Boy, Interrupted

I love listening to music, and I like a wide variety of genres. My favourite genre is scores from film, TV and games, partly because they’re awesome in their own right, but also because it lets me add soundtracks to ideas in my head, and when I do write, it makes excellent background music. I’ll even happily listen to music from otherwise shite media (Steve Jablonksy’s scores from the Michael Bay Transformers films being a stand out example of terrible to watch but with great music).

As much as I love music, I’m usually pretty terrible at writing about it, so I thought I’d try sharing some of my favourites as a bit of practice. I’m going with game scores (mostly because that’s what I’ve been listening to while gaming lately), and I suspect this is more an insight into my gaming tastes more than my music tastes.
 

Horizon Zero Dawn – Joris de Man, The Flight, Niels van der Leest, Jonathan Williams

 
Something about this manages to evoke a feeling of both the past and the future mingling (or, to us, it would seem to be the other way around, as the game setting is what we’d associate with our past, not our future), of exploration and open spaces. Like the people in the game, it has a tribal atmosphere that’s built on our ruined present – they actually used instruments in unorthodox ways, as if people who had no clue how to use them picked them up and adapted them into a different instrument. It’s haunting and beautiful as you explore the ruins of our forgotten presence, recognising things that are familiar to us, but a mystery to Aloy. There’s a light, openness to the music. Even though there’s hardship and disaster, the feeling is still hopeful, there are so many things for people to discover, to invent, to re-invent. It very much feels fresh and alive, like the world has been reborn with so many possibilities in its future, if we learn from the mistakes we made.

The game is a breathtaking, with a beautiful world to explore, an interesting story to follow, some amazing characters, and a huge amount of diversity. The amount of racial representation is impressive, with all the tribes being a melting pot of everyone. More importantly, it’s a very female-driven game, many of the tribes being matriarchal with female warriors being common and equal to the males, and in leadership positions. And, of course, our protagonist is female, and Aloy is just lovely. She’s competent, kick arse, and kind.

Listen to the whole soundtrack.
About the game.

 

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 – Oscar Araujo

 
This is the final part in a trilogy of games, with Lords of Shadow 1 & 2 being the main games on console, and Mirror of Fate sandwiched between them on the 3DS (later ported to console). While the other two soundtracks are great, it’s Lords of Shadow 2 that’s my favourite. The music does a better job than the game with melding the past and present into a cohesive soundtrack that blends more classical, orchestral music with more modern instruments and beats. The Castlevania scores are well-known for doing this, because the games are an anachronistic joy, and games soundtracks from the 80s and 90s were very synth for obvious technological reasons, and because games back then enjoyed their cheery background music. Oscar Araujo’s score ditches the older-style techno beats and goes for swelling orchestral pieces with modern drums and guitars floating through. It also makes heavy use of brass instruments, which makes this soundtrack all the more impressive to me, because I usually cannot stand brass instruments.

I seem to be in a minority for the love of Lords of Shadow 2, and I do understand why – it’s got flaws, it’s got potholes, it’s disjointed in many ways… but I still love it in spite of this. It looks good, it plays well, it has enough story that it’s enjoyable and it has Alucard being the beautiful badass mastermind I love (Symphony of the Night, with Alucard as the protagonist, is one of my all time favourite games). Of course, the biggest reason that I love this series, and especially 2, so much is because it turns the Belmont legend on its head and depicts the journey of Gabriel Belmont into darkness, manipulated by the so-called good guys into becoming Dracula. Also, you’ve got to love playing Dracula as a reluctant hero in any game.

Listen to the whole soundtrack.
About the game.

 

Deus Ex: Human Revolution/Mankind Divided – Michael McCann, Sascha Dikiciyan

 
There’s something very reminiscent of 80s sci-fi, Vangelis and Tangerine Dream about these two scores. It adds to the near futuristic sci-fi settings and theme of the games, which are reminiscent of Blade Runner and Robocop, and it makes sense that they went with the synth vibe. The game was also going for a kind of a new renaissance theme, so in that vein the music is taking a new spin on the 80s musical themes and reinventing them. I’ve got a soft spot for darkwave, and these soundtracks scratch that listening itch for me quite nicely.

These two games, especially Mankind Divided, really resonated with me for some reason (apart from all the smoking – someone developing this game clearly has a huge thing against anti-smoking campaigns, and made every effort to put cigarettes everywhere). I love Adam Jensen (who would be great anyway, but throw in Elias Toufexis’ voice, and my god I’m lost), I love the story, I love the gameplay, I love the combat, I can play it over and over again. I even completed the permadeath mode for Mankind Divided on the Xbox One, and that’s a mode I generally pay zero attention to, but I wanted more. I’m not doing it again on the PS4, once is enough. But basically, Mankind Divided is up there with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for games I will play over and over, and you will pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Listen to the whole soundtrack: Human Revolution & Mankind Divided
About the game.

 

Skyrim – Jeremy Soule

 
Jeremy Soule has created the ultimate experience in open world fantasy gaming with his music for the Elder Scrolls series, and Skyrim is the best (eternally disappointed he only did the main theme for Elder Scrolls Online). This soundtrack has it all, from rousing anthems and swelling music to convey the awe of the landscape, to bardic songs and peaceful pieces that are totally on my playlist for soothing music to fall asleep to. Trying to explain the soundtrack is honestly like trying to explain the game to people who haven’t played Skyrim – it’s just so huge that you don’t know where to start, and just shoving the game (or in this case, the soundtrack) at them is just the best way to go about it.

If, by this point in time, you haven’t played Skyrim, the odds are you don’t want to because it’s not your thing. It’s been released and remastered and ported to all devices known to man (and probably several other planets and dimensions) so if you want to play, it’s easy to give it a go. My advice is: don’t. You will lose hundreds of hours of your life to this game, and you can never ‘complete’ it, because there are so many things to do. When you’re not playing it it’ll feel at times like real life is the game and you should totally be picking up that pile of weeds for use down the line. And when you are playing, you’ll find yourself doing pointless things for the lolz, like rolling cabbages down hills or filling some poor bugger’s house with cheese. I think I’ve forgotten what the story is, to be perfectly honest. But I still love it so.

Listen to the whole soundtrack.
About the game.

 

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – Austin Wintory

 
The Assassin’s Creed series is stuffed with excellent music, and all are worth listening to, but the Syndicate soundtrack is the one I’m choosing because it’s different to the rest. This soundtrack is a complete and utter joy to play along to. It’s just brimming with excitement and adventure with a very Victorian England authenticity to it. From the ‘classical’ dance pieces (and oh, those titles are fun) to the ballads sung in taverns (seriously, they’re hilarious murder ballads based on in-game assassinations), it just makes the London of Assassins Creed Syndicate come alive. If you don’t have the urge to waltz along to some of these tracks while stabbing your enemies, then I don’t know what to say.

As for the game, I love the Assassin’s Creed series to pieces (except AC3, which can die in a fire, I was so looking forward to it, but awful characters and bloody annoying gameplay made me so angry that I just tossed it during sequence 10 because I was in genuine danger of breaking my controller, and almost giving up on the whole series). Syndicate is my favourite (so far, I need to play Origins), for many reasons. The first being that Jacob and Evie Frye are an utter delight. Jacob is a lovable, sexy, bisexual and literal train wreck of an idiot. Evie is level headed, kick-ass, intelligent, has a mischievous streak, and is everything you want in a playable female character. In fact, Evie is a big draw in this game because she gets a lot of attention, and the Jack the Ripper DLC is basically all about her saving the day. At age 40. Being more amazing than she was at 20. Jacob is my favourite, but I love Evie almost as much. Then we’ve got a trans male character in Ned Wynert. We know he’s trans, Jacob and Evie probably clock him, but no one makes any kind of deal about it, he’s just this guy, you know. Characters aside, the gameplay is smooth, the controls and combat easy to pick up, the story is fun, and my god, the setting. You’ve basically got free reign to parkour around a beautifully rendered version of Victorian London, clambering over the top of familiar landmarks and getting views you’d never see from the ground.

Listen to the whole soundtrack. If you want to buy it, get it from Austin Wintory’s Bandcamp page to give him extra support.
About the game.

Special mentions: Dragon Age: Inquisition (Trevor Morris), The Witcher III (Marcin Przybyłowicz), Bloodborne (Ryan Amon)