Auricular Discovery

I loved Populous 3 so much. It’s probably the only god-sim I can fully enjoy. They usually involve way too much micromanagement for me. Pop3 instead focuses on the combat between the tribes, and having a central character, your shaman, where most of your attention will go to. It was really ahead of its time in some ways. You could pull out into space and see the entire world. You could deform the land in real 3D to your liking. You could use spells like tornado to see your enemy’s structures ripped to shreads. It was such an atmospheric experience too, thanks mainly to Mark Knight‘s soothing sounds. This track here is actually a piece he posted on his site, which is a preemptive example of what his Populous 4 score would sound like, if it ever came to be made.

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SimCity 2000 was probably the first game to strike me with the depressing realization that I have no creativity. I absolutely fail at these kind of god games. I know not how to create, but to destroy. Maybe if I grew up with a PC instead of a NES/Genesis, I’d have developed some different interests. Oh well. That’s why the game offered you wonderful catastrophe tools such as plane crashes, floods, and volcanos. The music is a delightfully cheesy jazz. It sounds like the kind of background music that would serve as a segue piece for an 80′s urban sitcom, as the camera converges from one setting to the other. Maybe it’s a retired genre, but I keep it for the nostalgia.

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I’m always surprised at how many people remember this one. I think Jumping Flash was just the right kind of game at the right time. I really don’t know why this game was so quickly thrown aside. Maybe you could blame the massive advancements PS1 graphics were making from 1995-1997. I know the models were blocky and textures were dull, but there was a lot of atmosphere here that made up for it. Absolutely huge stages with creative designs were a blast to progress through. The game took place entirely from within Robbit’s perspective, complete with visor shaped screen and GUI with visual damage indications that games like Metroid Prime would later make use of. You could even see your feet as you pounced! Unfortunately the sequel was pretty uninspired, and there was a 3rd spin-off title in Japan exclusively, but reviews indicate that it’s worth no one’s time. World 6-3 is the final boss theme, and especially rocks. Feel free to download the entire rip from my other site.

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I’m not the biggest fan of Xenogears. It’s definitely got some rough edges, and the 2nd half is a complete cluster-fuck of a story, but praise must be given for it’s complex and mature tale. I can totally understand the people who can’t tolerate the endless hours of text it forces you to read, but I still must insist you all give the soundtrack a listen. Without question, it’s Mitsuda‘s masterpiece, and that’s saying something considering how often people label him (nerd bias aside) one of the finest composers in history. Creid was an official arrangement album released a couple months after the Japanese launch of the game. The recording quality and production value were absolutely stellar for the time. Arrangement albums typically didn’t get this level of effort back then, and even today, I’ve only honestly come across half a dozen that follow suit.

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This was probably the first Playstation title that made me second guess my choice to go with the Saturn. Many, many weekends were spent in the deathmatch mode with a friend. The series has definitely seen better days. The first launched strong, the 2nd perfected the formula, but everything after that point went downhill. The series traded hands here and there, and in the process, it lost a lot of it’s identity. The sequels were lacking in metal, too wacky, too drab, or the gameplay just wasn’t there. In some cases, it was all of the above. What’s even stranger is that the composer for TM1 and TM2 seems to have absolutely no other music credits to his name. Know that there are rumblings of a new sequel/reboot, but I’m keeping my expectations in check.

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Unless you were a fan of Working Designs, you probably haven’t heard of the Arc the Lad trilogy. The 3 games were translated and released as a set in 2002, right when the PS1 was dying gracefully. The games were shining examples of classic JRPG design. It’s worth noting that Arc 1 is only about 9 hours long, and pretty much serves as a lengthy prologue and tutorial for Arc 2, which is at least 4x as long, and twice as difficult. I can imagine the Japanese audiences being very disappointed upon finishing the first game and waiting a year for the real meat to be released. Ponder that while you listen to Chongara’s theme from the arranged album, which oddly enough was called the “Original Soundtrack“, while the true soundtrack was called the “Complete Soundtrack“, and contained the first two games’ scores as a set. One last goodie: I uploaded Working Design’s “Making Of” feature. Watch all four parts.

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Back in 1998, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins never stood a chance. People were already too hyped up for the admittedly superior stealth action title Metal Gear Solid, which hit just 2 months later. Still, it seems to do well enough to continue spawning  sequel after sequel, all of which refuse to refine the mechanics at all. You’re pretty much stuck with moronic enemy AI, and stiff, unreliable controls no matter what platform you choose. In that case, why not go with the one that has the best soundtrack? Allow me to plug my other site, and offer you the full album here. It contains the OST, along with all the remaining tracks they left out, while maintaining a solid order. It just barely fits on an 80 minute CD. My thanks to Mr. Asakura for his work on this epic score. It might actually be in my top 5.

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The consoles could really use a new Colony Wars title right about now. The space sim genre hasn’t had much action as of late. The dev team seems a bit too focused on doing nothing but Wipeout games for the last 5 years or so. While Colony Wars offered absolutely nothing that the PC crowd hasn’t seen before, it was a very polished, well rounded experience. Red Sun is a game I remember so little of, despite completing it twice. Maybe it was the almost hypnotically boring FMVs, or my lack of interest in the backstory and universe. It didn’t matter though, because with fantastic controls, great mission variety, and a truly epic, large scale orchestral soundtrack, I was hooked. This track sweeps back and forth between scientific wonderment and what could be cheesy World War 2 aircraft montage BGM.

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It’s not very often that game remixers can step up to the plate and provide vocals for a change. While I much rather prefer instrumental music over lyrical, Danny was quite impressive here. OCR gives a much better description of the track here. Also, Daniel was recently a guest on episode #295 of ChatterBox Video Game Radio, and he gave a fantastic rant on how game music is not only often ignored, but disrespected and ripped off by “musicians” in other mediums. Unfortunately the hosts, like usual, had very little worthwhile commentary on the subject at hand, and instead tried and failed to make jokes to fill air time.

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What a little gem of a game. Of course, virtually no one thought so at the time. What happened when all the anime geeks popped this game into their Playstations? They quickly discovered that they would not be directly controlling their lovely Major Motoko Kusanagi, but instead, her spider-tank, the Fuchikoma. And you know what? It was brilliant, because we got one of the best anime-licensed games of the generation. In short, a spider-tank does what a spider-man can. To accompany the carnage, you were treated with an interesting selection of progressive/house tunes. While the style of music is extremely common in the mainstream, how common is it in gaming? Aside from some homebrew titles and some quirky Japanese exclusives, I’m drawing a blank. Well the catch is that they imported licensed music after all. This particular track, by Hardfloor, has a grove I can’t get enough of, and certainly stands out from the rest.

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