Computer Game Music You grew up With

I absolutely loved the multi-player of this, but then I was nine at the time...



Edit: Oops, no I was thinking of HoMM 3. Still, same idea.

Nice FTL music, enjoyable stuff.

You know Ive played loads of FTL and never once listened to the music.
I tend to have it running in the corner somewhere whilst doing other stuff so Ive had the music switched off since I got it.
I should really try having a game with the music on- might help me actually beat the damn thing   

I highly recommend the music. I've only beat the game once, on the ipad version though. My PC version has yet to be beaten. I think it's because I got lucky and unlocked the Federation cruiser on the ipad version.

How the hell do you beat the final ship? Is driving me nuts - I even got so crabbit I thought screw it Im cheating, and I got hold of a save where you have all the ships unlocked- and I still got my drunk arse handed to me on a plate   

Is there a particular combo of weapons you had when you took it down RA?

My usual strategy is to get the teleporter maxed out with the augment that heals the crew after teleporting. I send my boarding party to each of the artillery weapons one by one and since they're isolated from the rest of the ship with only guy guarding them, the guns are gone for good after the boarding party has destroyed them. I do that for each of the guns and then take my time with the ship. I also max out hacking to stop their shields from getting in the way. Mind control is also great to distract the pilot and lower their evasion so my shots will land. The Hull smash II and Artemis missile was able to eventually finish off the first round.

I even get passed the second round now by hacking the drones to stop those from destroying the ship immediately. The third beats me because by this point the ships has taken on too much hull damage and I can't get passed the Zoltan shield. I need to also get the zoltan shield bypass or something to teleport in and mind control the crew.
All the pieces have to line up and I've yet to beat the guy on my pc.

The time I did beat the game though, I was on the ipad version where I happened to unlock the Federation cruiser. I don't recall using a clever strategy with that ship actually. I just upgraded the the engines all the way for high evasion and got level 4 shields. I just used the starting weapons for that ship and upgraded the cool artillery beam all the way so its cooldown was twenty seconds instead of fifty. I only had to survive the constant barrages of missiles from their artillery (maxed out engines) and keep my artillery beam in good shape so it could fire every twenty seconds. It helped that I upgraded my blast doors and had someone man it to fend off the anti personnel drones they kept sending over.

That's probably my favorite ship actually. I didn't have a strategy then and still did better than I do now. I really need to unlock that ship again for my PC version.

Ah I have been neglecting the teleport option- I shall have to give it a go.

Does anyone remember Small Soldiers the game for the PS1?

Interesting idea for a thread.

I recently dug out my copy of Medal of Honor Frontline (2002, PS2), the game is rather dated in terms of graphics/scale, but it's still a wonderfully immersive and  fun way to blast Nazis, and although it falls into hollywood cliche at points, the soundtrack is every bit as cinematic as I remember, it may just be nostalgia talking but I think it was one of the reasons the game always seemed so big to me as a kid:



The Soundtrack was by an Oscar Winner!:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Giacchino

They don't make WW2 games like this anymore...

definitely not the music you expect from a video game!

Theres a tradition of that- a great hero of early computer game music was David Whittaker. I dont think those growing up in the age of mp3 and the like can fully ever appreciate what it was like to hear stuff that sounded like real music coming out of your computer as you played. No sampling and recording here and just having the program play it, this was coaxing the sound out of the computers limited sound card. It was a real skill and talent, a combination of musical talent and programming.
I can still remember the first time I hear the music to Shadow of the Beast, combined with its revolutionary at the time parallax scrolling it was just a mind-fuck, but whilst the gameplay is old and parallax is yesterdays tech Whittakers soundtrack remains as haunting as ever-



These days with triple AA games the soundtack isoften done by peopl ewo do film and tv soundtracks, so whilst there are still amaxing modern examples, like Medal of Honour above that Malick posted, or the MGS4 soundtrack-



But for me they lack that old arcane mystic magic of coaxing the sound out of the machine itself which created such a sense of wonder and amazement back in the early days of hoe computing.

It's odd how incredibly vividly recollective computer game music can be. My brother used to play this a lot, and I did a little. That, and it's pretty musically striking.

Feeling nostalgic:

Eldorion wrote:I've always loved the "Hell March" music from Command & Conquer: Red Alert.

I spent so much time playing that as a kid...

What did EA do to C&C? Those bastards ruin everything.





Unless Activision get involved... they ruin everything else.

I was a huge fan of the Spyro The Dragon Games as a kid (only the first three, never played beyond the 4th game and that was kinda shit from what I can vaguely remember...) found my old copies the other day and thought I'd revisit them, the soundtracks are still wonderfully atmospheric and joyous:







(Fingers crossed they do a remaster some day...)

Oblivion had an amazing soundtrack, loved this game so much but never completed it (my PS3 would always end up freezing on the last mission of the Shivering Isles...):

{{I've always loved the way they have kept the main theme since Morrowind but each game gives it its own flavour suited to the story and setting of that game. Does a great job of reinforcing the sense of them all being in the same world and history. }}

I must admit I don't know the Skyrim soundtrack very well, I've spent many hours on that game but the music has left very little impression on me, I think the more dreary atmosphere of Skyrim coupled with the size of the game makes it easier to zone out and ignore the small details.

Skyrim had improved combat/graphics/animation/building design but I think I prefer the atmosphere and missions of Oblivion.

{{{As is normal with Elder Scrolls games the vanilla experience is only ever a starting point. I honestly probably could not judge Oblivion or Skyrim fairly as I modded both extensively effecting all major parts of game-play and adding quite a lot of new game-play mechanics. So I love both of them- once you've found the right mix of mods for your preferred style its pretty much a game tailored for yourself.
At a push I would say Oblivion was better out of the box than Skyrim- but that a fully modded Skyrim beats a fully modded Oblivion if only because the game mechanics of control, combat, spells ect have been refined and tightened and the graphic engine is a bit better (oh and its doesnt have that annoying pie chart conversation minigame in it! ). You can pretty much make either game as you want them with the time and patience.

As to soundtrack- I have to admit I dont play Skyrim with the in-game music on, not because I dont like it its an immersion thing- Ive a ton of sound and ambience related mods and I prefer the natural atmosphere of the world to the music playing as I play. }}}

Well I don't have the money/space for a computer suitable for mods or high end gaming, nor do I have the technical know-how or patience to muck around for hows tweaking settings or installing mods, gaming has never been about graphics or high end mechanics for me, I get just as much enjoyment for 20 year old N64/PS1 games as I do for GTA5 etc as long as the atmosphere and challenge of the game is engrossing and fun I'm happy, I play games for escapism and relaxation making things too realistic or polished somewhat ruins the illusion for me...

{{{I ran a crappy system for years. Oblivion stuttered along on low settings! Gameplay always rules- its why I still play so many retro games despite many of them looking like angry blobby messes n the graphics front.
But most of the mods I like, though I'm not adverse now I can to making things look pretty too, are concerned mainly with gameplay.
Adding say Campfire and Frostfall is one of the most complete ways to change how you have to play- it simply makes the climate as deadly as it should be. Need to cross those frozen wastes for a quest? Better plan your trip then- wood and kindling for fires, fur tent to sleep in, might need to set aside that amazing deadric armour you've got for some crappy fur, but at least you wont freeze to death. Need to cross a river or plunge into a n icy sea? Then watch you dont freeze to death.
Combine that with ineed, requiring you to eat, drink and sleep regularly and suddenly all those inns, beds for rent all that food in the game world has an actual gameplay point.
Add to that overhauls to combat and enemy AI so they use all their potential abilities as per race and can work together in coordinated attacks and your whole approach to combat needs adjusting too.
Or the citizens Ai overhaul- unlocking tons of new dialogue, background conversations and more realistic reactions to things fro the people of Skyrim- so for example if a dragon attacks they run for the nearest safe shelter- their home, temples, the keep- whatever is safest and closest. It adds a multitude of little touches that makes the world seem so much more alive and independent of the player adding depth to the game experience.
You can use Ordinator to completely overhaul the perk trees and how they work. Smiting overhauls alter how that works too, adding whole new things to make and smelt and craft.
Immersive creatures and monster mod will add tons of new creatures and wildlife to the world to meet and encounter. The random encounter mod puts traditional random encounter events into your travels, even if you use fast travel it might be interrupted for an ambush. The potential is almost unlimited.
A quick check of my mod-manager program tells me I currently have 197 active mods! Many of which are solely effecting how I play, the playing experience I will have and how the game mechanics work. The graphics mods are just the cherry on the cake now I have a cake that can support the cherry! But back when my pc was crap I was still modding the crap out of Skyrim, just on much lower graphics settings and favouring low res graphic overhauls where I had them at all, but still lots of gameplay altering mods- still looked good even if i was struggling to hit 30fps or even 20 sometimes in the busiest areas of the game- check out the Canthiss thread here somewhere.}}}

{{An old Amiga classic- It Came From the Desert- the soundtrack to this was just outstanding for its day- mainly it consists of short synthesize loops stitched together- but a bit like Jaws its impossible to imagine this game without that music. It was so much a part of creating that b-movie atmosphere It was going for. }}}

{{{A pioneer in computer game music- David Whittaker- the soundtrack to much of my gaming youth was created by this man. It was amazing what he could get out of those old beeby sound chips. Mans a genius.}}

Since I am still growing up... here is some recent computer game music from Destiny 2.