Some days you just need music to plot by, a suitable accompaniment to the story you are writing. On those days, Jack Wall should always have a place on your playlist. His scores for Mass Effect 1 and 2 are a regular feature when I’m writing, but every now and then the plot calls for something a little more tribal. This week, Myst IV – Revelation.
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Game Music: Myst IV – Revelation
A personal history of game music: Part 3 – Dawn of the PC
The Spectrum may have been the formative computing experience of my early boyhood but I am, first and foremost, a child of the PC. So here we have part 3 of the series, the early years of the PC where the beeper still held sway. Competing with the might of the Amiga, the PC promised great things…
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Game music: Journey
This week we’re back on albums that are actually soundtracks to games instead of ‘inspired by’ games. However, this week’s soundtrack comes via a recommendation rather than my own experience. Being a PlayStation 3 exclusive I’ve never played it, but the soundtrack to Journey is beautiful and I’m grateful for the recommendation.
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A personal history of game music: Part 2 – The NES
After the Spectrum came the NES (or Nintendo Entertainment System for those who really enjoy syllables), a revolution that brought gaming out of arcades and into the living room. With it came a generational leap in audio quality, a series of truly iconic soundtracks and, for the first time, composers who would go on to become infamous.
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Game Music: World of Goo
Goo! Lots of goo. A world of it in fact. And goo must have music, gooey music, musical goo. And here it is, the World Of Goo soundtrack.
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A personal history of game music: Part 1 – The ZX Spectrum
The first computer I ever really played with as a child was my dad’s Dragon 64, an amazing piece of technology where the only games were ones you wrote yourself, using either a knowledge of programming or by copying code from books and magazines. Over time, the latter drifted to the former. My first computer, and the first one I remember having music with its games, was a ZX Spectrum +3.
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Not Quite Game Music: Impostor Nostalgia
In itself, Impostor Nostalgia the soundtrack to a game. There is no Impostor Nostalgia game, no Impostor Nostalgia leaderboards or Impostor Nostalgia achievements. It is, however, a master class in 8-bit chiptune music by one of my favourite composers and featuring some true greats of the genre.
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A personal history of game music
Despite writing quite a lot about game music, and listening to an awful lot of it, it turns out I actually know sod all about it – the history, the technology, the composers. Every now and then I’ll come across an article that touches on it and find it all fascinating. Inquisitive blighter that I am, this is going to change.
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Got hypertrousers?
“Achievement unlocked: shot another man again”. In an age of dudebro manshooters, it might be easy to unthinkingly dismiss Gunpoint as just another in an endless parade of grey shooters, maybe blue and orange if the art director felt like the gun designers were having all the fun. It’s even got gun in the bloody title. That would be a mistake though, because you’d miss out on the hypertrousers.
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Game Music: Gunpoint
Armed with nothing but a pair of hypertrousers and a wry, sardonic sense of humour, this soundtrack sneaks into your house, hacks your stereo and downloads into your ears. Presenting… the music of Gunpoint.
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