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Weezer headlines Gran Turismo 5 Prologue soundtrack
The official Gran Turismo 5 Prologue soundtrack features a nice blend of indie dance rock, electronica, classic rock and brand new remixes from artists, such as Weezer, Mars Volta and DJ Shadow, and more. A brand new exclusive remix of Weezer's "Automatic" headlines the game's diverse soundtrack."The Gran Turismo 5 Prologue soundtrack gives fans the perfect audio accompaniment to high-octane racing from Daytona to Eiger Nordwand," said Jeff Reese, director, software marketing, SCEA in a recent press release. "The edgy variety of music complements the pure adrenaline rush fans experience as they eclipse 200 miles-per-hour in the most authentic driving simulator around."See the complete soundtrack, after the cut.
Download the full Dungeons and Dragons Online soundtrack
Music in Massively Multiplayer games gets a bad rap. Just in this latest issue of Games For Windows Magazine, a discussion of game packaging made a pretty disparaging crack against the soundtrack CDs that come in MMO collector-edition boxes. We might be in the minority, but everything about online games make us happier people. From fantastic art to the glories of actual gameplay, Massive gaming has it all.If you feel the same way, if you enjoy the music put together by folks like Jeremy Soule or Jason Hayes, then you'll want to check out a cache of files the folks at Turbine have made available on the official Dungeons and Dragons Online site. That cache represents the official soundtrack for DDO, released in honor of the game's second anniversary. Our picks for best tracks include "Tavern Rock volume 1", "House Jorasco" (gotta love those haflings) and "Ye Be a Pirate". Arr!
Imports: Pre-order Valhalla Knights 2, get soundtrack
If you live in Japan (most probably not) and plan on picking up Valhalla Knights 2, you might want to pre-order and grab the free soundtrack bonus offer. Titled "Sounds of Valhalla Knights," the soundtrack contains 20 songs from the game, and most of which come from former Square Enix sound editor, Shohiro Nakaoka. Nakaoka has worked as a sound editor on such games as Final Fantasy XII, Front Mission 4, and Xenogears.For those non-Japanese interested in getting this sequel to the fantasy-themed RPG Valhalla Knights, we're hoping that your favorite import sites will carry the pre-order bonus. If not, there's always Ebay.[Via PSPHyper]
No More Heroes remix album approaches
No More Heroes composer Masafumi Takada mentioned in his GDC talk that a remix album of music from the game would soon be available from Grasshopper Manufacture's online store. We now have details of that album, called No More Heroes Sound Tracks: Dark Side -- as well as its burning-Santa-Destroy-flag cover. The album contains 9 tracks remixed by artists including Takada himself, Game Boy chiptune master 6955 and Metal Gear Solid's Norihiko Hibino. It'll sell for 2,100 yen ($20) when it releases on March 14th. We suspect awesomeness, even though there are only nine tracks on the disc. We're going to have to figure out how to get Grasshopper's online store to ship stuff to us!
MLB 2K gets a somewhat indie soundtrack
In a slightly surprising move (wait ... baseball games have music?), 2K partnered with Pitchfork Media to make the soundtrack for Major League Baseball 2K8 (which comes to NA this week). By "make," of course, we mean "pick a bunch of different pre-existing songs," but that's neither here nor there. If you ask us, the soundtrack for the game is looking pretty damn sweet. Then again, this blogger has a musical taste that is often disliked by the norm, so many of you may hate the track list. But, don't worry too much: supposing bands like LCD Soundsystem and Dinosaur Jr. don't do it for you, there's also a lot of good bands on the soundtrack that are more well-known, such as The Cure, The Cars, and Modest Mouse.To feast your eyes on the full track list, make sure to check past the break.
Rocking out to Flower, Sun, and Rain
If you find yourself importing Flower, Sun, and Rain because you have no faith in localization, there will be at least one feature you won't have trouble understanding.Some extra content in the game includes a jukebox feature, and luckily, music is an international language. At least you'll have something to listen to while you try to figure out how to read Japanese. We wonder if the soundtrack is even half as good as the one for Suda 51's Wii game, No More Heroes.See also: 2008's Biggest Blips -- Flower, Sun, and Rain / The Silver Case%Gallery-12911%
WipEout HD to support customizable soundtracks
The ability to create customized soundtracks is a criminally underused feature in many games, as players are forced to turn down the volume and crank up the stereo just so they can tackle their boss of choice to the musical styling of their favorite 80s hair band. It's not too much to ask, and apparently Sony agrees, with the upcoming WipEout HD for the PS3 now confirmed to support fully customized soundtracks. Taking a page from the recently released Wipeout Pulse for the PSP, the upcoming racer will sport a handful of what we're sure will turn out to be suitably electronic tracks, though if you're in the mood for -- let's just say Barry Manilow – that's entirely your choice. [Via PS3 Fanboy] %Gallery-17035%
Breakfast Topic: Grinding Tunes
Unless I am doing Arenas or for some other event that involves voice chat, I usually turn my WoW sounds off. I either watch episodes of my favorite science fiction shows or listen to music.I have compiled the following WoW-inspired, classic-rock soundtrack for grinding.Ozzy Osbourne - The Wizard, for the Mages of the world.Aerosmith - Dude Looks Like a Lady, with all due respect to elves of both factions.Ted Nugent - Cat Scratch Fever, I guess I could have gone with Fred Bear- either work for Druids.Queen - Fat Bottom Girls, because Tauren females make the rockin' world go 'round.Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper, in honor of Undeads.Black Sabbath - Iron Man, perfect for Warriors and Paladins, but more for Warriors.The Eagles - Witchy Woman, which seems to fit Warlocks.Styx - Mr. Roboto, for everyone who's ever been stomped by the Fel Reavers in Hellfire Peninsula.Led Zeppelin - Ramble On, OK it's about a different fantasy epic, but it's a great song.What do you listen to while you play?EDIT: Corrected the spelling of Ozzy, but I'm leaving it as an Ozzy song rather than Black Sabbath as the version I have is solo off the "Hot and Heavy" compilation disc. Thanks though!
The Daily Grind: Is in-game music necessary?
I hate to say this, and I sincerely hope that any sound engineers who might be reading this will forgive me, but when I get into a new game, the first thing I do is turn off the background music. This is not to say I don't think the music is good; in fact, many times it's great. I bought the Warcraft III soundtrack, f'r cryin' out loud. But when I drop in-world, ready to kick some ass and take some names with at least one apostrophe in them, I'd rather just immerse myself fully, and that means only hearing the environmental and ambient soundtrack.Or I'll listen to my own music, preferring the juxtaposition of modern instrumentation with medieval visuals. Or I'll even just listen to the Penny Arcade podcast, if I get lonely for the sound of human dialogue. Am I alone in this? Am I missing out on a wonderful experience by omitting a piece of the whole that was engineered to enhance the gameplay experience? How do you feel about background music?
2 Aion character classes video
NCsoft's upcoming MMO Aion sure looks nice, doesn't it? Wired has posted a mini-preview of two of its character classes, the Assassin and Sorcerer. There's nothing revolutionary about these videos, but it's amazing how the right soundtrack can add so much to a simple video. Try watching them for the first time without sound enabled, and see if they're still interesting.Aion is scheduled to be released this year on an unannounced date.
Sega inexplicably decides to release Golden Axe soundtrack
Remember all of those awesome songs in the Golden Axe series? No, we don't either, and we love Golden Axe. Pretty much the only music we remember is the tune that plays while those little gnome jerks are looting your campsite. But that song is great. Classic Sega. Most of the time, the game is too overrun by digitized screaming for us to get a good listen to the soundtrack. We get the feeling, however, that a game starring Ax Battler, Tyris Flare, and Gilius Thunderhead must have some rockin' music.That's why we want to kick a little gnome thief guy until one of the new Golden Axe The Music CDs falls out of his bag. On February 21st, Sega Direct will release a collection of music from all three Genesis Golden Axes, the Saturn game Golden Axe: The Duel, and both arcade games. The collection will sell for 3,500 yen total ($31).Check after the break for ten minutes of Sega Master System Golden Axe Warrior gameplay, for no good reason. It's Zeldastic!
Anniversary CDs rock, man
Which game series that is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year has the best music? Sorry, about half of our readers, it's not Final Fantasy. But, like, Final Fantasy, it is a near-infinite vortex of remakes and spinoffs: Mega Man. As part of the 20th anniversary festivities for the original Japanese release of Rockman, Capcom is releasing two CDs of new arrangements of classic Rockman music, done by] musicians from the Mega Man Battle Network series, as well as Konami's Beatmania IIDX series.The Rockman 1-6 Rock Arrange Ver. 2007 came out on the 5th, and the Rockman 1-6 Techno Arrange Ver. 2007 CD is out today. Both focus on the 8-bit Mega Man games, which is fine with us. The discs retail for 3,150 yen each ($28), which is somewhat less fine.The original soundtracks for Mega Mans (Mega Men?) 7 and 8 will be reissued as well. Samples of all four of these discs are available at the official site, including, yes, both Rock and Techno arrangements of "Dr. Wily's Castle 1" from Mega Man 2.[Via Dengeki]
NiGHTS into enormous soundtracks
If NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams turns out to be awful, we'll feel a little stupid for hyping it so much (though we always temper our enthusiasm with skepticism, because ... Sega). But even if the game ends up not being perfect, the music is pretty much a known quantity. If you like sappy, uplifing orchestral pop, then you'll probably enjoy the NiGHTS soundtrack. But would you enjoy it three discs' worth?The NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams Official Soundtrack will be released in Japan on January 16th for 3,800 yen ($34) and will include 76 tracks, including nine versions of "Dreams Dreams." Some are instrumental -- perfect for karaoke!
Remove iTunes DRM easily and quickly with iMovie HD
The thing about DRM is that there are always exceptions to the rules-- while Apple has released lots of DRM-free music, lots of it is still bogged down by DRM, and if you're like me, you disagree that any music you purchase should be limited in the ways that you use it.Fortunately, as long as you can hear the music you buy, there'll always be a simple way around the DRM, and 5thirtyone has put together this simple writeup explaining how to break iTunes DRM with a tool you've already got on your Mac: iMovie. Essentially, you load the DRM-ed file as a soundtrack in iMovie, export it as an .aiff file back into iTunes, and then convert it in iTunes back to AAC. Simple enough.This makes you question why DRM is there in the first place. Sure, the record companies might be pushing it on Apple, but if it's this easy and simple to do, exactly what leg are they standing on to justify it in the first place?
No More Heroes with some more goodies, this time music
We know that you were impressed by the opening video for No More Heroes, because, well, you told us so. The people behind the game must have degrees in tease-ology, though, because now you can download music samples from No More Heroes at the game's official website. Even though they aren't full tracks, it's easy to tell that the music for this game is going to rock our socks off. Now we're even as hyped for the soundtrack release as we are for the game itself.To download the track samples, go to the bottom of this page and click on the orange buttons. Your ears will thank you.[Via Siliconera]
Firefly composer talks about his Uncharted experience
Greg Edmonson, composer of the best TV show ever, Firefly, also worked on the music to Sony's Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. His first foray into games soundtracks certainly was ambitious, and a lot of tricks were used to get exactly the sound he wanted for the game. Adventurers may want to take notice of the subtle changes in the game's auditory landscape. "There were small differences depending on where you were in the game," he says. "For instance, in the monastery we used weird metal things and Tibetan bowls, and stuff like that. And when we were out in the jungle, we used all kinds of ethnic flutes. But even those things kind of crossed over, so it was fun."Interestingly, a lot of "different" instruments were used to craft the sound of Uncharted, such as "the saz (a Turkish stringed instrument), didgeridoo, conch shell, harmonic flutes, shofar, frame drum, and a bunch of invented instruments that don't even have names."Listen to samples from the score at 1UP. The complete album is available on iTunes.[Via Digg]
You can buy the Club Nintendo SNES controller -- with money
Importers NCSX and Play-Asia are freeing us from the unavailability of awesome Japanese Club Nintendo exclusives -- presumably, by paying some Japanese people for theirs. Whatever methods they use to get these things, we cannot argue with the results. Because the result is the opportunity to preorder the Super Famicom Classic Controller.Both companies will ship the item in April (and the Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack in January) in April, but NCSX is taking preorders right now for $30. We don't know when Play-Asia will open preorders or how much they will charge. All we know is this: YES. Who cares if it's a freebie for Club Nintendo members? We're just happy to have a shot at it.
Halo 3 & Mass Effect soundtracks release tomorrow
Auditory pleasure. The feeling one gets when listening to music that moves their inner soul and evokes emotions to the highest degree. It's the feeling one gets when listening to the harmonious melodies from Halo 3 or Mass Effect.Releasing to the retail arena tomorrow, November 20th are both the 31 track Halo 3 soundtrack and (just in time for launch) the 37 track Mass Effect soundtrack too. Both CDs are being released under the Sumthing Distribution label (the folks who put together Gears of War and Halo 2's soundtracks) and should cost around the average CD price of $14 or so. Auditory pleasure, it's what you'll get when you buy either of these musically enjoyable soundtracks.[Via Game Stooge]Read - Halo 3 soundtrackRead - Mass Effect soundtrack
Japanese Club Nintendo members get too-awesome-for-words bonuses
Just look at that. Isn't it glorious? What you're seeing above, folks, is a Wii-compatible SNES pad. Let's say that again, shall we? A Wii-compatible SNES pad. Don't get too worked up though, because unless you're a member of Club Nintendo in Japan, these are off-limits (not that using a SNES pad for your VC games is impossible, but still, this is the real deal).Yep, it's another reason we really should move to Japan. Hit the link below, and you'll see two more: a 2-disc Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack and a Mario desk calendar. All of which are horribly, tortuously unobtainable. Sob.[Thanks Daniel!]
Lux-Pain is apparently a big deal
Lux-Pain is a fairly under-the-radar adventure game from new developer Killaware, in which you scratch at people with the stylus to psychically discover secret information. Or, at least, we thought it was under the radar. But publisher Marvelous is giving it a big push in Japan, bundling it with two preorder bonuses, both with cute names. Lux-Sound is, obviously, a soundtrack CD, and Lux-Paint is an artbook.So now, because of a CD of music we wouldn't know if we like, and a book of art we find kind of generic, we want this game that we'd have to import. Of course, we wouldn't even get this preorder stuff if we bought the game. We shudder to think what glowing orbs of information would be hidden inside our minds if someone were to scrape a spirit-stylus over us.
