Overview

Fallout 3 featured a blend of both original and licensed tracks. The use of licensed music tracks for this game is ingenious, since most tracks recollect the World War II period when nuclear warfare was a reality. The original music also took an interesting direction since orchestral heavyweight Inon Zur, rather than Mark Morgan, took the lead for the first time. Released as a pre-order gift through GameStop, Featured Selections from the Fallout 3 Soundtrack provided an early insight into both types of music for the game.

Body

Inon Zur's two contributions are extremely different to each other; with one being a tense orchestral piece and the other acting as acoustic background music, he shows huge diversity in his musical talent in so little. The first track, "Main Title" is ominous and powerful, filled with fear striking chords, orchestral hits, and brass interjections. Starting off with percussive sounds and brass, the track reeks of militarism and industrialisation right away. A sweet melody punches its way through the track at 0:48 from which it further develops, further reflecting upon the scale of the scenery in the game. As far as orchestral themes go, this is one of the most dangerous pieces I've heard in a long while, with this perhaps being caused by a shared dominant collective throughout.

"Megaton" is hugely different to "Main Theme." The instrumentation used is completely different, with a banjo, harmonica, piano additions, airy flute sounds and goodness knows what else pieced together to create some delightful (but dark) background music. The limited range of pitch used throughout the track coupled with the diverse amount of instruments used provides an interesting effect, much like in "Main Theme," where power seems to emanate from nowhere.

The licensed music on this album is made up from three 1940s tracks emanating from the radio stations in the game. The first track, "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" is a quaint track from The Ink Spots, a prolific 1930s vocal group who get a lot of airtime throughout the Fallout series. Featuring in the teaser trailer for Fallout 3, the song was originally intended to play during the introduction sequence of Fallout, but since Black Isle were unable to get the correct license on time, it was replaced by "Maybe," also by the Ink Spots. The track features some well-suited lyrics, despite being intended as a love song, and perfectly portrays the desolate landscape set out in Fallout 3.

"Way Back Home" from Bob Crosby is a much brighter piece which makes use of vibrant brass, gorgeous backing vocals, clarinets, and a simple piano. It shows a different (much appreciated) style of '40s music, and also creates some nostalgia in the game, with the lyrics describing everything the player's been through. Roy Brown's "Butcher Pete (Part 1)" is certainly the wackiest of the three tracks. Again, although I'd love to focus on the instruments, the lyrics are what carries this track. I'm not so sure whether to take "All you 'fellas gotta watch your wives 'cause Pete don't care whose meat he chops" literally, or see it as an innuendo.

Summary

The good thing about the original tracks is that Inon Zur has in no way tried to mimic Mark Morgan's style from the previous two additions to the series. Indeed, there is minimalism and orchestration, but Zur goes about his own way of creating two powerful tracks to fit the scene. In all, the small selection of licensed music we hear on this album is enjoyable, and touches upon some otherwise forgotten music from the past. While this is excellent promotional album, it's still unfortunate that a more comprehensive soundtrack release was never released for Fallout 3.