"Gitaroo Man" Original Soundtrack

This is a game I've always wanted to play, but never had a chance. The thing with me is, I never really liked the Guitar Hero craze, complete with the Fisher-Price-Baby's-First-Guitar PS2/3 controller. I realize not everyone is able to operate the extremely complicated six-string instrument called "the actual guitar" but spending money on a fancy plastic miniature good for only one game is maybe a little beyond my comprehension. Now, Gitaroo-Man is how I actually imagine the music simulation video-game. All you need is a pad.

Okay, let's talk some music. The soundtrack is a mixture of the trademark Japanese light-hearted rock, with some trademark Japanese light-hearted electo-sound and The Legendary Theme. I can't really tell you how, but in most cases the commercial Japanese music has this very distinctive joyful, "don't take it too seriously" feel. The chords are not too sad, the melody is very lively and simple and the singing... Bleh, maybe my brain is rotting, but I just can't accept Japanese singing, sorry, I can't. :-) Things get even worse, if they throw in some English words like "Oh, baby, baby..." Well, whatever. Listen to Soft Machine and 21st Century Boy and see how you like them yourself.

Twisted Reality is pretty much what the rock-part of this whole disc is all about. Simple and strong, I believe this would be pure joy to play with your garage-band friends as a warm up. Once you do that, go ahead and play the wild Tainted Lovers next. And call me!

The electro part is pretty much covered by maybe VOID, a great usage of guitar in a crazy world of synthesizers. Speaking of great guitar usage - Born to be Bone will blow you out. I've never heard Latin music and techno in one song. Works great!

One little fill-in before I get to the true glory of this disk. Resurrection, which I believe is the final boss duel theme in the game is just... smooth. Drives right into your bowels and warms them up immediately. One simple chord sequence repeated over and over with every necessary rock instrument present, and the single guitar buzzing around like a mad hornet in a jar.

Ah, the beautiful Legendary Theme (I mean the acoustic version)... This is the song that I've first heard, fallen in love with and can't really live without playing it on my own guitar every now and again. The scene in the game is very fitting - the protagonist playing the tune to his girl next to the little campfire. Wouldn't be quite possible in the real life, because the song is played by two guitars, but who cares? If you haven't heard it, go ahead and search it out of youtube and listen (I'm sure about five hundred videos of people playing it will pop up as well). I guess one may start learning how to play guitar just after hearing it...

Okay, a quick summary. Gitaroo Man OST is full of curious musical experiments backed up the excellent instrumental workshop. As such, I would recommend it to every guitar, base or drum player out there as a moment or refreshment from the mainstream; and to you, my dear fellow gamers, I recommend it just the same.

The Black Mages

The Black Mages is not a game soundtrack per se. Rather; it’s a collection of Final Fantasy combat tunes in an instrumental rock style.
Actually, to be precise, the collection is not called Black Mages. Black Mages is the name of the band, and the album doesn’t really have a name.
The band was formed by Nobuo Uematsu – the man behind a lion’s share of the music for most of the Final Fantasy games and many others.
The tunes on the album are all very energetic, but then again what would you expect form music played during combat. Most of them have a hard rock vibe to them, but some feature some synthesizers which make them sound a bit more like progressive metal. To be honest the synthesizers can sound a bit cheesy at times, but on the other hand it gives the pieces a very Japanese feel.
The most dominant instrument in all the compositions is a strong electric guitar that is doing a particularly good job in the bridge battle theme from Final Fantasy V as well as two FF IV themes included on the CD.
All the tunes are easily recognizable - like the theme from FF VII that plays during the helicopter-robot boss fight on the Shinra building – and even though they sound differently than the original versions (not surprising, considering most of the original pieces were in MIDI format) everyone that played any of the FF games will feel warm and fuzzy inside while listening to the CD.
Those of you who didn’t play any FF game should still pick this one up. This album will make you turn your volume all the way up, maybe even help annoy your neighbors and it’s a perfect collection to listen to while driving. Careful though, it may be directly responsible for some speeding tickets.
I must admit that this disc frequently finds its way to my CD player and has been doing so for almost two years now. It’s that good, and it just doesn’t get old.

killer7 original sound track

Don’t worry, I’m not going to post the text reversed, or upside down, or anything... Still, there’s going to be some weirdness today, as we get to deal with one of the strangest games ever. Chances are, you’ve never even heard of Killer7, since the game was a moderate commercial success and spawned as many positive reviews as negative ones. Overall, people who know it either hate it or love it and I just happen to worship it with all my heart and soul. If you want to know why, play the game first and see for yourself.

Mixed reception or no mixed reception, no one at Capcom seemed to have doubts about the game’s quality (even Shinji Mikami actively promoted the title) which is reflected in the game’s OST, as it was released in not one, but two (2) CDs. They just said, “To hell with the higher costs, if somebody wants to listen to Killer7 music, he’s going to get it – all of it.” A fine approach, if you ask me, especially in this day and time, when everybody sells stripped down samples and collections (I’ll talk about it someday).

The soundtrack was created by Masafumi Takada – at the time when Killer7 was released I didn’t know much about that guy’s work, today he’s a little more popular because of the Umbrella Chronicles OST and No More Heroes OST. I’d really like to listen to them, especially the latter but, who knows, maybe in Europe they censored the fucking soundtrack as well...

Killer7 OST features a wide variety of different music, but nearly all of it has the distinctive sense of flatness. I like to call it an artificial soul: it’s like watching a small maintenance robot covered in white plastic going about its business, doing something with its little robotic arms, perceiving the world with its single black camera lens. We don’t understand what it does, or why it does it, but we know there is some purpose behind it and we just watch it, fascinated by its senseless, mechanic precision. It may be Russian Roulette, Sceneman, or At Parting. In any case, this music follows its own rules, features its own anything but standard melody patterns.

Yet, there are tracks which take the “artificial soul” much further and elevate the experience from watching a small robot into observing huge stars and planets suspended in the space above us. It’s still not particularly clear and understandable, but the impact is much more profound. Multiple Personality may be a good example, maybe Stoned, Angel’s Despair, even Where Angels Play (it sounds like a disco version of Silent Hill 2’s White Noiz). You get the picture? This is just like looking at the game itself – the cell-shading gives you only bare bones of what is around you, including only those object that matter and are of some use, even if it looks and feels unnatural.

Let’s talk about some of the signature tracks. I guess the one that most of you familiar with the game will recognize at one would be Blackburn – the tune playing at the official website. It does not summarize the feel of the game in any way, offering a kind of peaceful variation instead. Like putting your smoking guns and bloody knifes away for a minute, just to have a refreshing cup of coffee. Even in spite of it though, it doesn’t let us forget that we are still in the crazy world of Killer7: every now and again the piano slips through the bars of casual melody-leading rules and goes flying in the air like a little bird; even the female voice with a noticeable Japanese accent (their “ooh” is very different than an English one – the tongue is higher) doesn’t sound very “everydayish”.

The track that does convey the Killer7 feel is probably Succession, featured on most of the trailers. Fast pace, electric drums, barely discernible melody, weird sounds not really cooperating with the rest. In the game itself, this is a tune for a boss battle and many other enemy-encounter-tracks sound somewhat similar.

Okay, maybe just a bunch of some more standing-out tracks – by “standing-out” I mean just a little different than the rest, like peaks on the same one diagram. My personal favorite is Election Plot. Great heavy beat with an echo, intimidating melody (if it can be called a melody) sung by something resembling dirty pipes. One more thing that I love about it is that the tune accompanies us in a creepy school at night (corridors bathed in moonlight and everything...) and the portions of this track change, or expand, as we move from one area to another – great thinking! Multiple Personality follows a similar path, I absolutely adore the violins occasionally popping up...

Back to the Light begins like a nice, soft-rock song and never actually gets there; Postgasse – a great, uncertain, sad love theme; Rave On which always reminds me of my old Amiga; Residence with its accordion and singing birds; Tecks Mecks with its peculiar guitars; Ministry of Education with its pipe organs :-D; Taxidermy; Elegant Petal and Reenact, the powerful ending theme.

By the way, I forgot to mention the humor. Killer7 is filled with obvious or less obvious quirky, wicked jokes, which leave me crippled every time I play the game and are indeed one of the reason I love it so much. The soundtrack, being a collection of music tracks, has considerably less opportunities of throwing in humor, but still there are things like Reunion ending the first CD, Heroic Verse, or Heroic Deeds (the Handsome Men theme, thank God with no vocals); Electronical Parade which remind you about some of the funniest parts.

For me, the level of soundtrack quality equals how deeply immersed I feel while listening to it. The best OSTs take away all of the senses: the touch, the vision, most of all - the hearing, trap the mind in the world they create and don’t let go until the music ends. And for me, Killer7 OST is not that kind of soundtrack. I found it hard to listen to the two CDs back to back, like I love to do with other OSTs. The immersion just doesn’t hold. Yet, the power lies somewhere else. Killer7 music does not introduce its own complete reality – it warps the existing one. The artificiality of purely electric sounds and the peculiar rules the track relentlessly follow may not take you into a trance but will induce a strange, unsettling mood, like you’ve never been in your body or in this world before. If you give it a chance... ;-)

Metal Gear Solid 4 Original Soundtrack

This is my first time I’ll be writing an episode of Open Your Ears and I’m fairly confident that it will not, in any way, present the same level of quality as EXramp’s episodes. I am by no means an audiophile, but I do enjoy a good soundtrack and will try to explain my choices as comprehensibly as possible.

I have decided to take something new for my first episode and I decided it will be a score for a game that made a much greater impression on me that I have anticipated – Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

Since I don’t want to spoil the game for anyone who didn’t have a chance to play it yet I will restrain myself from making references to it unless a particular thing was shown in trailers before the release.

Oh, and one more thing. This episode will be devoted to the soundtrack available on a CD, not the entire score in the game, as it would be very hard to describe all the nuances.

The soundtrack, like all before it was mainly composed by Harry Gregosn-Williams – a man that I truly admire for his work (I adore the Chronicles of Narnia soundtracks). He can always find a perfect mood for the productions he’s working on. That was the case with Call of Duty 4 as it was with Shrek, and the soundtrack to MGS4 is no different.

The OST starts with Old Snake that begins with metallic sounds that a few seconds into the piece merge with a delicate sound of an acoustic guitar. The guitar then makes place for a more “masculine” orchestra with dynamic, hard drums. A sad story of an old man who never seizes to be a soldier. As the author said himself – it’s a sad song, but it’s still “macho”. In the final seconds the song fades into the guitar again and then falls silent.

The second song is one of my absolute favorites among all soundtracks – movie or game. It’s the terribly haunting Love Theme performed by Jackie Presti in Hebrew (if I’m not mistaking) and composed by Nobuko Toda. It’s a melancholic piece with a middle-eastern tune played on a single violin only later accompanied by a string orchestra and a single guitar. It’s calm, but dramatic in a way thanks to the singer’s performance. And then, somewhere in the second half there is a moment when the orchestra moves into the foreground and the sound becomes so deep that I always feel a shiver running down my spine. The song ends just as it begun -with that haunting violin.

Some of the tracks fall under the more typical MGS class – with profuse percussion and a “military”, dynamic beat, but they all come with their own twists. It’s not hard to see that this time Williams wanted to create something different, just like MGS4 is different from the pervious parts. You have the Gekko, Endless Pain and Breakthrough that start slowly, but quickly become those uneasy, fast motives with a strong beat. You have the provoking White Blood and mysterious Midnight Shadow. There are the unsettling Mobs Alive and Next-Gen Control. There are also the dark and a bit grungy Guns of the Patriots and fast, rushing Desperate Chase. They all share the same vibe, but are distinctive enough to keep you away from the “next” button.

One thing that may force you to push the button is the Bb Corp – this gloomy track’s fast beat accompanied by screams, laughs and cries is something that can mess with your mind nearly as much as a song form a Silent Hill soundtrack.

Be sure to play the Sorrow and Father and Son tracks after Bb Corps to ease your mind. Those are two melancholic, soft tracks that remind me of those beautiful Narnia tunes. The sound is rich and detailed and embraces you with memories. The memories may be good or bad, but they are always meaningful.

Before the ending song there is the Metal Gear Saga – a tribute to all previous games with this clear Metal Gear Solid 4 feel. You can call it a remix of the main MGS theme if you will, but it’s much more.

The Last song on the album is Ennio Morricone’s Here’s To You, a heart gripping melody with Joan Baez’s warm voice that originally could have been heard in a movie Sacco and Vanzetti. The track is perfect from the game’s ending as well as for the ending of the album.

I always liked the MGS series soundtracks, but I can honestly say that just as Metal Gear Solid 4 became my favorite game from the series the soundtracks became my favorite as well. It is, without doubt, a Metal Gear Solid OST, but there is this melancholic flavor in it that makes it special.

Biohazard 2 Original Soundtrack

And so, as the Germans say, wir sind so weit. It is my greatest pleasure to present/remind you about what may very well be the most memorable game soundtrack of all times. Biohazard 2 OST. What might be the reasons of my complete and unwavering adoration of Resident Evil 2, from the credits-roll font to the sound of climbing the ladder in the main hall? Well, up until 1998 I didn’t even seem to notice there was any music in video games. Yes, there was something playing in the background, but usually it was too mundane and insignificant for me to care. Let’s face it – apart from some exception, there was hardly any good game soundtrack before RE. Maybe some good intro tune here, some fitting boss battle theme there, but nothing really exceptional. But then came RE2 – the legend among legends, the game where I could do nothing for long minutes, just listening to the music, dazzled by its beauty. The tracks didn’t just provide atmosphere to the locations – they gave them life and personality. They made the 2D pre-rendered backgrounds four-dimensional (if not five). I can still remember the lights illuminating the gloomy main hall of Raccoon City Police Department seeming to vibrate along the powerful bells and piano strikes soaking from the speakers. I could spend ages talking about how I fell in love with the sound of RE2, but there is a neat way of putting it: this game has simply opened my ears.

It seems that Capcom thought about the order of the tracks in a practical way and so placed them in two groups, the first one being the FMV soundtracks. I guess there isn’t much to say about these, as they directly reflect the movies: the introductory sequence, the fall of William Birkin, the both ending sequences – thus it’s hard to talk about them as separate entities. Yet, it’s hard not to notice their quality – miles ahead of the first Resident Evil. The group ends with Credit Line of Whole Staff – the hard-rockin’ head-thumpin’ tune we all know and love, one gets to hear after finishing the B-scenario. This is an odd place for this particular track, but, oh well...

The second group is the actual ingame soundtrack and it is commenced with Prologue. As in the game itself – it is a taste of things to come: violins, pianos, snare drums, even trumpets; all locked in the great sequence of chords, forming a nice, emotional melody.

Raccoon City accompanies us through the initial stage of the game. It introduces us to the town itself: the fire, the debris, the zombies staggering around. However, it’s not about panic and terror. It’s more about sadness and tragedy.

Just before we move on to the next track, which is The Front Hall, I would like to point something out. As you may have noticed, they missed a few tracks – the inside of the bus, Kendo’s gun shop, the zombies attacking Kendo’s gun shop, the entrance to the R.P.D. – prolonging the more significant ones instead. It is evident that they learned something from the flawed Biohazard OST and actually took some time to think before they mindlessly placed every single piece of music on the CD, in single loops one wouldn’t have time to sink in. Thank God for that. And for those of you who miss the deleted tracks – keep reading, we’ll get to them eventually.

So there is The Front Hall, crushing us with its weight of the whole three-storey building, opening the cascade of R.P.D. soundtracks, familiarizing us with what the exploration of the museum-turned-police station is going to be like. Now dormant and deserted, but having been witness to some cruel, violent events.

Opening a door is all it takes to find yourself in The First Floor. The thing I absolutely adore in this track are the random sounds thrown in: the cracking floor and the crushing doors. When I’ve first played the game, I didn’t even know if they were a part of the music or actual sounds of zombies breaking in somewhere at the other end of the station and I didn’t even care. The track is so unnerving (the violins and the basses) and at the same time relaxing (the piano notes flying somewhere high beyond me) I was in a complete trance.

Ah, but the station is a wicked place and the next track The Second Floor is here to remind us about it. The unsteady, almost nauseating low sounds, a little like the underground laboratory in RE1... That sickly-yellowish corridor with the barely visible silhouettes of the three statues standing silently in the distance... We go downstairs, we open the door next to the two green herbs and we are in the...

Secure Place, or the save-theme, is one of the things that amazed me while I’ve first played the game. Just imagine – having to write one track repeating itself over and over throughout the game, fitting for no matter where you are, what you have so far seen and lived through, what they would see and live through in a moment, always portraying the place to catch your breath and regroup, always suggesting that there is a typewriter and a reddish item chest resting silently in the room. For me, the save-themes are always the best tracks on the Resident Evil OSTs, because they represent the overall spirit of the games. There is no better way to remember what each Resident Evil felt like than listening to its save-theme, even if may be due to fact that we all spent countless hours saving the game of managing the inventory with the tune carving itself into our minds.

The next track is very emotional - Leon With Claire meeting in the S.T.A.R.S. room which takes place in the LeonA-ClaireB timeline. The feeling of relief as the two finally meet after having been separated is accompanied by the knowledge of what had happened with Chris and that Claire’s trip to Raccoon City was for nought. Yet, in spite of the hopelessness of the entire situation they decide to move on and fight. You may notice that the track for their meeting in ClaireA-LeonB (in the corridor next to the library) is different – it represents the slight relief and uncertainty of what will happen next and how this is going to end.

The Library and the famous library puzzle. The standard heavy violins and the curious piano suggesting something hidden, a little like More Rooms in RE1. It always reminds me of zombies breaking into the two corridors on the first floor.

Another emotional theme - Sherry’s Theme. I don’t particularly like Sherry, but I do like this piece of music. Notice how the everlasting low gloomy violins has been altered for this track – playing a different melody, not altogether scary, but still somewhat maintaining the mood, not letting us forget where we are and what we are doing. The high sounds complete the theme reflecting the fact that we are dealing with a little child.

The Basement of Police Station is another example of how impeccably the tracks blend with the locations. Dark, empty, concrete corridors with dust obscuring the vision. Dim lights barely illuminating the labels above doors.

The Tyrant tune returns! This time with more instruments, an expanded melody and gorgeous chorus. Like most of the enemy-encounter tracks, the loop is rather short and repeats itself multiple times, yet it’s never boring! Just who doesn’t love the sturdy bald guy and his heavy boots crushing the carpet underneath? The "T”-A gets especially powerful during the camera cutscene next to the large elevator shaft later in the game.

Ladies, and gentlemen, it’s our first boss battle! The first version of William Birkin, The First Malformation of “G” is big, bloated and very dangerous. My favorite breathing-like sounds and the low groans in the distance, all make their appearance and the vibrating violins at the top represent the fast and violent chemical reactions happening within. Watch the pipe.

Next comes the strong but lonely woman’s theme, or Ada’s Theme. A mixture of piano and flute talking about bad experiences, forgotten hopes, hopeless future, much like the ill-fated love of Ada and Leon. Let’s forget about her being a spy and about her strange appearances in some European village six years later. Right now, she’s just an ordinary woman, a businesswoman perhaps, looking for her boyfriend, named John. Will her coldness mix with Leon’s fire and will they survive to live happily ever after? Only time can tell...

Of the three factory themes, only two made it to the soundtrack (the missing one being the small tune which plays immediately after leaving the sewers, the place where the dirt drops down from the ceiling), but they are both outstanding. The Marshalling Yard (The First Half) introduces us to the bowels of a dead factory, with all the machines cold and standing still, covered in dust and all the workers dead. The main sound resembles wind howling through the empty corridors and the chorus is mixed with a complete breathing sound – inhaling then exhaling of some dormant, evil spirit lying somewhere at the core of the place.

Out of the bowels, we climb to the surface level to face the moon shining through the dirty windows. We are not out yet. Far from it. We step out of the save-room to see the dark shape of the elevator standing before us like a statue of some primeval monster. Behind it, is a endless horizon of pipes and chimneys with small red lights blinking here and there, warning the dead workers of some hazards. The Marshalling Yard (The Second Half) has a very different feel than the first one. We no longer feel the terror of the unknown as we have already threaded the path through the dead factory. Now we see the vast area around and that there’s a long way still ahead of us. The RE2’s factory may not be the largest location in the game, but in terms of sound, it is by far the richest. Reluctant, we take the elevator down, not knowing that we are not alone.

The Second Malformation of “G” is probably the most recognizable version of G-virus carrier encounters and the one of the most recognizable Resident Evil 2 tracks. It doesn’t include the vibrating violins anymore; there’s no need to. We know our enemy. We don’t need to have it described to us anymore. This time, it is a war-song. We clutch the gun and take aim, feeling the sweat running down our face.

The Underground Laboratory is one of my favorite tracks on the album and that’s because of it;s multi-dimensionality. We stand at the mouth of the long steel corridor (for example, right at the door at the lower level of the plant-infested pit, the one with the door that required a System Disk). Immediately before us, there’s a feeling of dread and metal (one of the first sounds we hear, something like a gentle thunder), then, in the distance, we hear some distorted sounds – the echoes of experiments running, scientist walking, glass test-tubes being picked up and put away, the beeping of the computers. Every now and then, a loud wind comes at us from the depths of the corridor and facilities behind it, carrying a stench of rotten blood, terror and pain. And in the end, there’s a sound, something like a howling flow of water, the stream that will make us take another step and delve deeper into the core of the horrors and white gowns.

We have already met Annette, the broken woman, we have learned some unpleasant things about Ada and what really has been going on in Raccoon City. The doubt of who to trust is perfectly exposed by the leading sound of Is Ada Spy!? (what’s with these articles?), which I am unable to recognize.

Escape from Laboratory is the greatest evacuation theme ever, period. With or without the alarm sounds and the computer voice hurrying us to the exit, the track is pure energy. The seemingly irregular drum-beats makes our feet want to run (while next playing the game, try to walk while this theme plays – you’ll see how unnatural it feels), but there’s also a melody, which helps a lot while preparing the G-vaccine in Claire-A scenario. The melodic line upheld by the sound resembling a bass guitar constantly thumping in the foreground and the length of the loops are the two things behind the sheer perfection of this track and the reason of why none other Resident Evil evacuation tune can’t even come close to this one.

We go back to Ada and this time, she is aiming a gun at us. This is the time of reckoning, of cards being shown. The first tune representing the feeling of fear and betrayal is quickly replaced by panicked rush to try and save the woman from falling. Then, it’s sorrow, similar to the music accompanying Barry’s death in RE1, but so much deeper and greater. But wait, there’s more.

Good Bye, Leon... might have been good but Mother seems to be even better. The actual instruments sound poorer and, excuse me for using this word – cheaper, yet they play a melody which is richer and more original. Not to mention the fact that this time it’s Sherry who’s crying, so the music is lighter, gentler somehow.

It’s Ada again, this time not trying to shoot Leon but saving his life in Leon-B scenario. Nice theme for ####One More Kiss, but also a great track on its own, featuring the violins from Good Bye, Leon... and the atmosphere of Mother. I absolutely adore the final chord, which suggests the fear is not over. I guess One More Kiss would make a nice ranking-screen tune for every Resident Evil.

“T”-B is so much different than the predecessor. After a brief violin introduction, the combat begins, implemented with the bass guitar thumping, just like in the evacuation theme, because we’re not only fighting against Tyrant, but also against time. A great, tragic war-song.

It’s time to meet with Birkin for the final time. The Third Malformation of “G” is definitely more chaotic than the previous two, because the thing we are fighting is far more violent. Whether the four-legged form in scenario A or jelly tank in scenario B, it is a spectacular enemy, demanding a strong, fitting music. As such, the track does not contain any logical, recognizable melody, it simply provides the right mood for the fight, as if the creators knew the player would be too absorbed to listen to it.

We’ve already listened to the outro sequence, so it’s time for ranking screen theme. And after that... is the only track on this album with no tension at all, just gentle little piano and quiet violins. A small melody for the single screen.

Ah, the beautiful Credit Line... God, I feel like crying every time I listen to it... It appears after we finish any of the A-scenarios, the endings of whose are very emotional. Claire hugs little Sherry and Leon says one final “goodbye” to Ada. Overall, I find the “double-ending” idea extremely enjoyable as well as innovative. In scenario A, we take a look at the sad story, of everything we’ve been through, all the people who died and perceive Resident Evil 2 as a great, emotional game. In scenario B (sounded by Credit Line of Whole Staff) we take a look at the future, think about all the action and gore and perceive Resident Evil 2 as a great, kick-ass game. Either way, a great game. A milestone. And that’s exactly what the soundtrack leaves you with.

But, as before, it’s not over yet. Remember all those tracks which didn’t make it to the album? Well, apparently I wasn’t the one who claimed tracks like the locked up east-area laboratory room tune should have been there as well, so Capcom released another album called Biohazard 2 Complete Track, whose cover you can see on the banner. It contains as much as 42 tracks, some of them great, some of them just for the “complete track” sake (mostly very short tracks like Sherry Dropping into the water).

It begins with the classic initial intro movie tune (the one before the game’s main menu), truthfully named The Evil Eye. Then comes the introduction of scenario B as well as all the missing tunes from the Raccoon City passage. (My favorite is Drove the passengers to be the living dead, which is the bus tune.) There are the sudden attack tunes, much better than the RE1 ones (Screaming Target and Above the blood pool) – mostly involving lickers and the great track playing when we enter the east office and find Marvin has turned zombie (The buildup of suspense). There is the alternative S.T.A.R.S. office tune, when we explore it all by ourselves (Nothing more to do here) and the alternative Leon and Claire meeting in the hallway (Who’s that lady?).

Later on, in the sewers, there’s the great Wandering Alone track, when we explore the underground room as Sherry – great clarinet (or is it bassoon?) and piano melody to stress the child-factor; The gigantic alligator theme; the nice soundtrack to the Ada/Annette encounter with curious metallic sounds echoing in the background - Women squaring off.

Even further, are the four lovely laboratory tunes. They start with the moth room theme - This is my nest – a silent, yet unnerving track, perfectly exposing the tension which we might feel facing some abominable insect, trying to shoo it off but being afraid to touch it. This time, however, the insect is bigger than we are... Next, Like a shadow, a very deep and heavy tune reminds us about the scene where Annette tries to shoot Leon but is interrupted by the Tyrant. Notice how this track has been constructed with trumpets – sometimes they are silent and unsteady, sometimes they sting, like drum cymbals. Speaking about the Tyrant, the scene immediately preceding him falling to the lava pit is sounded by the The shadow is gone? – at the very end, it features moments of silence interrupted by loud drum beats.

Wreckage of the mad experiment speaks for itself. Computer beeps suggest technology and computers. Then the violins and chorus arise – to suggest something frightening and evil, like raising the curtain or opening a box to see what’s inside... Then the shock of seeing something truly disgusting. One brief moment of not believing our own eyes, then another shock at understanding and conceiving what incredible nightmare we are witnessing. And the computers still beep in the background, continuously monitoring the whole thing, making calculations, relentlessly keeping the failed experiment running.

Towards the end of the album, we get to listen to the themes of The 4th Survivor and Extreme Battle Mode – everything, including the briefing and result screens. But there’s also something special at the very end - ”The ultimate bio-weapon” Medley. Oh boy, what a gem this is. The 8 minutes worth of Resident Evil 2 music, slightly remastered for our listening pleasure.

It begins with Prologue, moves on to Raccoon City, then a little fill-in which hasn’t been featured anywhere before and The second malformation of “G”, quickly followed by Escape from Laboratory – sounding faster and smoother, better than ever before. A very brief interlude and the relentless grip tightens – the mad “T”-B comes, only to crush us again with The third malformation of “G”. Then, there’s finally some piece... And finally, the Credit Line to sooth us...

Together, the two albums form a complete audio Biohazard 2 experience, which I recommend for anyone with a taste for music. There are some compilations, including the Biohazard Sound Chronicle Best Track Box, which some features tracks from both CDs, as well as the awful Ten Years of Resident Evil – The Official Soundtrack which tries to place the soundtracks of 6 games onto one disk, a futile attempt if you ask me.

Last, but certainly not least, I think you ought to try and listen to the live-versions of some of these tracks on Biohazard Orchestra Album, played by real musicians on real instruments. The true highlight is the remastered Credit Line of Whole Staff, with astounding violin intro, even if the actual rock sounds a little poor compared to the original (there should be at least one additional guitar and the drummer should have used the snare drum a little more, in my opinion).

You remember Leon saying “Hey, it’s up to us to take out Umbrella!”, you remember the anticipation you felt of how the franchise would evolve from there, what wonders were awaiting us is the unknown future... Then you remember all those Biohazards and Resident Evils which appeared, including the worthy sequel RE3, the three-dimensional Code: Veronica, the REmake, the splendid RE0, the atmospheric Outbreaks and of course the revolutionary RE4. And you may smile for a second and think that the world is not such a bad place after all. I sure do.

Biohazard Original Soundtrack

Before I get to the beautiful, breath-taking, astounding, ravishing and overall – fucking awesome Biohazard / Resident Evil soundtrack, which is Resident Evil 2 OST (next week, I guess), let me take you for a ride through the land of the past and show you where it all began. Ladies and gentlemen, the first Biohazard soundtrack!

Don’t even try to compare it with other RE soundtracks, because today the whole CD, much like the game itself, seems... laughable. Take the two first tracks, for instance: Introduction Movies and Zombie Eating Kenneth. Who on Earth would place such things on a game soundtrack in this day and age? Some of the tunes have the game’s sound effects (even voices) embedded into them, like Death Trap, in most cases this was done deliberately, believe it or not, which is evident in Piano Frenzy, where you can hear a person opening and closing the door and walking up to the piano. The music doesn’t even have any decent fade-out, the tracks just cut off after only one loop, so no matter how hard you try, you can’t even enjoy the decent ones, like First Floor Mansion. Actually, all of them can be found on Resident Evil PC disk, in the wav format, exactly the same. Great, huh? Capcom just burned these files into a CD, and boom! We have a game soundtrack, let’s go sell it. But enough of this ranting, we must remember that it was the year of 1996 and video games got away with lots of things, let alone the fact that no one really cared about the music. So let’s open your ears and listen.

The tracks can be roughly divided into three groups: the danger tunes which play when something bad is happening, the atmosphere tunes which accompany you while traversing the locations and finally – special tunes during the cutscenes. Of those three, the second one clearly stands out as the sole reason why anyone sane would ever care to listen to Biohazard OST. First Floor Mansion, Second Floor Mansion, First Floor Mansion Again, Second Mansion Again (convenient names, huh?), The Guardhouse, etc. all of them consisting only of computer-generated violins, very fitting for the Spencer Estate’s empty, yellowish corridors. To me, these are the essence of Resident Evil’s atmosphere – slow, still melodies with the notable touch of menace. A similar theme occurs in Third Floor of the Laboratory.

Some of these tracks are still pretty scary, like Forest is Dead, The Underground, Entrance to the Laboratory, which have the characteristic breathing-like sounds, The Guardhouse Basement with its curious combination of guitar-like notes with violin-like noises. Ah, I’ve almost forgotten my personal favorite Mansion Basement – the infamous kitchen theme. I swear this thing gives me the creeps even now. There are also some oddballs like The Power Room (Can this even be called music? This isn’t Silent Hill, people!), or Outside featuring the same dog’s howling over and over and over again, or, better yet, Outside with Water Running – the title says it all.

The danger tunes are, simply speaking, all the same - very fast and without much melody. Take Sudden Attack and Death Trap. The only thing differentiating them is the sound of the Jill-sandwich mechanism activating in the latter. The truth is, these tracks just serve their purpose – providing the most appropriate beat-rate for our hearts during the violent cutscenes and boss-fights. All by themselves, they seem tedious and unremarkable, with the sole exception of The Zombie is Coming which is much slower and truly spooky. The boss-fight counterpart would maybe be Tyrant Breaking Loose – the track which would come back in the future.

The third group is really mixed – some of the tracks are not half that bad, like Wesker’s Theme, or the cool Slide Projector even Barry’s Revenge has its... uh... virtues, but some of them are mediocre to say the least. A Gunshot in the Underground, Meeting Rebecca, Barry’s Death... They might have been (and, indeed, were) appropriate twelve years ago, but today one would be right to ask for something better.

And, uh... Still Dawn, the credit-roll theme. Really, is this the thing you would expect at the end of the symbol of survival horror? The track does get rough enough at the end, but the very beginning is absolutely traumatizing. The song reminds me of The Stars and the Moon – an ending song of the movie “Dead Alive” / “Brain-Dead”, but there it was supposed to sound like a romantic comedy featuring Jennifer Lopez, because the whole movie was a parody. Here, it just doesn’t work, even for a mid-nineties Japanese game.

I might have been a little too harsh, but that’s the way it had to be. If you want to introduce someone to survival horrors, you mustn’t, simply MUSTN’T begin with Resident Evil. This title was brilliant and will always be treated with respect, as an important milestone in video-game evolution, but let’s face it: it’s retired now, played only by true connaisseurs, replaced with its younger Gamecube reincarnation. Right, there’s also Dead Silence, but if you don’t feel even a bit embarrassed by having to blow to your DS’s microphone in public, you probably won’t even notice the game’s Dante-crawling-out-of-the-fondue-pit cheeziness.

But wait! There’s more!

At first I meant to divide this episode into a couple of parts and post them one at a time, but decided against it. After all, it’s not a gametrailers retrospective I’m doing and since you’re already here and have read this far, I might as well go on and tell you the next parts right now. So let’s turn the hands of the clock a little and move forward to the magic year of 1998, when such miracles as Resident Evil 2, Parasite Eve and Metal Gear Solid were released.

Apparently, in 1998, someone at Capcom finally sobered and realized the Biohazard Original Soundtrack was not a product of the finest possible quality. Hence, they decided to release a remix, just as they had released the Director’s Cut version of the game itself the year before.

You pop the CD in, push play and what are you greeted with? The game’s character introduction rock-tune, in all its original “glory” (together with the voice reading out the names), completely untouched, just with some game’s sounds added at the beginning. (Still, it could be worse, some movies showing the early pre-release versions of the game have different music there – much worse music, with singing even...) Thankfully, it’s the only unremixed track on the disk, so don’t let it belie the rest of the soundtrack; the changes become pleasantly evident with At Deep Mountains and Dark Valleys, the Night Begins. At first you don’t even realize it’s the remix of First Floor Mansion.

Most of the tracks got pleasantly polished, more instruments were added, in some cases the melody was slightly altered. Oh, and there are fade-outs, thank God. There is a price to pay, however. The new tunes have the game’s corresponding sounds and voices; sometimes entire cutscenes were inserted. For example, the evacuation theme has been broken into two separate tracks: 10 Minutes Until Explosion and 5 Minutes until Explosion, the second of which has the voice of Brad, the sounds of the elevator and the wind howling on the landing area. The oddballs remained oddball alright. Dismal Field, a remake of Outside, features not only the old sounds but now also the footsteps of a character running around, taking the elevator and being attacked by zombie dogs. Hilarious.

In most cases, the music really benefited from the changes. The creators have given the old, familiar tunes the new quality which elevates it significantly from the mediocrity into decency, without any violent changes. There are some exceptions, like the kitchen theme, whose remake (Narrow and Close) lost some the original’s malevolent energy, but all-in-all, even if some tracks did undergo a little more than cosmetic changes (Sigh of Relief) and (Peace of Mind), it’s generally for the good (notice how one flute can change the entire atmosphere of a song Concealed Passage).

There is one track which deserves a very special mention. The remastered version of the The Moonlight Sonata, now over 4 minutes long, featuring the full original melody, accompanied with background violins. It is... beautiful. Might even fit for an ending theme, in my opinion, especially since Still Dawn remained pretty much unchanged.

Okay, let’s fast forward to 2002 and “take a listen” to the Remake OST. Sadly, the official soundtrack never got released on its own, instead being a part of the expensive Biohazard Best Track Box initially sold only in Japan.

As we all know, the Resident Evil Remake differs significantly from the original in some places and it shows. The creators abandoned most of the old tunes and written them anew, completely from scratch. The result was a finer quality, or “up-to-date quality” would be a more fitting way to put it. While the tunes are considerably gentler on your ears, they remain a little much soulless and identity-lacking. They concentrate on heavy, blurred violins playing some barely discernible melodies. It’s hard to remember them, in some cases, it’s even impossible to notice them while playing the game altogether, yet they maintain the atmosphere and thus serve their purpose – being good background horror music.

The true fun begins when we do actually notice the familiar tunes and there are plenty of them. The way they have been constructed is simply flawless – they retain their original melodies, which brings up the game’s identity, but their quality has been significantly improved by adding more different sounds and ironing out the old ones. This transformation has made them much gentler, less aggressive and invading, yet they are still scary, probably thanks to the breathing-like sounds. Scarier than ever. I would go on talking in detail about each one of them, but this would take too long, so let me just mention the most distinctive ones.

Disappearance, which makes the searching for Wesker actually a pleasant task. Lost in Darkness, probably the most beautiful variation of First Floor Mansion ever. Save Theme, which remains strange and unclear, but in a much more acceptable way. Vacant Room with the little tickling bells now constantly traveling from one ear to another. Talking to Yourself? – an astounding track, all but bursting with terror and despair, conjuring everything around it. Cold Water, now much slower, expressing not only the flooded underground facility but the entire dark ocean with God-knows-what swimming just under the surface. Concrete Bound, immersing us in the depths of the abandoned laboratory, with the electrical lights illuminating nothing but thick clouds of dust, floating in the air.

Like I’ve said, there are more of the remade tracks, but I think I’ll let you discover them on your own. For me, the greatest joy was to compare them side by side, the old one versus the new one. Then the elusive details or ironing out become clear and you can just point your finger at some sound at say “oh, that’s what did the trick.”

One more thing, the Ending Credits. I’ve had some really mixed feelings about this one. For one, it isn’t even a bit horror-like (try and compare it to the RE: Outbreak counterpart), the violins sound optimistic, but at the same time, serious, even aristocratic. That has always reminded me of the one thing that many people seem to forget about. The Resident Evil legacy. The year 1996, when it all started with a small game with artificial acting, crappy dialogues and B-movie plot which aspired to be the milestone in gaming industry. Which created the expression “survival horror” and paved the way for some of the world’s greatest, most memorable titles. While the original game pales in comparison to its sons and grandsons, it will always be there, in the all-time hall of fame, which the soundtracks, both old and new are there to remind us about. Laughable or not, rest in peace, Resident Evil. We’ll always love you. :-)

Biohazard Outbreak Original Soundtrack

Taking a bit of rest from the wild, unxeplainable steel screams and howling fogs, I've decided to take you for a little more classic ride. The drums, the pianos, the violins. The best Resident Evil / Biohazard soundtrack ever.

Why Outbreak? Why did I choose this multiplayer offspring of the great RE franchise, often labelled "a little more than mediocre" and "only for hardcore RE fans"? Indeed, why did I call it the best RE soundtrack?
Because, frankly speaking, it was the music, which made me play through the entire game (both games, in fact) again and again, unlocking and buying every single collection item, never once going online. It was the music which gave this game its rich and powerful soul and elevated it from "a little more than mediocre" to my third favorite Resident Evil game (together with RE Zero), crappy voice acting, or no crappy voice acting.

There are altogether seven people credited for composing this masterpiece and one of them deserves a very special mention. Akihiko Matsumoto is not commonly associated with video games, but is a very famous Japanese movie soundtrack composer. If you ever wondered why the second-to-none introductory song of Biohazard: Outbreak, or the credit-roll outro song sound so damn good, this man is the answer. These tracks are full of malignant power and all of their variations convey their montrous emotions in a very different way. Take Freezer Burn with its "waiting for the next nightmare" theme, so perfectly placed at the end of the first scenario. Or The Waterway of Darkness being the mixture of relief and exhaustion after escaping the infested sanitarium. This is the same tune as in Main Title Theme, the same language speaking different things. A similar thing happens in The Unpleasant Train; the powerful melody is the same as in Staff Roll, but this time, the fight is only beginning. There are also two other tracks: one for the destruction of Raccoon City (The Extermination) and one for the aftermath (Umbrella) - both very strong and undeniable, with great cutscenes to accompany.

For Resident Evil Outbreak, Matsumoto-san was someone like Harry Gregson-Williams for Metal Gear Solid 2, but we must not forget the other six people whose jobs at composing the "regular level" tunes was equally impressive. Let's start with probably the most terrifying track on the disk, innocently named Character Select. The man responsible for this pure horror is Tetsuya Shibata - whom you might know from Devil May Cry series. Some of his other tracks include the two beautiful interpretations of the main theme (The Big Picture, So Many Options) as well as the characteristic Happy Hour Jam Session playing at the J's Bar, offering a quirky, sarcastic alternate introduction for the game.

Next, there is Etsuko Yoneda who gave the atmosphere for some of the scenarios. These are his tunes that you will be hearing catching your breath or running from zombies in the J's Bar (The Plague Cometh, Split Seconds), dashing for the cargo lift in the laboratory (Freezer Burn), looking at the patients' beds, now smeared with blood, fearfully watching the air shafts (No Rest for the Wicked) feeling your blood rushing through the Leechman's veins (Here, There, Everywhere) or carefully making your way through the burning hotel, watching out for the lurking lickers (The Fire Within). He is also responsible for the Gallery Screen music - uncertain like the winter wind.

Mitsuhiko Takano was the one who rearranged the legendary Resident Evil 2 The Underground Laboratory theme into Into the Unknown - a legend of its own. This version features many more organic sounds, like the breathing, and has been enhanced with the oddly-sounding violins in the background, more than fitting for the not entirely deserted research facility.

Last, but not least: the sinister university of Raccoon City, along with all the dark secrets it contains, has been "voiced" by Kento Hasegawa's Hell on Earth (he also created the fight-songs for the Giant Leech and the Thanatos) as well as Masato Kohda's Laying it on the Line and Of Wisdoms, Truths, and Tyrants. You may also know these two names from Devil May Cry.

Seven people creating thirty-one tracks - forming a powerful, unforgettable experience. Curiously enough, these aren't the names associated with RE soundtracks, like Masami Ueda or Shusaku Uchiyama. The team was different. The approach was different. Hence, the music is different. It has a sense of freshness in it as well as of an undeniable power which puts it far ahead of any other Resident Evil soundtrack, even my beloved RE2. Believe me, even if the game had its share of flaws, there is this one black CD, which may change everything. Everything.

Silent Hill 2 Original Soundtracks

Theme of Laura is a simple and casual tune, which is fitting for a simple and casual Silent Hill 2 intro. Compared to Silent Hill from the first game's soundtrack, it seems more peaceful, even lulling. The energy is there, but it is a different kind of energy - gentle and romantic. It doesn't tell a tragic story, it tells a tragic love story. The undisputable highlight of this song is the very last note - a peculiar variation of E-minor chord which fades slowly, opening the door, preparing us for the second Silent Hill experience.

Ah, the unforgettable bathroom scene... White Noiz is what Silent Hill 2 is all about. A dream. Not in a warm bed with our heads resting gently on soft pillows, but in a moist, chilly fog with our minds floating over the pavements, seeing the eerie shapes, not recognizing them. The following tracks play with that concept, each of them altering our eyesight in a slightly different way. They take us to different places: the town, the forest, the lake, but still everything is foggy, out of reach.

One might say, that Silent Hill 2 OST is a much more peaceful soundtrack than the predecessor, featuring much softer, melodic sounds instead of rusty metallic screams. However, it's hard to feel peace while listening to it. It is as if peace never really existed. The mastery of the soundtrack, as I see it, is the ability to erase all of our emotions and replace them with its own, unfamiliar ones. It's hard to feel peaceful during A World of Madness or even Forest, just as it is hard to feel very fightened during Ashes and Ghost. This track has a sense of negative aura, we feel violent things happening around, yet it's not a fear that something may happen to you. It's like a rough river with you, a rag-doll, in the middle. Finally, when the river turns into the deep and dark ocean with giant black shapes moving in the deep (the second part of Ashes and Ghost) you feel empty, a breathless mannequin with the blank expression on your artificial face, seeing the things, unable to do or feel anything.

Some tracks, like Promise (Reprise), Null Moon, Heaven's Night, return generously give us back our souls, and return life to our bodies. They are very much like songs, only sung by a person using telepathy instead of mouth. Sometimes the fog wraps us up again (The Day of Night, Psionic Fairytale), sometimes negative visions appear (The Darkness That Lurks Tn Our Mind, Block Mind, Noone Love You), sometimes a little voice in darkness tries to tell us some great, sad story, but it doesn't know how (Magdalene).

The unfamiliar emotions which the soundtrack gives us in exchange for our own are perfectly visible in track 25. The thing which we might expect to be a grand finale, Betrayal, isn't a great finale at all. Although powerful (sometimes I hear Maria screaming somewhere behind the chains), it's nowhere near as nightmarish as My Heaven and quickly gets devoured by an strange white noise, called Black Fairy.

Theme of Laura (Reprise) introduces us to Overdose Delusion, in my opinion the most powerful actual song of the Silent Hill 2 OST. There are a couple of them throughout the soundtrack most of which serve as outro tunes for different endings. It might as well serve as the credit-roll for the whole experience, but this time we don't just see the credits, we see what we've experienced, the song perfectly summarizes it for us in an understandable language of melody. The actual game outro does the same thing, showing us cutscenes from the game, through the noise and blur. And once again, there's one more message you need to hear, before you wake up from the dream.

Promise is everything. It is love, it is sorrow, it is pain, it is a tragedy, it is hope, it is beauty. And again the perfect Asus2 chord at the end seems to be the most powerful one. Only this time, the dream ends and we are left with a picture of the late Mary Sunderland smiling at us, fading into blackness...

Silent Hill Original Soundtracks

Welcome to lowrestextures' second series, called Open Your Ears, where FallingStickman and Yours Truly will try to introduce you to a beautiful and rich world of game soundtracks. The painful truth is, no too many people actually care about game music, because "hey, it's just music, right?" No fancy graphics, no Source engine, no antialiasing, blah, blah, blah. And you know what? That's exactly the point. You push play, suddenly the part of your brain which remembers the game turns itself on, and boom! You're there. Only this time there are no problems with too little RAM onboard, the skipping animations or even the stress at having to do things quickly or you'll loose and be forced to start over from your last save. The images are yours to control. You relive the game from your own perspective. At your own pace. And sometimes, when you allow your mind to travel further, some beautiful things might happen. You might experience things which are completely new and astonishing. So let's do just that, shall we? We close our eyes and open our ears. And we push play.

At first there's Silent Hill, which sets us in the right mood and tells us what we are actually about to experience. It works like a title logo at the beginning of a movie. You know it, you've heard it a million times before, as the game starts. But then the strings fall silent and the ride begins.

What comes after, beginning with All, is a constant flow of sensations occasionally broken by simple, yet unnerving melodies like Clawfinger or Fear of the Dark. I've never met a single person who, having listened to the soundtrack, haven't visualized their own dark and fascinating worlds and travelled through them. Whether it was Silent Hill or not, we all touched the rusty fences, moved our fingers along the cold asphalt, smelled the warm copper blood on dirty walls, smelled the dust in the dark corridors. The sounds are mostly metallic - the whole rainbow of them, accompanied by more indefinite ones, sometimes close to blowing wind or obstructed breathing. Yamaoka-san orchestrates this kingdom ever so skillfully, some of the noises sound even a little organic like in Killed by Death which I sometimes call "belching of the metal god".

They grab you and never let go. Some are so incredibly vicious, they almost seem alive and sentient, with their mind set on only one thing - torturing you, tearing you up with their metallic fingers: Until Death, Don't Cry, Ain't Gonna Rain.

There are interludes, moments of catching your breath, moments of looking around and thinking, especially The Wait and Over, while some prepare us (Devil's Lyric 2) for a mad dash where every footstep you desperately make is violently pressed again and again upon your entire body (Dead End). And vice versa, violent songs which seem to rhythmically tear away part of your ears (Die) are followed by ones which allow your bleeding corpse to raise again and keep wandering (Never End, Never End, Never End).

There are also some songs which, like Only You, are honest and truthful, inferring real emotions and reminding us of the more casual soundtracks. But then comes Not Tomorrow and the real fun begins.

Not Tomorrow 1 is a soundtrack to Lisa's death scene - easily the saddest and deepest scene in Silent Hill. Too bad it got cut down - the game features a little longer version of the tune, but still it manages to capture all the essence. The crying body of a woman falling apart and begging for help from behind the door you shut in her face. Its brevity however is a virtue in some sense. It allows for smooth transition to Not Tomorrow 2 which introduces us to something darker and angrier. All the pieces are there; bad, sentient things are waking up and the tension is built for the great finale:

My Heaven is a 3 minutes' worth of pure nightmare. The endless, furious lament together with sharp banging sounds, crushing your temples, dragging you through hell over and over again. There's no ending, the song just gets its throat cut and there's silence which seems to last for centuries, until Tears Of... begins.

All the ending songs are there to wrap the ride up in a nice envelope. The credits roll, we catch our breaths, eat up our popcorn and stand up from the seats. But wait, it's not over yet. There's one last message you need to hear, called Esperandote. The little, gentle song caresses your ears for a while, and if you're still around after the lights go out, there's a bit of a bonus, Silent Hill (Otherside).

At this point I could write something trivial like "I recommend this soundtrack only to people who like heavy industrial sounds and not take the music all too seriously" or that I simply really enjoyed the music and think it's great, but that wouldn't do justice. The truth is Silent Hill OST is not a soundtrack, it's an experience. A profound experience. If you haven't listened to the CD yet, I dare you to go ahead and play it back to back. You'll never be quite the same again.