Vinphonic
01-08-2017, 11:29 PM
From NEW LINK (Thread 221170)
The Legacy of Western Games
Film Music in European and American Video Games
Part I � Symphonic Collection
Outcast is perhaps the greatest symphonic (western) game score I have ever heard. I instantly get transported to an alien world and don�t want to leave until it�s over. In that sense it has the same Siren-like quality for me as a romantic violin concerto. And the Moscow Symphony is one of my absolute favorite orchestras. I also don�t quite understand the criticism of repetition but seeing the same thing said about Giant Robo I guess I�m just more leaning to proper symphonic structure than to spectacular individual moments and in that regard Outcast succeeds with flying colors.
The Russian Pirate games also fall in this category. Beautiful romantic symphonic seafaring scores. I actually used them for Witcher 3 in combination with ZERA and they work magic with the beautiful landscapes.
Everquest II is a truly great orchestral fantasy score, which is as far away from the usual Hollywood sound and more in the soundworld of symphonic albums. I combined the official soundtrack with a few pieces from Doublehex�s passionate complete score album. Laura Karpman is severely underused as a game composer and it looks like she has retired from games
Bob & Barn (Paul Arnold & Andrew Barnabas) gave us two symphonic game score with much homage to classic Hollywood and classical works. Not on the level of Dave Roylance but certainly keepers.
Quidditch World Cup & Total Annihilation are the only two Soule scores I really care about aside from his contribution to Mists of Panderia. TA has perhaps the best action music for a strategy game ever and QWC was conducted by none other than Alan Wilson and it is thoroughly spectacle from start to finish.
Now on to two German game scores I am very fond of but more because of nostalgia than anything else. There�s some genuine good classical writing in Anno 1701 and it is Sillescu�s best score to date. But the really special one for me is Gothic 3. Composer Kai Rosenkranz was a rookie let loose for the first time on a quality orchestral ensemble and he definitely succeeded in crafting a beautiful symphonic sound world. The only fault is the lack of good action but he more than makes up for it with his enthusiasm. A rather tragic fact, his friend died during the production of the game and the last piano track was actually played by Rosenkranz during his funeral. You can really feel the heavy emotion in this piece.
On to two very grim scores, one is Kotor II: The Sith Lords. Mark Grisky wrote boring John Williams rip-off after boring John Williams rip-off before and sadly after this game. The Sith Lords is the only time where you can hear a different voice than Jonny coming through and I would even say his short little motifs are pretty iconic.
In Dante�s Inferno Schyman is letting the orchestra play the sounds from hell itself. Atonal, clusters upon clusters, strange articulations, string and vocal effects. All is very convincing but not quite on Goldenthal�s level.
Ultima X is very much a classical fantasy score of the 80s with a few little winks to Lord of the Rings. Republic: The Revolution is a very unorthodox Hannigan score and I think his most original effort. Also quite nice to hear fantasy marches and anthems from someone not Japanese. I�ve also included the Wing Commander Orchestra project here.
Part II � The John Williams Collection
Now there�s no debate that John Williams is the most influential media composer who ever lived. I guess this is self-evident considering over half of any decent orchestral western game composer tries to imitate him as close as possible.
Dozens fail in the attempt and deliver something worthy of mockery but here�s a collection of scores that I find sound convincing enough.
The game collaborations with Spielberg, the Medal of Honor series in particular nailed Williams close to perfection. I don�t know how Giacchino nailed it so perfectly here and then ever since he became a film composer, delivered embarrassing rip-offs or unstructured uneducated messes. I guess his orchestrator, Tim Simonec did not only do the heavy lifting but also put in extra effort to create a symphonic narrative. EDIT: After Rogue One I'm 100% certain we have to thank Simonec for this wonder. Nonetheless here we have some of the best John Williams pastiche ever recorded. The Nazi theme in particular and the way it�s used is just as memorable for me as any good Indy moment. BUT in Underground and Airborne we already hear cracks in Giacchino�s abilities, Underground more so (I don�t like it). He can�t do long-form symphonic writing, which I think is essential for every good film composer and is the crucial difference between Williams wannabes and truly great film composers.
On to some really great firecrackers (if you love Williams):
LAIR is a beast of a score, lacking subtlety but making up for it with sheer bombast with callbacks to Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Conan. John Debney really outdid himself with this one. Not a note of originality but sometimes you just want a quick fix of Hollywood�s most bombastic moments and LAIR is definitely one of the scores to go for that. I�m always listening to Tazermonkey�s excellent arrangement. Which I think is far superior to the official release.
Star Wars Kinect and Battlefront are pretty damn good impression of Williams and very enjoyable rides. Listening to the little snippets from Battlefront also makes me wish that Boba Fett should have had a far bigger role in Jedi so that we could have heard more of his fantastic theme. Benny Oschmann is another one of the selected few who can give a convincing Williams but considering his age and aspirations I have great hopes for him. I hope he succeeds with his career, unlike another composer who did Williams: James Hannigan.
Hannigan's Order of the Phoenix was a good example of a game score outshining its movie counterpart by a large margin. It also did help that the game employed Williams themes and the movie mostly abandoned them. But instead of giving us similar fantastic moments like Doyle�s goblet we were only left with the game to remind us of the good old days of film scoring.
Part III � The Fantasy Collection
The two greatest individual voices in this field are Grant Kirkhope and Steve Burke. I�m very glad they are still getting work since I enjoyed their music since childhood. Steve Burke delivered a damn good fantasy score with Kameo and also has some pretty beautiful orchestral suites on his site. Kirkhope�s best effort as an orchestral composer was Kingdoms of Amalur, while the action is undoubtedly Williams he has enough of an original voice to compensate. His Viva Pinata and Banjo scores are also nice afternoon listens.
Hannigan still leans a bit on Williams but I think Half-Blood Prince was a step into the right direction with its use of thematic consistency. A shame it all spiraled downwards with Deathly Hallows.
Unlike many other I�m not very fond of Wintory�s esotheric avant-garde scores but I definitely appreciate his talent. With Banner Saga he did something I can not only appreciate but also enjoy.
The game music of World of Warcraft aside from a few exceptions left me very much cold but the various cinematic scenes and arrangement albums did not. It sure helps I love Kameoka so it�s a given I very much like Echoes of War together with the suites and cinematic pieces composed for the various cutscenes and logins.
Part IV � Scifi and Individual Pieces
Killzone (the orchestral scores for the three games put together) is a damn good SciFi score. A menacing march with a very iconic theme and motif and its use throughout the series pretty much make this a classic Hollywood score. �Make it intense� was probably written on every page (or screen) the composer wrote :D
Lego Universe is a testament how the Hollywood environment just sucks levity and fun out of everything these days. If taken out of this environment, even brainless percussion bangers deliver melodic adventures.
Starcraft II (a compilation out of Echoes and cinematics) is very much good SciFi with a touch of fantasy. Also a little bit Williams here and there. Again, a combination of official releases and Doublehex�s passionate complete album. I think Legacy of the Void succeeds in being decent film music while Overwatch, sadly, does not.
My custom arrangement of the Bad Company scores shows that it�s very much film music with a decent theme. The Theme of Bad Company 2 is also pretty good action. Warhawk is pretty good mindless Hollywood bombast, but I will say that it has moments of just loud noises I find very abhorrent.
Bioshock 2 was the right mix of avant-garde and traditional film score for me. I�ve also included some tracks from Bioshock 1. I will say that it has some pretty damn creepy moments. I find them interesting because I know that it�s just instruments making those sounds, but the weak of heart should avoid this and Dante�s Inferno.
The rest are individual pieces I quite like in scores otherwise forgettable. The Old Republic is also a waste of good opportunity. Instead of making it solo Moore which could have resulted in a fantastic symphonic SciFi score similar to Outcast we have only little snippets of good music and I have neither tolerance or will to search thousands of files for 10 minutes of good quality.
I will say that H�lsbeck�s Rogue Leaders is a tragedy. I can only imagine how good the unreleased score sounds, considering the trailer piece has pretty convincing incorporations of Williams themes.
Still. if "classic-Hollywood-film-style" game music has three major problems right now it�s very much living in the shadow of Williams (just leave the man and his music alone), the over importance on loops which favors RC sound, and the lack of classical educated composers capable of long-form symphonic writing. It�s pretty unsettling that every year dozens of quality symphonic orchestral game scores get released in Japan, often played by tin-sized studio orchestras that still manage to rock your socks off, while the west usually employs the biggest facilities and orchestras of the world wasted on boring nothingness that would have worked better with artificial sounds anyway and would have saved everyone time, money and nerves (Every modern FPS ever!).
But I don�t want to end on a depressive note so let me say there�s still some good stuff coming out from time to time that I enjoy, recently Oschmann's Dwarves. it�s just that the ratio of good old orchestral Hollywood scores in western gaming is far too low compared to the Japanese counterpart. That�s all.
UPDATE: Check out Kingdom Come Deliverance (Thread 222748), another good one.
The Legacy of Western Games
Film Music in European and American Video Games
Part I � Symphonic Collection
Outcast is perhaps the greatest symphonic (western) game score I have ever heard. I instantly get transported to an alien world and don�t want to leave until it�s over. In that sense it has the same Siren-like quality for me as a romantic violin concerto. And the Moscow Symphony is one of my absolute favorite orchestras. I also don�t quite understand the criticism of repetition but seeing the same thing said about Giant Robo I guess I�m just more leaning to proper symphonic structure than to spectacular individual moments and in that regard Outcast succeeds with flying colors.
The Russian Pirate games also fall in this category. Beautiful romantic symphonic seafaring scores. I actually used them for Witcher 3 in combination with ZERA and they work magic with the beautiful landscapes.
Everquest II is a truly great orchestral fantasy score, which is as far away from the usual Hollywood sound and more in the soundworld of symphonic albums. I combined the official soundtrack with a few pieces from Doublehex�s passionate complete score album. Laura Karpman is severely underused as a game composer and it looks like she has retired from games
Bob & Barn (Paul Arnold & Andrew Barnabas) gave us two symphonic game score with much homage to classic Hollywood and classical works. Not on the level of Dave Roylance but certainly keepers.
Quidditch World Cup & Total Annihilation are the only two Soule scores I really care about aside from his contribution to Mists of Panderia. TA has perhaps the best action music for a strategy game ever and QWC was conducted by none other than Alan Wilson and it is thoroughly spectacle from start to finish.
Now on to two German game scores I am very fond of but more because of nostalgia than anything else. There�s some genuine good classical writing in Anno 1701 and it is Sillescu�s best score to date. But the really special one for me is Gothic 3. Composer Kai Rosenkranz was a rookie let loose for the first time on a quality orchestral ensemble and he definitely succeeded in crafting a beautiful symphonic sound world. The only fault is the lack of good action but he more than makes up for it with his enthusiasm. A rather tragic fact, his friend died during the production of the game and the last piano track was actually played by Rosenkranz during his funeral. You can really feel the heavy emotion in this piece.
On to two very grim scores, one is Kotor II: The Sith Lords. Mark Grisky wrote boring John Williams rip-off after boring John Williams rip-off before and sadly after this game. The Sith Lords is the only time where you can hear a different voice than Jonny coming through and I would even say his short little motifs are pretty iconic.
In Dante�s Inferno Schyman is letting the orchestra play the sounds from hell itself. Atonal, clusters upon clusters, strange articulations, string and vocal effects. All is very convincing but not quite on Goldenthal�s level.
Ultima X is very much a classical fantasy score of the 80s with a few little winks to Lord of the Rings. Republic: The Revolution is a very unorthodox Hannigan score and I think his most original effort. Also quite nice to hear fantasy marches and anthems from someone not Japanese. I�ve also included the Wing Commander Orchestra project here.
Part II � The John Williams Collection
Now there�s no debate that John Williams is the most influential media composer who ever lived. I guess this is self-evident considering over half of any decent orchestral western game composer tries to imitate him as close as possible.
Dozens fail in the attempt and deliver something worthy of mockery but here�s a collection of scores that I find sound convincing enough.
The game collaborations with Spielberg, the Medal of Honor series in particular nailed Williams close to perfection. I don�t know how Giacchino nailed it so perfectly here and then ever since he became a film composer, delivered embarrassing rip-offs or unstructured uneducated messes. I guess his orchestrator, Tim Simonec did not only do the heavy lifting but also put in extra effort to create a symphonic narrative. EDIT: After Rogue One I'm 100% certain we have to thank Simonec for this wonder. Nonetheless here we have some of the best John Williams pastiche ever recorded. The Nazi theme in particular and the way it�s used is just as memorable for me as any good Indy moment. BUT in Underground and Airborne we already hear cracks in Giacchino�s abilities, Underground more so (I don�t like it). He can�t do long-form symphonic writing, which I think is essential for every good film composer and is the crucial difference between Williams wannabes and truly great film composers.
On to some really great firecrackers (if you love Williams):
LAIR is a beast of a score, lacking subtlety but making up for it with sheer bombast with callbacks to Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Conan. John Debney really outdid himself with this one. Not a note of originality but sometimes you just want a quick fix of Hollywood�s most bombastic moments and LAIR is definitely one of the scores to go for that. I�m always listening to Tazermonkey�s excellent arrangement. Which I think is far superior to the official release.
Star Wars Kinect and Battlefront are pretty damn good impression of Williams and very enjoyable rides. Listening to the little snippets from Battlefront also makes me wish that Boba Fett should have had a far bigger role in Jedi so that we could have heard more of his fantastic theme. Benny Oschmann is another one of the selected few who can give a convincing Williams but considering his age and aspirations I have great hopes for him. I hope he succeeds with his career, unlike another composer who did Williams: James Hannigan.
Hannigan's Order of the Phoenix was a good example of a game score outshining its movie counterpart by a large margin. It also did help that the game employed Williams themes and the movie mostly abandoned them. But instead of giving us similar fantastic moments like Doyle�s goblet we were only left with the game to remind us of the good old days of film scoring.
Part III � The Fantasy Collection
The two greatest individual voices in this field are Grant Kirkhope and Steve Burke. I�m very glad they are still getting work since I enjoyed their music since childhood. Steve Burke delivered a damn good fantasy score with Kameo and also has some pretty beautiful orchestral suites on his site. Kirkhope�s best effort as an orchestral composer was Kingdoms of Amalur, while the action is undoubtedly Williams he has enough of an original voice to compensate. His Viva Pinata and Banjo scores are also nice afternoon listens.
Hannigan still leans a bit on Williams but I think Half-Blood Prince was a step into the right direction with its use of thematic consistency. A shame it all spiraled downwards with Deathly Hallows.
Unlike many other I�m not very fond of Wintory�s esotheric avant-garde scores but I definitely appreciate his talent. With Banner Saga he did something I can not only appreciate but also enjoy.
The game music of World of Warcraft aside from a few exceptions left me very much cold but the various cinematic scenes and arrangement albums did not. It sure helps I love Kameoka so it�s a given I very much like Echoes of War together with the suites and cinematic pieces composed for the various cutscenes and logins.
Part IV � Scifi and Individual Pieces
Killzone (the orchestral scores for the three games put together) is a damn good SciFi score. A menacing march with a very iconic theme and motif and its use throughout the series pretty much make this a classic Hollywood score. �Make it intense� was probably written on every page (or screen) the composer wrote :D
Lego Universe is a testament how the Hollywood environment just sucks levity and fun out of everything these days. If taken out of this environment, even brainless percussion bangers deliver melodic adventures.
Starcraft II (a compilation out of Echoes and cinematics) is very much good SciFi with a touch of fantasy. Also a little bit Williams here and there. Again, a combination of official releases and Doublehex�s passionate complete album. I think Legacy of the Void succeeds in being decent film music while Overwatch, sadly, does not.
My custom arrangement of the Bad Company scores shows that it�s very much film music with a decent theme. The Theme of Bad Company 2 is also pretty good action. Warhawk is pretty good mindless Hollywood bombast, but I will say that it has moments of just loud noises I find very abhorrent.
Bioshock 2 was the right mix of avant-garde and traditional film score for me. I�ve also included some tracks from Bioshock 1. I will say that it has some pretty damn creepy moments. I find them interesting because I know that it�s just instruments making those sounds, but the weak of heart should avoid this and Dante�s Inferno.
The rest are individual pieces I quite like in scores otherwise forgettable. The Old Republic is also a waste of good opportunity. Instead of making it solo Moore which could have resulted in a fantastic symphonic SciFi score similar to Outcast we have only little snippets of good music and I have neither tolerance or will to search thousands of files for 10 minutes of good quality.
I will say that H�lsbeck�s Rogue Leaders is a tragedy. I can only imagine how good the unreleased score sounds, considering the trailer piece has pretty convincing incorporations of Williams themes.
Still. if "classic-Hollywood-film-style" game music has three major problems right now it�s very much living in the shadow of Williams (just leave the man and his music alone), the over importance on loops which favors RC sound, and the lack of classical educated composers capable of long-form symphonic writing. It�s pretty unsettling that every year dozens of quality symphonic orchestral game scores get released in Japan, often played by tin-sized studio orchestras that still manage to rock your socks off, while the west usually employs the biggest facilities and orchestras of the world wasted on boring nothingness that would have worked better with artificial sounds anyway and would have saved everyone time, money and nerves (Every modern FPS ever!).
But I don�t want to end on a depressive note so let me say there�s still some good stuff coming out from time to time that I enjoy, recently Oschmann's Dwarves. it�s just that the ratio of good old orchestral Hollywood scores in western gaming is far too low compared to the Japanese counterpart. That�s all.
UPDATE: Check out Kingdom Come Deliverance (Thread 222748), another good one.