Weekly Game Music: Escape from the City (Sonic Adventures 2)


New week, new music.  Since last week was an onslaught of indie games, let’s go with a more main stream and more well-known song this time.  Here’s Escape from the City, composed by Jun Senoue and sung by Ted Poley and Tony Harnell.  It’s a speed-inducing music played during the first not-that-bad-3D-Sonic-game, Sonic Adventures 2.

Sonic Adventures 2 tells a story told from the good guys and bad guys perspective: the bad guys — Shadow, Dr. Robotnik, Rouge (sort-of-bad-girl?) — attempts to prepare a planet-sized laser gun (and even successfully obliterates the moon) while the good guys — Sonic, Tails, Knuckles — are wrongly accused of threatening the good citizens and tries to find the culprits.  Mixed in with talk of ancient technologies, lots of furballs, and a bad guys who is just misunderstood (and have amnesia to boot), and you’ve got one camp story.

Sonic Adventures 2 is a platformer with 3 different objectives and controls, represented by one of the six characters.  Sonic and Shadow both play as a generic platformer: find the goal by jumping a lot and attacking enemies.  Tails and Dr. Robotnik plays as a bipedal tank game where both fires their guns via a target-detecting laser system.  Finally Knuckles and Rouge also plays like a generic platformer with a different mission: searching for 3 chaos emeralds scattered in each stage.

Sonic Adventures 2 was released on the Dreamcast in 2001.  It was later ported to the GameCube, PlayStation 3 (via PSN), and Xbox 360 (via XBLA).

Leave a Comment on Weekly Game Music: Escape from the City (Sonic Adventures 2) | Categories: #WeeklyGameMusic

Weekly Game Music: Zombies on Your Lawn (Plants vs Zombies)


Last on my Christmas video game music rush is full of zombies.  Literally.  Laura Shigihara’s Zombies on Your Lawn does an incredible job describing PopCap’s tower defense game, Plants vs Zombies.  Get ready defend against those zombies, especially those with helmets, screen doors, and…butter on its head?

Plants vs Zombies doesn’t even bother to explain its ridiculous premise: you’ve got zombies approaching your house, and only your garden of animated plants can save you.  So, yeah, plant a lot of flowers that shoots pellets at these undeads, and make sure they never reach your front door.

Plants vs Zombies was released on 2009 for the PC and Mac.  It was later ported to the iOS, Android, Windows 8, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo DS, and Playstation Vita.

Leave a Comment on Weekly Game Music: Zombies on Your Lawn (Plants vs Zombies) | Categories: #WeeklyGameMusic

Weekly Game Music: Setting Sail, Coming Home (Bastion)


Third on my Christmas video game music rush has some lyrics!  Set Sail, Coming Home is Darren Korb’s excellent combination of his 2 other music,Mother, I’m Here and Build That Wall, both featured prominently in the game,Bastion.  In context, this song depicts the decision of taking on a new direction in life.  It does a great job conveying a hopeful but mysterious and unnerving outlook on the future ahead.

Bastion begins right after a catastrophic event know as the Calamity, where every land is torn apart and nothing is held on solid ground.  The player directs the Kid, while Rulf the engineer narrates every action he takes.  They both work hard to get Rulf’s time-reverting machine, Bastion, back up and working.

Bastion plays like a top-down action RPG where the Kid switches between a variety of different weaponry, all with well-calculated pros and cons.  At any one point, the Kid can carry two, along with 2 special attacks.  The enemies you encounter are varied, and require different tactics to kill, thus requiring a lot of wit from the player to take out efficiently.

Bastion was released on 2011 for the Xbox 360.  It’s also available on Google Chrome’s Webstore, PC, Mac, Linux, and Steam.

Leave a Comment on Weekly Game Music: Setting Sail, Coming Home (Bastion) | Categories: #WeeklyGameMusic

Weekly Game Music: Reclaiming the Island (The Oil Blue)


Second on my Christmas video game music rush is a much more mellow music from The Oil Blue.  Reclaiming the Island by Jonathon Geer is a calming music for a game about digging oil, and retaining a level head as one operates a dangerous machinery.

The Oil Blue describes a plausible future where oil becomes scarcer, and people are making a mad dash at taking over islands and digging up for more oil.  As an oil miner yourself, you have to keep track of where you’re going to dig, how you’re going to operate the machinery’s intricate buttons and levers, and finally deciding on the price for the liquid gold you’ve just mined.  Money you make can be used to purchase new power-ups to increase the productivity of your mines.

The Oil Blue was released on the PC in 2012.

Leave a Comment on Weekly Game Music: Reclaiming the Island (The Oil Blue) | Categories: #WeeklyGameMusic

Weekly Game Music: Mushrooms (Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP)


Looks like I’ve missed 4 weeks from the massive crunch month I’ve had with developing SWARM!  So it’s only fair I share 4 musics in quick succession.  First one up is Mushrooms from a former indie rocker, Jim Guthrie.  It plays when the Scythian eats — you guessed it — a mushroom in Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP.  A very hypnotic music, I assure you.

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP tells a story of a warrior, only known as the Scythian, who accidentally awakens the evil spirit, Gogolithic Mass.  Promising peace for the nearby citizens, the Girl, LogFella, and Dogfella (very creative names, there), the Scythian seeks for great mythical powers to seal it.  Even if the it costs her own life…

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is a hybrid of two games: a point-and-click adventure, where one taps to navigate the character and observe interesting things, and a Punch-out style rhythmic combat system.  Both work in harmony to create a puzzle game where the rules are vague, and the solutions are magical and nonsensical.  Despite its shortcomings, however, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP stands tall as a bold experience, and an even bolder attempt to widen the iPad audience.

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP was released on the iPad in 2011.  It’s also available on Android, PC, Mac, Linux and even Steam.

Leave a Comment on Weekly Game Music: Mushrooms (Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP) | Categories: #WeeklyGameMusic