face to face with a real mother fucker.”

“Of course… that’s the sour.”

Critics said: “It’s fucking good!”

All NSFW. LOL! On the Wii! Still amazed that game got made and shipped. You can get more with Typing of the Dead Overkill on PC, too. :)

Yeah I almost went with G’s Theme.

Group D Results

  • Offworld Trading Company: 3.76
  • Curse of Monkey Island: 3.62
  • Emperor: 3.41
  • BlazBlue: 3.0

Papapishu!

House of the Dead Overkill is pretty good in the context of the soundtrack contest and I voted accordingly, but I’ve heard and own better big beat/loungecore fusion stuff from back in the day when it first appeared and I was hanging in big beat/loungecore clubs. Nice shades of Lalo Schifrin though

Group D i liked the heavier stuff but the vote went the opposite way.

I never played Monkey Island and that shows by my bewilderment that anyone could even get to the end of the tune. Curious to know if anyone voted high on it if they didnt play the games.

You get used to it after a while.

To anyone who voted for Offworld over Monkey Island:

image

(Not really. I nominated the pirate song out of pure self-indulgence, and because I didn’t think there were enough silly songs in the 'dome. It’s certainly repetitive, unpolished, and shallow. I’m really pleased so many folks liked it!)

Funnily, that’s the one single thing I love from the title tune! I love hearing instruments being played, I am one of those baroque modern recordings elitists.

Taking a clue from our crazy krok’s suggestions earlier, I go with a simpler system because I don’t get how grades work in any context: “1” for stuff I don’t want to ever have in my ears again, “3” for stuff that didn’t annoy me, “5” for stuff I loved and want to listen more off, even.
I plan to use this very elaborate scale until ZeniMax inevitably sues me.

Ah, I thought as much. Good points.

Yeah, this isn’t far off what I’m doing now! There’s just a few edge cases where I’m like, “But I gave this 3 and that 3 but I think this is better, but giving it a 4 puts it in the same bracket as whatsit, which isn’t right…”

Yes, they’re independent events, but not completely so. There are 10 ‘at large’ slots available, so that type of thing might become relevant.

I don’t think about it too much, but it is there.

I got a chance to listen to it again last night. I’m attributing the annoyance with that sound to my work headphones, which are mostly for VOIP stuff, not really made for high fidelity. On my SteelSeries it sounded a lot more deep and the focus wasn’t -nearly- as much on that organic sound.