Auricular Discovery

Fighters Megamix was Sega’s attempt at combining their two biggest 3D fighting series. The melding of two distinct fighting engines may remind you of Capcom’s efforts with the SvC and MvC series. It was also chock full of Sega fan-service much in the way of Nintendo’s own Super Smash Bros. While it had fantastic animations and innovative mechanics, there were many sloppily developed characters that screwed up the balance royally. It also lacked the 640×480 resolution Virtua Fighter 2 ran at. Now, I’ll be honest, I’m only posting this track to serve as a sample of the complete set I just released. The short of it is, I imported over the extended music from Fighting Vipers and Virtua Fighter in place of the shortened tracks Fighters Megamix comes with, and then I gave the whole thing all the proper album treatment it could handle. Enjoy!

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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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To this day the art, setting, visuals, and music of Panzer Dragoon overwhelm me. Maybe it’s a case of nostalgia goggles. Maybe I was the weird kid on the block who went with a Saturn instead of a PlayStation, which led to me fixating on the few gems I was allotted. I don’t know. They’re still memories I’ll never forget, yet continue to struggle to express what they are. There aren’t many games where I savor every second of the virtual ride within. I shift in and out of my Panzer kicks every few months, so for the moment, here’s a track from an official album most of the fans don’t even know about. While listening, go get lost in a wealth of Panzer knowledge and theories at The Will of the Ancients. I’ve been a big fan of their efforts since about 2002.

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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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One of the best bangs for your buck early in Playstation’s life was Die Hard Trilogy. Three distinct games in one, each game serving up a different genre. Not only did each game play differently, but they also sported different styles of music. This track comes from Die Hard 3, which accompanied the vehicle stages. “Wall Street” does a great job portraying the hustle & bustle environments of New York, while still working well as chaotic driving music. Littered throughout the song are the pertinent sounds of currency.

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This mediocre game was one of the first Playstation titles I tried, but hopefully I’m not too biased on this pick. This theme has quite a catchy riff going on, despite a slight cheese factor. I did a little research and apparently Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora helped with the music for this game. Take that for what you will. From what I remember, the game was a 2D side-scroller platformer, and Johnny sported a purple-dyed pompadour hair, armed with a guitar-cannon of some sort. Yes, rest easy Final Fantasy gunblade enthusiasts. There are far more ridiculous game weapons out there.

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