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Jukebox Heroes: Helm's Deep's soundtrack
Well this was a particularly pleasant surprise! As the resident Lord of the Rings Online writer around these here parts, I've been pretty excited about this week's Helm's Deep release. I totally did not expect Turbine to give away the entire soundtrack for free on SoundCloud a week ago, especially after selling Riders of Rohan's score as a digital album. But that's what happened, and I am very much not complaining. While the esteemed Chance Thomas did not compose the second part of the Rohan saga, the studio did make the effort to create an original score in-house instead of just rehashing previous tracks. The result is an album of 25 new tunes for us to evaluate in anticipation of the next chapter of LotRO. So I threw out my original plans for this week's column, microwaved up some coffee, and gave the new score a listen. It was difficult narrowing the field down to six standout tracks, but the coffee was strong and so was my will. Let's take a listen through Helm's Deep, shall we?
Gone Home plus four in-game albums bundled for $25
The Fullbright Company has released a new Record Collection bundle that includes a copy of the studio's interactive short story Gone Home and four full albums by artists featured throughout the game. For $25, buyers will receive downloadable tracks from Calculated by Heavens to Betsy, Pottymouth by Bratmobile, and The Youngins are Hardcore by The Youngins. The package also includes Gone Home's original score, composed by Chris Remo. Fans who already own a copy of Gone Home can purchase the albums separately for $15.
Jukebox Heroes: Ultima X Odyssey's soundtrack
Out of all of the MMOs that never made it to launch, Ultima X Odyssey could have really been something. It had a wonderfully stylized look, an immense amount of resources and talent behind it, the Ultima franchise legacy to draw upon, a cool morality choice system, and a pretty strong following. All of that fell apart when EA pulled the plug on the project in 2004, leaving fans in the lurch. However, since UXO was far enough along in development, it's one of those cancelled MMOs that has an actual soundtrack (just like Project Copernicus, which I talked about a few weeks ago). Composer Chris Field completed and recorded an album for the game in 2003, and although it was never released, it was distributed into the wild for free, and certain portions of the soundtrack were repurposed for the game Lord of Ultima. I have to say that it's a good (possibly even great) score, and it's a shame it didn't get to be in an MMO for us gamers to appreciate. That doesn't mean we can't have a listen right now and speculate on what players in parallel universes might be enjoying right now, yes?
Lord of the Rings Online offers up the Helm's Deep soundtrack
All right, Lord of the Rings Online fans, another expansion is coming out really soon. It's only a week away. But maybe you still can't stand the wait. You're logging in and playing the game every night but you need something to make the next few days bearable. That's a bit of an overreaction, but Turbine has you covered with the addition of the Helm's Deep soundtrack to SoundCloud. Yes, you can now listen to the entire soundtrack from wherever, although you won't be able to download the tracks for obvious reasons. The music is the same orchestral score that players have come to expect from the game, with an atmosphere of desperate conflict and impending violence. It's the sort of thing that's very well-suited to a protracted siege and a last stand against Mordor, in other words. Even if you're not a fan of Lord of the Rings Online you can enjoy the soundtrack.
Jukebox Heroes: RuneScape's soundtrack
How much music does the average MMO contain? It depends, of course, but I doubt that many games are able to reach the number that RuneScape does. Are you ready for it? It's 982 tracks. I'm dead serious. It's not just that RuneScape has been out since the beginning of the internet but that the team continues to add new music regularly. It's really insane -- just check out this list of updates. What's even neater is that RuneScape treats its music as unlockable content, just like other types of rewards. So while you start out with 70 or so tracks in your in-game music player, you'll have to go to certain places or perform certain feats to get the rest. Why have I never heard of this before? That's brilliant! So obviously, even if I had all 982 tracks on my computer (which I do not), I'm not going to take a week off of work to review them all for you. I love you, but that love has limits. Instead, I've listened to perhaps a tenth of that (including the new stuff by Composer James Hannigan) and chosen a few tracks to share that I feel exemplify this MMO's score.
Super Mario 3D World will feature 'a lot' of live-recorded music
If you were drained by the New Super Mario Bros. series' abundant re-use of tracks and underwhelming synthesizers, know that Super Mario 3D World's soundtrack may feel a little more inspired. In an interview with Destructoid, 3D World Lead Composer Mahito Yokota explained that "a lot" of the game's tracks will be live recordings. "We're arranging the music with a big-band feel, taking advantage of a full horn section with trumpets and saxophones," Yokota said. A horn section and stringed instruments flowed through this recent trailer, but hearing that the greater soundtrack will feature plenty of recordings is a bit of a relief. Considering some of the Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack's highlights, it'd be nice if 3D World's tunes are also lively enough to remain stuck in the minds of players years after they've finished the game.
Jukebox Heroes: Halloween tunes
Darkness falls across the land. The midnight hour is close at hand. Creatures crawl in search of blood to terrorize your neighbourhood. And whosoever shall be found without the soul for getting down must stand and face the hounds of hell. ~ Thriller Is it thriller night already? It's just about, actually, and that means that we need to get a little freaky and a lot creepy in today's edition of Jukebox Heroes. Let's put aside our jaunty ballads and epic fanfares for music of the crypt. Let's dance with skeletons and play pin-the-wart-on-the-witch as these tunes fill our ears. My advice? Turn it up. If you keep the monsters rocking out, then they'll be too preoccupied to eat you.
Jukebox Heroes: Reader requests 2
It's been far too long -- going on 10 months now, in fact -- since we last had a reader request week here on Jukebox Heroes. My bad! I'll try to do these a little more often from now on. The idea here is to take all of your comments from previous columns, sift them for "oh man, why didn't you include [name of tune]? That's the best!" mentions, and compile a few of them to share with everyone. After all, I'm certainly not the beginning, middle, and end of taste in MMO music. So here we go with several reader requests over the past year, covering a wide span of MMO scores. There's bound to be a few good listens in here, so give them all a try and let me know which of your favorite tracks we should cover in part 3!
Watch an orchestra perform War Thunder's Symphony of Steel
Gaijin is making a concerted effort to publicize its War Thunder World War II sim of late, and one of this week's more noteworthy reveals is a performance of the Baltic Symphonic Orchestra captured on video. The group is shown recording Symphony of Steel, a new track written for the game's upcoming ground battles. Feast your eyes -- and ears -- after the cut! [Thanks hilaryminc!]
Jukebox Heroes: Project Copernicus' soundtrack
Out of the many tragedies that emerged from the 38 Studios fiasco was the fact that so much artistry was ultimately abandoned, unseen, and unheard by players. I can't imagine what it would be like to be a composer who spent months working on a full MMO score only to have the studio tank and the music silenced. Well, I can't bring back 38 Studios or Project Copernicus, but today we can at least hear a little of the music that went into the game. As a helpful commenter noted in the Sound Cloud column a couple of weeks ago, Composer Gene Rozenberg of The Witcher 3 fame posted a heap of the (then upcoming) Project Copernicus score on his page. Since it's still there, although not downloadable, I wanted to highlight a few of the best tracks before this too gets erased.
Mega Man 25th anniversary compilation album announced
Video game soundtrack distributor Sumthing Else Music Works has teamed up with Capcom to deliver MM25: Mega Man Rocks, an upcoming compilation album featuring 18 fan-made tracks and remixes inspired by the Mega Man series and its many spinoffs. Featured artists include The Megas, Mega Ran, Arm Cannon, X-Hunters and Bit Brigade. Rock opera outfit The Protomen will also contribute three tracks to the album, including the never-before-released "Built To Last." MM25: Mega Man Rocks will be available for purchase from iTunes, Amazon.com, and Sumthing Else Music Works' website on October 29. Samples are available at Sumthing.com.
Jukebox Heroes: Lineage II's soundtrack
Once again, I must begin this column by advising you to jettison your attitude toward an MMO when it comes to evaluating its music. Lineage II doesn't have the rabid following in the West that it seems to overseas, and I've heard a lot of negativity thrown its way (some of it quite deserved, but this is me jettisoning). However -- and I don't say this lightly -- its musical score is absolutely superb. It's right up there with the best of the industry and deserves to be heard. Its many soundtrack albums have a small army of composers powering them: Bill Brown, Jamie Christopherson, Inon Zur, Hyobum Lim, Chihwan Kim, Junyup Lee, Junghwan Park, Junghye Hong, and Changbeom Kim. Collaboratively, these folks have assembled a sizable body of work that spans a decade of video game music. The Lineage II soundtrack is, at times, cinematic, tranquil, lovely, and exciting. Check out these six tracks for a taste of the best, and if that interests you, you might want to listen to my recent Battle Bards podcast in which we dissect this score.
New Silent Hill soundtracks available to give your eardrums nightmares
Halloween is still a couple weeks away, but thanks to Sumthing Else Music, you can start getting in the spirit now with newly-released digital soundtracks from some of the more recent Silent Hill games, including Silent Hill: Downpour and Silent Hill: Book of Memories. While the Silent Hill series used Akira Yamaoka's creepy, clashing chords up until Silent Hill: Homecoming, it was Daniel Licht who composed the scores for Downpour and Book of Memories. Licht also composed last year's Dishonored, as well as the Showtime television show, Dexter, so the spookiness is strong with this one. Fog machine and bad dreams sold separately.
Jukebox Heroes: 14 MMO soundtracks you can check out on SoundCloud
I'm a pretty slow adopter of new technology and services, so I've only recently really started paying attention to the music-sharing service that is SoundCloud because I've started to see more and more MMO composers plopping down their work onto the site for the world to enjoy. Now that I've spent some time with SoundCloud, I've got to say just how impressed I am with what it can offer to the soundtrack community. Composers and studios can put their soundtracks up on the site for people to listen through without that annoying arbitrary 30-second limit that certain digital distribution platforms use. In addition to providing music for the ears, musicians have the option to show where these albums can be purchased -- and in some cases, offer the tracks as a free download. In return, listeners can tag portions of the songs and have back-and-forth discussions with the composers. I've done a lot of digging and have discovered quite a few MMO soundtracks that are available on SoundCloud, including some that you can legally download and enjoy today. Here are 14 to get you started, but if you see any more, please let us all know in the comments!
Jukebox Heroes: The Secret World's radio songs
With its contemporary setting, The Secret World has the opportunity to include not only an original score but regular songs as well. Funcom's handled this by broadcasting rock, techno, and other genre tunes over the many in-game radios, much as how Grand Theft Auto fans can tune into different stations to hear a wide variety of tracks. Not so long ago, the studio even held a contest for fans and artists to submit additional tunes to be included in the game, ending up with 11 new tracks that you might hear while clothes shopping, hanging out at a club, or perusing records at a store. Some are pretty darn good, too. So let's dispense with the traditional format of this column today and take a listen to what Radio TSW has to offer us. Alas, there will be no "Thriller." We checked.
Three-volume GTA V soundtrack breaks into iTunes
The phenomenally diverse soundtrack from Grand Theft Auto V has made the jump to iTunes, for all of your real-world heist planning needs. The three-volume set currently available on Apple's digital music service is an abridged version of the GTA V soundtrack which includes a total of 59 tracks. The first and third volumes consist of selections from the game's radio stations, while the second features the game's score composed by Tangerine Dream. Each of the songs can be purchased individually for 99 cents, but the best bargain to be had is for those who purchase the entire collection at once. All three volumes will set you back $25 - less than half the price of purchasing all this music piecemeal.
Super Hexagon creator unveils free browser-based puzzler Naya's Quest
Terry Cavanagh recently released a new flash-based game, Naya's Quest. The enjoyable little adventure game has players traversing through an abandoned town to "the edge," an isometric world full of puzzling rooms. The attractive, challenging platformer also has a catchy soundtrack, which Cavanagh created and released on BandCamp. Cavanagh is best known for crafting VVVVVV and Super Hexagon. Naya's Quest is one of six free games listed on Cavanagh's site, and one that you should probably spend time with right now.
Jukebox Heroes: Tracy W. Bush opens up about WoW, Dungeon Runners, and DCUO
Odds are that even if you don't know who Tracy W. Bush is, you've allowed him to pipe music from his mind directly into your ears at one point or another during your MMO gameplay. Bush has contributed to tons of MMO soundtracks over the past decade-plus, including World of Warcraft, Tabula Rasa, Dungeon Runners, Auto Assault, and DC Universe Online. It was actually this column's discussion of the Tabula Rasa soundtrack that prompted Bush to write in (fun fact: Blue Turns to Grey was the first track he wrote for the game, but the team held off putting it in until the very end), and I asked him if he'd be open to chatting about his collective work here. That didn't take much arm-twisting, no sirree. So with that, I'm going to turn the mike over to Tracy Bush and let him share with you what it's like to create soundscapes that echo so powerfully in your memories.
Jukebox Heroes: TERA's soundtrack
Within the small but passionate video game music community, there's a common gripe that goes around regarding studios' haphazard methods of distributing and selling original soundtracks. My general thought is that it's not that hard to just make a soundtrack a digital purchase through Amazon, iTunes, etc. for those who are interested in purchasing it, but more often than not, one has to look high and low to figure out how to get the desired music. What's even worse is when a soundtrack is released in different editions by region. Take today's subject, TERA, as an example. TERA's OST was at least released, but in two different editions: the limited 26-track edition given to Europe and Japan and the expansive 50-track edition that debuted in the US. It's just silly to do this sort of thing, but we see it all the time (and don't get me started on the way-too-expensive Japanese import of Final Fantasy XIV's Before Meteor). Anyway, I have a burr in my saddle about this today because TERA is a tremendous soundtrack. It's rich, evocative, and just plain catchy in parts. If you've listened to only part of this score composed by Inon Zur and Rod Abernethy, then you owe it to yourself to scrounge up the full deal. Here are my favorites!
Video Games Live Kickstarter project heads to the finish line
It's going to be a photo finish for the Video Games Live's Level 3 project on Kickstarter, which is in its final days with nearly $30,000 to raise to meet its goal. If you're not familiar with Video Games Live, it's a group headed by Tommy Tallarico that tours the country playing live orchestral arrangements of video game music -- and the group has frequently graced the BlizzCon stage. The current fundraising campaign is aimed at producing the group's third studio album -- dubbed Level 3 -- and though they haven't finalized the tracklist yet, it will feature tracks VGL hasn't yet tackled from games like Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger/Cross, Shadow of the Colossus, Skyrim, Journey, Monkey Island, Destiny, DOTA, Assassin's Creed, Earthworm Jim, Silent Hill, Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Super Smash Bros., Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, Mass Effect, Katamari Damacy, BioShock, Beyond Good & Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Street Fighter II, Uncharted, Portal, Tetris, Red Dead Redemption, Devil May Cry, Megaman, Soul Calibur, Resident Evil, Pac-Man, and our favorites, World of Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo. Blizzard tracks from WoW and Diablo are confirmed to be on Level 3 -- so we may be treated to a studio version of Invincible, as played by Video Games Live in the video above. Sound interesting? It's not too late to chip in -- and pick up a ton of great video game music for a very modest cost. Backers can get Level 3 as well as VGL's earlier albums and plenty of other extras: check Kickstarter for all the details.
