Shack Reels: Top 10 Videogame Soundtracks
Greg takes a look at ten of the top videogame soundtracks to ever hit our speakers.
Music is a vital part of many media forms from advertisement to movies, and even beyond that to video games. Nobody likes when a game has a terrible soundtrack, and to help iterate that point Greg Burke has compiled a list of the Top 10 Videogame Soundtracks to ever lull our ears into new worlds. We don’t want to steal the show, though, take it away Greg.
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Shacknews
replyShack Staff posted a new article, Shack Reels: Top 10 Videogame Soundtracks
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Oh god, this gave me nostalgia chills down my back. Triggered that flashback feeling.
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!!!
I highly recommend it. Right now, the remastered version on XBLA for the 360 is the best version. You can get through the game in ~6 hours if you don't try to be a completionist.
If you play the PC version and the eyeballs are all weird, turn off hardware vertex processing to fix it.
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10 is too short. Especially considering all the platforms and generations.
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Dragon Age Origins and not Halo. You're on drugs Shack Staff.
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The only thing i remember about halo is that 1 theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5yVOFokLVY
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Have a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BomvkEm37EE
I'll put Marty up against Inon any time.-
This one is even better:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGJiWiT28RU
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There's been some really great music throughout the Halo games, even up to Halo 4.
To Galaxy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRRmR4aTiVs
117: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avpkmMGdMjY
Arrival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5A15Dy3D-I
And Fred's already covered some of the greats from the others in the series. :)
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I really, really, enjoyed the EQ2 soundtrack. Unlike the graphics it had tremendous coherence.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF7E7D9BCA292570D -
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#1 Brütal Legend
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Such a fantastic collection of metal.
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An ok list. It needs to be bigger though, as Deus Ex:HR, Half-life 2, Portal 2, FTL, Brutal Legend, Fall of Cybertron, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Doom 3, Mirror's Edge, Bastion and Wolfenstein: The New Order are all cross platform titles with as good to better soundtracks.
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Mass Effect at #5!? For shame Greg! No Halo? You monster! Good choices mostly, though I might argue over order. :)
All nitpicking/joking aside though, why no love for PC? Missing out on some true greats by excluding PC games. Greats like:
Hell March: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb-gI_pFog0
Homeworld soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO8r8PSCdNI
Baba Yetu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJiHDmyhE1A
Battlefield 1942 theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg0Tmydj29M
Rise of Nations soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_XyJF-J1Dk
Evil Genius theme (maybe not top ten material but a personal favorite): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcoM8tD_Rw-
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Oh man, you've been missing out on some of the best stuff gaming has to offer!
Maybe we should have a community vote style top 10 soundtracks list for PC games. I bet a decent number of people would participate.-
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Wasn't it!? I still get it stuck in my head sometimes. So many good shackbattles.
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No Freedom Fighters?
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Such an underrated game.
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I get that top 10 articles are always highly subjective and meant to be divisive tools to stir up conversation, but the way they're worded like "these are THE BEST" is such a conclusive and knower way of putting it - it just rubs me the wrong way. I'm always so much more open to these things if they're qualified as "these are MY top 10 x, what do you all think?", feels way more inclusive to me.
Anyway, rant over :) Out of that list the only soundtracks I thought were memorable are obviously ones from games that resonated with me - Mass Effect 2, Kingdom Hearts, FF7 and Zelda. Out of all of those, I still actually listen to the ME2 soundtrack; I just love it.
The others, well, I really enjoyed the games but apart from the one track from Skyrim - I'd be extremely hard pressed to name anything from the others. Again, not because they're not good, but because I didn't find them particularly memorable.
As far as soundtracks I'd include in my list - pretty much the soundtracks I still listen to on an almost daily basis, I'd need to find spots for (excuse how big this post is hehe):
- Dead Space 2 by Jason Graves - such an amazing, dissonant thing
- Final Fantasy Tactics - I hum these tunes every day, just about every track on this soundtrack is memorable
- Vagrant Story - Bit of a Hitoshi Sakimoto bias here, I just love how this thing comes together so coherently to tell the story that still manages to have real bombast and nuance. One of my all time favourites for sure
- Shadow of the Colossus by Koh Ohtani - Not sure I can say much to do this justice
- Dark Souls by Motoi Sakuraba - It's possible I listen to this so much because Dark Souls just resonated so much with me, but all of the themes, all of the areas evoke so much when I listen to it
and the one that I think is just criminal not to be on everyone's list - Fez by Disasterpeace. Along with Dark Souls, I think Fez is one of the most important, most memorable, most stunning games I've played in many years and it has a soundtrack that I think will be forever ingrained in my memory. I listen to this thing daily even after all this time and I love the remix albums. It's just... I can't think of how else to describe it but say it's probably my favourite soundtrack of all time.
Lots and lots and lots of memorable mentions, but all of the soundtracks that make up my list are matched with games that I absolutely adore and while that's totally subjective, I think that's what makes this sort of argument worth having :)
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Yeah, of course they're subjective, I'm not talking about the content of the lists at all - It's just how it's all framed:
"Shack Reels: Top 10 Videogame Soundtracks"
"Greg takes a look at ten of the top videogame soundtracks to ever hit our speakers."
"...Greg Burke has compiled a list of the Top 10 Videogame Soundtracks to ever lull our ears into new worlds."
That's the stuff that annoys me is all. I probably should've left that out because I wanted to contribute to the discussion, but I don't tend to leave things alone :(
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A short list of others that fit your restrictive criterion (though especially given the time frame restriction I don't understand how there is a notable difference between PC/Console music):
Bastion
https://youtu.be/GDflVhOpS4E
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
http://youtu.be/ZiN6t7K7txw
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
http://youtu.be/jootxdBswTU
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles
https://youtu.be/WbSOKVx9fcY
Katamari Damacy
http://youtu.be/gFLJX-T7LPk
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
http://youtu.be/sPDCHr3H_Hw
We ♥ Katamari
http://youtu.be/XbRb0m7YPHs-
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By the way while I'm not sure I would include all of your picks on my top ten, there was nothing in there I thought was a bad pick. I had to cull many of your entries from my list so as to not repeat them.
Also I absolutely agree with the choice of Mass Effect 2 specifically, while the Mass Effect theme and Vigil are great tracks in Mass Effect the rest of the score was "only" just good. The work Wall of Sound (Jack Wall, Sam Hulick, David Kates and Jimmy Hinson) put in for ME2 was solid all the way and took advantage of the central mission. The way they built the letmotif leading to the Suicide Mission was great.
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Top Ten Shackers who commented on this thread... Go!
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I am missing The Last of Us on this list, it had a fantastic soundtrack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y97u-U0nvJM
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Star Control 2 :(
...still awesome. -
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I'd disagree there. It's been done to death plus those sorts of definitive sounding lists are always contentious. A headline that reflects the personal choices and favorites of you, the individual, would have been far more interesting and would be more appropriate given the content. And people would discuss your selections more than disagree with everything outright. Because they'd know going in it was an opinion piece without a doubt.
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Even the subtitle saying Greg takes a look at ten of the top videogame soundtracks to ever hit our speakers is misleading as it makes it sound like a group effort from the staff.
At first I thought you guys got together and voted on the best of game OSTs all time which would have been fascinating, or maybe you polled the community a while back and I missed that. I don't know. I definitely wasn't expecting a list of one man's console only favs, but maybe I'm stupid. I usually am. Sorry!
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Shack Reels: Top 10 Shack Reels Top 10 lists.
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I don't understand why anyone would pick Mass Effect 2s OST over Mass Effect's.
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One of the requirements in Greg's list was that it made you feel something, and while that seemed kind of vague, based on the list, it seems he was looking for scores that had emotional resonance with the onscreen narrative. While the first game has a few good moments, the only music that stuck with me was the intro theme and Vigil. Mass Effect 2 did a better job having the score build emotional resonance, if only due to the composers taking advantage of the game's narrative structure and building letmotifs through out.
That's not to say Mass Effect 2 was a better game, but it's structure lended itself better to a score of spiraling and blended letmotifs that are always building. -
It's definitely a tough call, but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTsD2FjmLsw&list=RDVTsD2FjmLsw#t=6 is pretty freaking amazing.
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Greg, I don't get offended by lists like so many people. I don't always agree with your list picks, but when does that ever happen?
However, I would like to say that I have one problem with all of your list videos: the transition videos. In this video it was OoT clips. I get what you're trying to do - tying the list together with something visual, but these transitions always feel weird and confusing. And in this particular case, I felt like it even spoils your video. Perhaps try using something else, like a quick sweep in of the Shack logo with the title of the video overlaid on it. But something else. The current style just bugs me big time.
Also, Assassin's Creed II is one of my favorite soundtracks. "Rome Countryside" is so beautiful and relaxing. -
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