Welcome to GamesRadar's daily blast of all things pertaining to the ever-growing field of game music. Each post will introduce new sounds, games, composers and fan-made remixes of gaming's greatest aural achievements.
July 14, 2010
Game: Alone in the Dark (2008)
Song: Who Am I?
Composer: Olivier Deriviere
Above: Who Am I? from Alone in the Dark
Say what you will about Alone in the Dark, but 2008's fatally flawed horror/fire adventure had one thing that even itsangriest critics found hard to hate: an awesome musical score. Performed by all-female choir group Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices, the music perfectly sets the stage for a pitched battle against a monolithic and unknowable evil. And if you listen toWho Am I?, its most prominent track, with the game's premise in mind (a race against time to prevent the apocalypse in a single night),the desperate vocals and crashing symphony arrangementare enough to inspire chills - something the game itselffailed to do.
The song, along with the rest of the soundtrack, is only made more eerie by the impenetrable Bulgarian lyrics (if you'd like to know what they mean, a translation can befound here). The singers themselves make it captivating, and they're no less captivating when theyturn strikingly mournful on tracks such as Prelude to an End:
As it turns out, composerOlivier Deriviereactually has a history of creating excellent music for so-so horror games, like this awesome piece he wrote for Obscure II (aka Obscure: The Aftermath):
You can hear some of the same touches that made Deriviere's Alone in the Dark pieces interesting, but the addition of drums give this earlier track a punch that the AITD music lacks. In both cases, though, it's kind of a shame to see such great music wasted on mediocre games.Luckily, Deriviere has made a lot of his compositions available for listening onhis website, removing the need to actually play the games in order to hear them.
Jul 14, 2010
Nate's Theme 2.0 by Greg Edmondson
Overworld Theme by Kondo, Minegishi, Tominaga and Ota
Aquatic Ruin Zone by Masato Nakamura
