January 16, 2012

  • Review: Essential Video Game Music V. 1 (Download)

    The Essential Games Music Collection—Volume 1

     

     

    Silva Screen Records

    13 tracks – 42:38

    Available as a digital download only.

     

     

    The present downloadable release is the first of Silva’s dedicated forays into the world of video game music.  The selections here, performed by the London Music Works ensemble—a sort of mixed samples, electronic, and instrument group, span some 25 years of music with a focus on more recent music.

     

    As with some of their larger compilation releases, this one begins with the more recent music and then works its way backwards to older pieces.  Easily corrected if one wants to hear how far video game music has come.  The opening Brian Tyler theme from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is one of 2 2011 selections.  The other is from the third Gears of War score by Steve Jablonsky.  Interestingly, both bear many similarities in their overall sound of Zimmer-like orchestration and choral punctuations.  Fans of the Uncharted series will enjoy the inclusion of Greg Edmonson’s “Nate’s Theme” from the 2009 Uncharted 2—Among Themes with its strong brass ideas and jungle-like percussion.  These are all fine performances, though the fuller orchestral versions from the released scores are preferable.  Also on hand from 2009 is “Ezio’s Family” from Jeper Kyd’s fine score for Assassin’s Creed 2 here a fine warm theme with vocalizations and strong lyric writing.  The superb scores for World of Warcraft are represented here with “Arthas My Son” from Neal Acree’s Wrath of the Lich King score.  Rounding out the music from the past decade are selections from Halo 3 (by Martin O’Donnell) and Battlefield 1942 (Joel Ericson).  The latter focuses more on the big action “Finish the Fight” rather than the more atmospheric selections from those scores.


    Nobuo Uematsu’s wildly popular scores for the Final Fantasy series receive two tracks (and honestly Silva would release a welcome recording if they concentrated just on this master’s music for this series!).  “One Winged Angel” from 2005 is one of the composer’s oft-requested pieces from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.  The “Staff Roll” from 1997’s Final Fantasy VII appears a bit later.  These two tracks take up roughly 12 minutes of the  release’s playing time.  These selections are simply fascinating examples of the depth of compositional skill that mixes popular rock and orchestral styles.

     

    Two additional selections from the 1990s are also included.  The first from 1997’s popular The Curse of Monkey Island is represented by its main theme composed by Michael Land.  The other is Chris Hulsbeck’s score for Turrican II: The Final Fight.  A bit of nostalgic music will bring smiles to 1980s video gamers as Silva includes two themes by Kouji Kondo, Nintendo’s master composer at the time, for The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. 

     

    The music selections here come from fine scores and one wishes that a larger ensemble, even the label’s house orchestra, could have been brought to bear on some of the more epic selections.  But overall the performances are all quite well done.  The other carp is that the album is entirely too brief given the range of fine music available to mine in any given decade.  As it is though, the choices provide a window into the increasingly superb music being written for video games while showing how cinematic these scores have become.