Do you have a game soundtrack to recommend?
Thursday, August 9th, 2007 - 7:56am
After several years' hiatus I listened to Neverhood soundtrack on my way to work today and had absolutely great time. Then I realized that there is quite a number of game soundtracks in frequent rotation in my MP3 player - Silent Hill 2, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and the funny stuff like Katamari Damacy, Vib-Ribbon and even Stubbs the Zombie. So I just wanted to ask, do you have any recommended soundtracks that work great outside of the game itself? I especially like the atmospheric ones, I have couple of Final Fantasies, but they don't work on me too much outside of the game.
You can't take the sky from me.
The Grim Fandango soundtrack is amazing. I also really like Beyond Good and Evil. If you like Final Fantasy, check out The Black Mages. Good fun stuff.
All of the Myst soundtracks are excellent.
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kaostheory wrote:
Jet Grind Radio and its sequel.
Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross/Xenogears - Mitsuda is great.
I second the Grim Fandango recommendation. It's outstanding in terms of style since hardly any other games use 'jazzy' music. Very atmospheric.
Other than that:
Orchestra-style:
Actraiser Symphonic Suite - reaaaally hard to get ahold of in legal ways though.
Total Annihilation - Probably Jeremy Soule's best work. You should be able to get the game for 1-2 bucks nowadays, the music is included in Redbook audio format.
Baldur's Gate I&II - Interplay even released the soundtrack in MP3 format at some point
Paraworld - Shilling for a title I was involved in, but the thing is available for like 8 bucks now, and yeah, it's worth it even if you never intend to play the actual game. Music is included as MP3, just grab it from the corresponding folder after the installation. Even won a G.A.N.G. award at GDC 2007 for the title theme. From calm themes to battle music - awesome work.
Outcast - available right here
Warcraft III - lots of tracks that work fine as ambient background music
Other styles:
Command & Conquer series - if you're into industrial music
Dune - the music from the very first game is really neat
Conker, Banjo, Donkey Kong 64 - Rare's N64 titles had quite catchy and memorable soundtracks
Mechwarrior 2 - um... hard to describe
Hitman 2 - Jesper Kyd rocks
Someone mentioned this website in the forum ages ago, just FYI.
God of War
Outlaws
Star Wars:KotOR
http://soundtracks.mixnmojo.com/
Lucasarts is aware of the website because they asked the webmaster to remove the KotOR soundtracks, but are allowing the other earlier LucasArts soundtracks... like Grim Fandango, Outlaws
Guild Wars, any of 'em.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
Aperture Science wrote:
Anything from Crackdown.
Hatchet Job - intelligent and irrevent gaming discussion.
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. It's basically an Amon Tobin album.
I was also going to suggest Stubbs but you got that.
I've always enjoyed Quake 2.
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I've used this guide in the past to extract the music from Hitman 2 and Mafia. I highly recommend both.
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Thanks everyone so much for the recommendations. I forgot to mention Planescape Torment soundtrack, Deionnara Theme makes me shiver everytime.
You can't take the sky from me.
Freedom Fighters also had a good soundtrack.
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I like the Baldur's Gate soundtrack. It was my prime motive for picking up the collector's edition.
Grim Fandango and Beyond Good & Evil are my two picks as well. Nice to see them getting some love! I'd also toss in the Katamari Damacy games; not all of the songs are great but the ones that are make it worthwhile.
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I enjoyed the following:
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time soundtrack.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Castlevania: New Classic (not a game soundtrack, but symphonic reworkings of some of the original songs)
Xenogears.
Onimusha1
Chrono Trigger
Okami
Wipeout
Final Fantasy IV, VI, X, XI
If you like the old metroid games, you might like the remixes at metroidmetal.com
Skriss: lvl 70 undead mage - Bloodhoof
Kyrator: lvl 63 night elf rogue - Blackhand
Thadryn: lvl 70 draenei mage - Blackhand
Planescape Torment had a great soundtrack, very atmospheric, though not necessarily the best music for just "listening."
The Jets 'n Guns soundtrack is excellent and can be downloaded for free.
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Spore
There are some great recommendations here already!
In addition to what's been mentioned, also like Michael Giacchino's Call of Duty soundtrack and Harry Gregson-Williams' work on the MGS2 soundtrack. Bill Brown has done some great stuff too. I'm particularly fond of his soundtracks for Undying and Lineage 2, but he's also done some great work for the Tom Clancy games. Jesper Kyd's work is always interesting as well.
There are some serious composers attached to some upcoming games, such as John Debney (Lair) and Gary Schyman (Bioshock) and I'm very curious to hear what those guys come up with.
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Ultima?
Falling alseep to it gives me fun dreams.
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Seconded, although sadly the official soundtracks don't have all the music featured in the games
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I have both Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari. Both are excellent soundtracks.
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Another favorite:
http://gamingfm.com
Skriss: lvl 70 undead mage - Bloodhoof
Kyrator: lvl 63 night elf rogue - Blackhand
Thadryn: lvl 70 draenei mage - Blackhand
Anything by Jeremy Soule for the most part. Trust me, you're likely familiar with his work.
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I'll vouch for all those as well.
This is another Jesper Kyd soundtrack and it really is awesome.
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*coughs*
*coughs*
*sorta coughs*
The best places I've found for Game OSTs is Galbadia Hotel and #gamemp3s.
Happy Hunting!
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Pipe Threader Manual wrote:
BlueLaguna.net and the FFShrine.org forums are also good.
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Silent Hill 3's OST is one of the best I've ever listened to. Despite the fact that I have SIRIUS in my car, occasionally I will forego that and put in the CD.
Max Payne's soundtracks are well done as well if you're looking for (obviously) noir-style music.
I also put a vote toward Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. It's an Amon Tobin album, but I think it's some of his best work. Sometimes limitations are a good thing.
"Time traveling terrorists are no laughing matter, Malor." - *Legion* quote #30201
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Mechwarrior 2 (original DOS/Windows 95 version) and Warcraft 2 (original, not Battle.Net edition) had some fabulous CD tracks.
I say "original" because latter editions of MW2 shortened the tracks, and WC2 BNET edition used 22khz internal format for music, just like Starcraft.
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Wow! I thought I was the only person on the planet who still remembers the Neverhood. I love that game and it had a truly great soundtrack.
Outside of the fabulous suggestions above, I can add:
Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc (some digital disco-y funk)
Voodoo Vince, if you can find it
Parappa the Rapper (I know, I'm a freak, but this is the original nerdcore right there)
And speaking of Nerdcore, you might want to look into some bands like the Minibosses or the Neskimos who play game music.
Duoae wrote:
I really enjoyed the Battlezone soundtrack.
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Of course we remember the Neverhood!
Homina homina homina, burr burr burr,
homina homina burr!
Danjo Olivaw Lives
One of the crappy things about game soundtracks is that so many of them were originally recorded in terrible, low-fi quality. Things like Metroid Metal make me smile.
There's also MotherBrain which does a bunch of game themes as classical acoustic guitar medleys. Hearing four guitars simultaneously belt out Castlevania? Awesome. Love Motherbrain.
Oblivion's soundtrack is very good for listening, as well, and Bethesda stuck to their awesome guns about putting the music in the game folders and raw MP3's, so you can just go copy-paste them into your music folder, done and done.
Eternal Darkness and both TLJ games had great soundtracks. Actually, The Longest Journey is the only other soundtrack I've encountered that had the same thing going as the Myst soundtracks: they just ooze mystery. When they come up in my study playlist, I just want to get up and go find a hidden note in one of the library books, or decipher and ancient code, or something.
Both God of War games have great OST's, as well.
Can't thank Spun and Trach enough for the Galbadia Hotel link. Awesome.
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