Duck Tales was released on the NES in 1989 and followed Scrooge McDuck on his travels around the world to gather treasure in order to become the world’s richest duck. It sold 1.67 million copies world wide and is ranked the 13th best NES game. Although the story doesn’t sound too astonishing today, the soundtrack of the game is truly phenomenal with some unbelievable tracks.
Remake of a highly cherished game from the 8bit era? Check. Great graphical re-design that makes the experience a visual splendour? Check. Kickin’ soundtrack with more awesome tracks than you can wave a bionic arm at? Check check! Bionic Commado Rearmed is a re-imagining of 1988′s Bionic Commando released on the NES by Capcom, and a rarity in that its narrative design is completely changed from the original in a beneficial way. The game is still hard as nails, but offers humourous dialogue in such a way that was unforeseen to fans of the original game. Coupled with Simon Viklund’s remix soundtrack of the original NES tunes, it manages to stay familiar yet entirely new. Make sure you’re wearing headphones when listening to these!
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Late last year some music makers for indie games decided to get in on the charity bundle action. They put together a collection of soundtracks from popular indie games, let people pay what they like, and gave a portion of the proceeds to charity. Like the game bundles of the same ilk it was pretty popular, so they’ve decided to do it again!
Indie Game Music Bundle 2 is now on sale, you can pay as little as $1 dollar and those who pay below $10 will receive five albums. These include Aquaria, Sword & Sworcery, To The Moon, Jamestown and Machinarium. For those willing to pay $10 or above you’ll get a additional nine albums in your bundle, with another mystery album to be unlocked after 8,800 sales. The additional nine are: Shatter, 8-Bit Pimp, Mighty Switch Force, Cat Astro Phi, Passcode, Machinarium (Bonus EP), Tower of Heaven, Eternal Daughter and charity compilation Songs for the Cure.
For the top twenty highest contributors there are even bigger bonuses with many physical versions of the albums, prints and “miscellaneous gifts” coming their way. Check the official site to find out more and we definitely suggest you put down the cash for this bundle, the soundtracks included are outstanding. You’ve got just over a week to make your purchase!
Source: GameMusicBundle via Destructoid
EA has revealed the soundtrack details for the upcoming SSX game, which is currently on sale at the iTunes and Amazon MP3 store for $7.99. The soundtrack available for purchase features 12 original tracks from artists such as Amon Tobin, The Qemists, Camo & Krooked and Raffertie. Sadly, the full, 36-song soundtrack featured in the game is not for sale but features licensed music that can be bought individually. The full, in-game soundtrack list is as follows:
As video games became more cinematic and mature, Metal Gear Solid was at the forefront of this shift, positioning games as adult experiences with a real message behind them. It wasn’t mature in the sense that the game was filled with tasteless gore, nudity and foul language for mere shock value – MGS was a deep and thought-provoking experience on par with Hollywood films. It dealt with themes like love and death on the battlefield, nuclear war, human cloning and gene manipulation, and the duty of a soldier versus his emotions. The story and dialogue were often impactful and deep, and idea of a video game being this powerful in the late 90s, both emotionally and technically, was unheard of. Yet MGS would have lost most (if not all) of its impact without the game’s soundtrack. It is a perfect representation of the game’s themes and paints the sad, haunting tale of Solid Snake and his desperate fight to stop terrorists from launching their nuclear strike against the US. Read the rest of this entry »
Winner of the VGA’s 2011 Game of the Year, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim took the gaming world by storm. What is there not to love? Skyrim has everything and more you could want from an RPG and Bethesda made sure that it was as water tight as possible. Technical shortcomings aside, Skyrim is truly a great game, but of course that’s not what we’re looking at here.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (The Soundtrack) will be widely available for purchase the same day as the game’s release, Feb. 7. Composed by Grant Kirkhope, the same composer behind the soundtracks to Rare’s GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark 64 and Banjo-Kazooie, the KoA:R soundtrack will feature 35 tracks performed by the City of Prague Philamonic Orchestra. This is Kirkhope’s first video game score since Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts in 2008.
The soundtrack will cost about the normal price of an album, and can be purchased on Feb. 7 through iTunes, Amazon MP3 and Sumthing Digital.
The year was 1996 and Nintendo had just firmly put their foot down into the three-dimensional gaming era. Introducing their behemoth of polygonal glory was Super Mario 64, and from then on platform games were forever changed. Everyone’s favourite Italian plumber jumped, flew and “WAHOO”ed into the new dimension with carefully crafted excellence in all aspects of design. Inside we experience a slew of varying environments, colour, enemies and atmospheres, which were all perfectly captured by the musical genius of veteran Nintendo composer Koji Kondo.
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Most gamers who lived through the 16-bit era will namecheck Chrono Trigger as some of the best video game music ever composed. That is unless you’re me, I somehow skipped Chrono Trigger until the recent iOS release. But let me tell you the Chrono Trigger soundtrack is some of the best music ever composed, video game or otherwise.
Composed mainly by Yasunori Mitsuda, with some tracks from Final Fantasy soundtrack composer Nobuo Uematsu, the soundtrack is a masterpiece of game music. With tracks that range from almost comically whimsical to dark and moody the range on display is more than one could ever hope for.
The ex-Beatle and general music super star Paul McCartney said to the German newspaper Die Zeit that he has been working on music for an undisclosed video game. He described this new venture as exciting and that he found the whole video game market fascinating. He went on to say that ”in this way many young people will hear my music for the first time in a video game.”
Of course McCartney didn’t say what game he has been composing for, so we are pretty much in the dark. Could it be The Last of Us? Resident Evil 6? BioShock Infinite? Anything seems possible, so stay tuned for any updates that come our way.
