Soundtrack of a game - Diablo - GuitarTalk Community

Soundtrack of a game - Diablo

lindsmuse

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I think this is lovely

Warren

Now you're speaking my language ?

The first Diablo's soundtrack was amazing, especially the in-town theme. Very ambient, haunting (and subtly menacing) arpeggios that perfectly set the mood of the game.

MikeM

LOVE IT. I still remember getting into the data files and pulling the audio file from my D1 game back in the day, so I could learn to play this.

On a nerdy sidenote, who else can't wait for D3?

Warren

MikeM wrote:
On a nerdy sidenote, who else can't wait for D3?

Meh. The genre has been done to death, and its excellent loot generation system found its way into World of Warcraft (and a zillion Diablo clones as well). I can't really see how D3 is going to add much that we haven't already seen in a bunch of games since, but it would be nice to be proven wrong. Blizzard, for the most part, is not particularly innovative, but tends to focus on polish and content.

lindsmuse

My son (and his mates) - where I heard this - is now onto Skyrim - seems particularly addictive!

MikeM

Was going to mention that.. Was also a cool game, but I am expected a bit more "polished"ness from D3. Skyrim's difficulty curve was not good for me.. Similar case for Witcher 2.

I think the main excitement for me is nostalgia. The previous 2 in the series were some of the major games I've played, so hoping for development on there.

Warren

lindsmuse wrote: My son (and his mates) - where I heard this - is now onto Skyrim - seems particularly addictive!

Yes, Skyrim stole some hours out of my life too. ? Have "finished" it (one never really finishes an Elder Scrolls game) a month or two ago.

My favourite Elder Scrolls soundtrack was the theme for Morrowind, which was embellished a bit for Oblivion. I will find a YouTube vid of it.

Trying to think of games with memorable guitar-based soundtracks...

One that comes to mind was Full Throttle, an adventure game from 1995. It was a great game in which you played a futuristic biker, Ben. Soundtrack done by The Gone Jackals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gone_Jackals). Will try post a clip again, the intro song had some cool riffs. ?

fjcdt

D1 was entirly addictive and one of very few rpg's where the soundtrack doesnt become awful in minutes.
D2 is still installed on my pc, for when that old school game bug bites.
Oblivion had a very epic soundtrack, havent even started skyrim, but the general consensus is its not all that great.
So lets hope D3 has polished and honed the past parts of the first two.
A couple of wailing guitars and a blast beat in the intro FMV would set the scene quite well i think.
Asfor games with good guitar music none really come to mind, alot of it is either classical inspired or dance and hip hop.
Most of the time its better to just shut the music off.

Warren

Frans wrote: ...havent even started skyrim, but the general consensus is its not all that great...

I don't know where you've been, but Skyrim has just about conquered the hearts and minds of reviewers and awards ceremonies everywhere. ? Metacritic scores are around 96%!

IMO it's a great, if mildly over-rated game. It has all the trappings of its predecessors in the Elder Scrolls games, and many of the same inherent problems too.

The only title I'm really excited about right now is Mass Effect 3. If it's as good as its prequels, it will be the close of a real masterpiece in electronic entertainment.

Warren

So, been thinking of a few bits of game music I really like. There are lots more, but here are a few:

Zombies on my Lawn ?

Full Throttle Intro (music starts somewhere around 1:50) - cool riff!

Morrowind theme performed by orchestra

Mass Effect end credit song, absolutely brilliant!

Jack-Flash-Jr

I hardly pay attention to music in games, especially since I normally play late at night, low volume... but the sound design in the following sequence actually took my breath away (watch from 3:10):

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Malkav

I agree with many things being said here ?

Morrowind and Oblivion destroyed large parts of my teenage years...

There's a guitarist I enjoy who does covers of Final Fantasy songs, and they're absolutely stunning...

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I also really enjoyed the music in Arcanum:

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I recently got an album that reminded me of this style, here's a taster:

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I also enjoyed the "Song of Storms" from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, been wanting to make a cover of it for ages...

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I'm gonna be super lame and say that sometimes I also really enjoy the soundtracks to anime...?

This track is amazing, video is most likely NSFW though. ?

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Warren

Good call Chad, especially on Zelda! Here's the theme from the Wind Waker.

I can't actually view any of the vids on here so will view and comment later!

fjcdt

@Warren

I know skyrim has launched too great review's, but after playing gt5 'also great reviews' i kinda ignore the hype.
popular opinion is somewhat governed by sheep.
That said i do have skyrim, just havent started.
And oblivion is awesome, probably one of the best games ever made for a console.
Mass effect looks great, can't wait.
The tony hawks series always had alot of guitar heavy music in them.

Warren

Frans wrote: @Warren

I know skyrim has launched too great review's, but after playing gt5 'also great reviews' i kinda ignore the hype.
popular opinion is somewhat governed by sheep.
That said i do have skyrim, just havent started.
And oblivion is awesome, probably one of the best games ever made for a console.
Mass effect looks great, can't wait.
The tony hawks series always had alot of guitar heavy music in them.

I didn't comment on whether popular opinion is worth anything or not. Only that you can't really claim that the general consensus around Skyrim is negative (because it isn't). Whether that's good or bad, or accurate or not, is another story. For what it's worth, when I read reviews of popular stuff, I always read the lowest score reviews first, because they tend to be more grounded. Also, I watch out for Yahtzee's videos ?

Funny enough, I was bored with Oblivion. Played it quite a bit, but the whole thing was so "vanilla" compared to Morrowind that I lost interest after a while.

Licensed soundtracks are a different thing, IMO. Plenty of sports games (including Tony Hawk, great series) have tons of licensed music, generally music that has been very popular elsewhere, and for something like a skateboarding game it works like a bomb.

I'm trying to think more along the lines of stuff composed specifically for games. The scores to "Little Big Adventure", "Mechwarrior 2" and "Dune" (which actually had a CD release - Spice Opera) come to mind.

fjcdt

+1 Yahtzee's videos

Re. Skyrim, put my foot in it didnt i.
I saw abit of it's trailers, have a few mates who've finished it and while all this looked great it lacked something.
I'll run through it soon enough, but it looked less awesome than it was made out to be.
Maybe thats just me.
Final fantasy 8 had some nice pieces in it, the opening fmv's music comes to mind, the chanting starts and something tells you your free time just got occupied.
Then again alot of the older rpg games had to do more with music since all the dialouge was in text, no voice overs in most games.
But it seems most games have music to fill the blank parts instead of really adding to the whole.
D1 was the first exception i ever encounterd.
And laugh if you will but super mario's(16 bit) tune was addictive. Most people who've played it can identify that bit. That tiny bit of midi music has lasted decades.

Warren

Frans wrote: +1 Yahtzee's videos

Re. Skyrim, put my foot in it didnt i.
I saw abit of it's trailers, have a few mates who've finished it and while all this looked great it lacked something.
I'll run through it soon enough, but it looked less awesome than it was made out to be.
Maybe thats just me.
Final fantasy 8 had some nice pieces in it, the opening fmv's music comes to mind, the chanting starts and something tells you your free time just got occupied.
Then again alot of the older rpg games had to do more with music since all the dialouge was in text, no voice overs in most games.
But it seems most games have music to fill the blank parts instead of really adding to the whole.
D1 was the first exception i ever encounterd.
And laugh if you will but super mario's(16 bit) tune was addictive. Most people who've played it can identify that bit. That tiny bit of midi music has lasted decades.

I agree Skyrim was over-hyped. I try to avoid hype when I can too. Some things that annoy me: everyone carries on about the astonishing open game-world etc. which is a great achievement, yes, but is really "par for the course" in an Elder Scrolls game. Anybody who played any of them right back to Arena will be able to tell you the same thing. I don't see that Skyrim's gameworld is any better realised than the other games in the series, given the technology at the time each of them came about. What bugs me about reviewers is that many of the same old issues (lots of bugs, content that is broad but sometimes lacks depth, noticeable repeats in NPC voice-overs, dodgy inventory management etc..) are glossed over. Apparently Bethesda can create big open worlds, but still hasn't really figured out how to sort out some of those long-standing core issues. The big reviewers are too busy wetting themselves over fighting dragons.

The Final Fantasy series has some great scores. Like many westerners, the first one I was exposed to was FF VII, and is to date still my favourite. It had a wonderful score let down somewhat by crappy MIDI sampling, but the actual composition was excellent, and memorable. That opening sequence you mention in FF VIII was brilliant simply as a small piece of gaming cinema, music and all.

The Super Mario tune is timeless indeed! People who aren't gamers by any stretch of the imagination can identify it immediately. And much less than 16-bit MIDI, the composer had to make do with the 8-bit audio architecture of the NES in 1983. The same dude also composed the original Zelda theme, which is also a real classic IMO. Try playing the Super Mario theme song on guitar, it's actually quite tricky with some surprisingly wide interval shifts!

Malkav

Warren wrote: I agree Skyrim was over-hyped. I try to avoid hype when I can too. Some things that annoy me: everyone carries on about the astonishing open game-world etc. which is a great achievement, yes, but is really "par for the course" in an Elder Scrolls game. Anybody who played any of them right back to Arena will be able to tell you the same thing. I don't see that Skyrim's gameworld is any better realised than the other games in the series, given the technology at the time each of them came about. What bugs me about reviewers is that many of the same old issues (lots of bugs, content that is broad but sometimes lacks depth, noticeable repeats in NPC voice-overs, dodgy inventory management etc..) are glossed over. Apparently Bethesda can create big open worlds, but still hasn't really figured out how to sort out some of those long-standing core issues. The big reviewers are too busy wetting themselves over fighting dragons.

They really screwed Skyrim up when they decided to design it for X-Box over PC, most of the inventory issues only really came about because of how focused on making it a console game they were. Oblivion also had many issues that could have been avoided if it weren't for their focusing on the wow factor, such as the main storyline actually being really weak and generic and monotonous, I gave up on it for ages because I was so sick of running through all the copy/paste daedric gates. It also lacked the depth of Morrowind, I remember reading almost every book in Morrowind because they were so well written and the stories were so interesting, Oblivion had a few okay books but it felt a bit lacking there, and it was really lacking in the actual cultural backdrop, unlike Morrowind that had all the different political parties and cults etc.

Warren wrote: The Final Fantasy series has some great scores. Like many westerners, the first one I was exposed to was FF VII, and is to date still my favourite. It had a wonderful score let down somewhat by crappy MIDI sampling, but the actual composition was excellent, and memorable. That opening sequence you mention in FF VIII was brilliant simply as a small piece of gaming cinema, music and all.

If you liked the score then you should really enjoy the two covers I posted above, as far as I know they had the same composer for pretty much all the games ?

Warren wrote: The Super Mario tune is timeless indeed! People who aren't gamers by any stretch of the imagination can identify it immediately. And much less than 16-bit MIDI, the composer had to make do with the 8-bit audio architecture of the NES in 1983. The same dude also composed the original Zelda theme, which is also a real classic IMO. Try playing the Super Mario theme song on guitar, it's actually quite tricky with some surprisingly wide interval shifts!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf56jYDv2fc

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And another classic composition from the old school games:

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fjcdt

@CAB
You just couldnt not put up the mario theme.
I am now going to have it stuck in my head.
Thanks. ?
Oh and the vid with two guitars, very cool thanks man.
@Warren
FFviii is stil my favorite but gameplay beats vii.
Though vii had the better storyline.
Only ever played one zelda game, no clue which though.
It would seem though that original scores are almost reseved for the rpg genre, sad really, COD would take too rock like fuel to a match.

Warren

Chad Adam Browne wrote:
They really screwed Skyrim up when they decided to design it for X-Box over PC, most of the inventory issues only really came about because of how focused on making it a console game they were. Oblivion also had many issues that could have been avoided if it weren't for their focusing on the wow factor, such as the main storyline actually being really weak and generic and monotonous, I gave up on it for ages because I was so sick of running through all the copy/paste daedric gates. It also lacked the depth of Morrowind, I remember reading almost every book in Morrowind because they were so well written and the stories were so interesting, Oblivion had a few okay books but it felt a bit lacking there, and it was really lacking in the actual cultural backdrop, unlike Morrowind that had all the different political parties and cults etc.

Cross-platform games are here to stay, so the PC purists may as well get used to it. ? No excuse for crap interfaces though. Compared to the rest of Skyrim, the basic menu system is pretty poor. Granted, it's somewhat better than Oblivion's system (especially the quest journal), which itself was somewhat better than Morrowind's system (where your journal was basically unusable if there were too many incomplete quests).

But Oblivion was actually meant to be a return to more "classic" fantasy in terms of style, which was a mistake IMO. With Skyrim, they've tried to go back a bit towards Morrowind's sense of pure adventure and discovery. My personal favourite games have always been strong on those two elements.

The vids you posted were pretty cool. Those guys playing the Mario theme...hectic, although that woman has possibly the worst tone on YouTube (and that's saying something)...