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News Archive
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2007 ---> 1 2 4 6
2006 ---> 9 10 12
29.04.2010, The Music of “Metro 2033” and “Phobos 1953” – an Interview with Anthesteria Project
A book by Dmitry Glukhovski " Metro 2033" has passed around the world like a tornado. The enormous success among readers, several reprints, the Encouragement Award in the prestigious Eurocon contest in 2007, numerous translations abroad and a total circulation of 500.000 copies - not bad for a first book, right? Post-nuclear future within the walls of such a familiar subway resembles a plot of a fantastic action movie. So it’s no wonder that at the same time when the book was being written, the Ukrainians from 4A Games (a part of the crew that made the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R., btw) launched a video game adaptation. Time has proved that this policy was right. On the whole Glukhovski was lucky to have such guys from the brotherly republic, as the game Metro 2033 fully repeated the success of the book and now has good chances to become one of the best games of the year. The music for this interesting project was written by our old friends – Anthesteria project. Probably, everyone remembers their posh Outcry. Today we decided to talk with George Beloglazov, a thought leader of Antestheria, about how the music for “Metro 2033” was being created. As a bonus, from the second part of the interview you'll learn about a new project by Phantomery Interactive entitled Phobos: 1953. The game is the ideological successor to Outcry, it has an improved version of its engine and can boast of an interesting analogue-style soundtrack. It’s noteworthy that this game is based on a recently released in Russia movie “Phobos”, but the game is set in a totally different time period without any teenagers participating and in general the only thing that this game has in common with the movie is a scene of action - an abandoned bunker. Read interview
09.04.2010, BioShock 2 Soundtrack Review
Bioshock sequel has divided its fans into two camps. One said that the game was absolutely nothing new and that’s why all copies should be burnt in an electric chair. The others (and your humble servant is in this group) came to a simple and a pleasant conclusion – there’s even more Bioshock here! It reminds of a situation with Fallout 1-2, right? In any case, the action is again set in an underwater city Rapture, which was designed as utopia for creative people. Built by Andrew Ryan in the seabed of the Atlantic Ocean, inaccessible from the outside world, it could represent the ideal state for thinkers, artists, poets and entrepreneurs. Andrew wanted to create a place free from moral constraints, where everyone could be what he wanted to be. The discovery of “ADAM” serum, which allowed people to reshape their gene structure at their desire, should have helped to the inhabitants of Rapture to achieve these aims. Read review here
26.03.2010, Assassin's Creed 2 Soundtrack Review
"Assassin's Creed" franchise has only two full-fledged games so far (versions for portable platforms do not count), but for a progressive video games composer Jesper Kyd it has already become not less important than a series about Hitman, which has made this Danish electronic musician an icon of modern game music. Like Hitman, Assassin’s Creed is a game about a killer though very ancient one. A medieval setting for Kyd is not a barrier but vice versa it’s an incentive. It’s not just a stimulus to step into a territory of unusual for him creative directions, simply to do something new but to reinvent a particular music style, to deconstruct music, take all familiar elements to pieces so as to reconstruct them later to his own taste, gracefully ignoring standards and authenticity. For the composer who has long gone beyond the framework of electronic sound and pure genres, in whose career there was both cold IDM, organically woven into the disturbing orchestration, and choir of the Hungarian Radio, performing pseudo-Soviet patriotic songs in broken Russian to the accompaniment of techno rhythms and vintage synthesizers, there are no obstacles and nothing is impossible. Each new Kyd’s work is not similar to the preceding, it has no analogues in the game industry and sometimes no analogues at all. Read review here
25.03.2010, Additional Music for Kane and Lynch (Review)
«Heat», a crime thriller/action film released in the mid 1990s, continues to heat the imagination of moviemakers and game developers. Cinema schools and universities use «Heat» as a best example of the action movie. This film is constantly quoted and everybody tries to emulate or beat it. From times to times some studio appears that attempts if not to do an unofficial film-to-game adaptation then at least to do a remake of that famous shootout with police. Ten years after the film premiere the Danes from IO Interactive who never practiced an obvious imitation before, found themselves in a difficult financial circumstances and that’s why they had to produce something very cheap but effective and efficient. Read review here
18.03.2010, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Soundtrack Review
Akira Yamaoka, one of the most important figures in the Japanese electronic entertainment industry for the last decade, has been consciously doing all his best so as not to fall under a definition of “a mysterious person”. Yamaoka is clearly a bit non-Japanese, cause he wrote purely European music in spite of hell. He criticized Japanese composers treating music composing solely as business, accused his own game industry of immaturity, had a performance with a symphony orchestra like Steve Vai, produced and ruled the game development (a unique case for a composer), broke stereotypes in every possible way and on the whole stood out dramatically. Read review here
11.03.2010, Interview with Petri Alanko - Alan Wake soundtrack composer!
After 5 years of full time development we are ready for Alan Wake. It lost PC as a platform, changed many conceptions, became Xbox 360 exclusive and finally it is now cult for many people without being seen. Remedy, famous for its “when it’s done” adding last traits to game and plan to release it on May 21st. We were able to find Alan Wake’s composer Petri Alanko and ask him pretty intimate questions about AW. Check it out!
02.03.2010, Borderlands Soundtrack Review
For the last ten years a release of a new franchise has been quite a responsible and high-profile mission reminding of a space probe launch somewhere to Saturn – much investment, long flight and no guaranty of finding anything useful on the planet. New universes are reluctant to take roots, are often whimsical and naughty, and it takes a long way for them to rise from the dunghill. One can just look at the bunch of sequels and prequels released this year so as to realize this simple truth. So a postapocalyptic shooter with cel-shaded graphics (hey, comics!) and RPG elements like in Diablo couldn’t be more unexpected. One can only envy courage of 2K Games sponsoring the project. Welcome the winner of the Innovation Award! Read review here
27.02.2010, Mass Effect 2 Soundtrack Review
Saga’s laws are immutable. Science-fiction saga’s laws are irreversible, cruel and merciless.. but so very very epic and spectacular! And a soft, magic and natural first part is always followed by some dark, complex and bringing suspense second one. This is the way the ideal movie sequel to Star Wars «The Empire Strikes Back» was created, the same is true of the perfect second part of the Mass Effect game. Moreover, if to take into account the fact that vector of setting has greatly changed its direction towards noir, darkness and epos, the heritage of Mass Effect hasn’t been lost. You can import save files from the previous title; familiar design, favorite characters and music recognizable from the first chords – all can be found here. Of course the music has changed so as to match the grown sequel but it hasn’t lost its charm and a slight flavor of space naiveté. Read review here
27.02.2010, Dragon Age: Origins Roundtrack Review
It so happened that in Dragon Age’s universe, mechanics and design there’s absolutely nothing new. Besides that, all the elements of the universe, the game itself and all accompanying things are designed on such a high level that the Witcher’s developers will have to work hard when making a sequel. But they are not the only one who will have to do their best; the bar has been raised for all the genre of CRPGs. Music is not an exception either in an overall happy picture. Inon Zur who earlier fabricated rather than wriote music seems to have found his way under the vigilant canadian governance. Read review here
27.02.2010, Divinity II: Ego Draconis Soundtrack Review
It so happened that role-player games stand alone against the background of all known game genres representing per se an imitation of an individual’s life in a fantasy/fantastic setting. Sometimes the protagonist was given a bunch of various companions and the subsequent squabbles between the characters were a good bit of pleasure from the game. However, the main charm is still in exploring the vast and mysterious world, development of the relations between the heroes and long, sometimes tedious, pumping up your character. Read review here
17.02.2010, Interview with Tomáš Dvořák - Machinarium soundtrack composer
03.02.2010, Machinarium Soundtrack Review
The Machinarium soundtrack is an extraordinary work, it has just appeared but it has already become classics. It’s like Peter McConnell’s music from the best games by LucasArts, like Terry Taylor’s immortal projects for The Neverhood and Skullmonkeys, like sound illustrations by Daniel Pemberton for Little Big Planet. The distinctive feature of Machinarium is not just in the fact that with all the variety of music sub-genres these tracks never disharmonize but also in providing a full immersion in the game world – you start to believe irrevocably in a musical world created by Dvorak as a part of a graphic universe of Dvorsky. Read review here
03.02.2010, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Soundtrack Review
Uncharted 2 took almost everything from the original game: the idea, the visual style, gameplay elements and even the leading musical motive. Compared to the first Uncharted Among Thieves is set in the Himalayas, where the protagonist has to find the lost city of Shambhala. This change of scenery is reflected in music as well: now there’re more ethnic features in it like national instruments, for example. All these tricks add some local color and mysteriousness to the music. But there’s a time for everything. Read review here
03.02.2010, NINJA GAIDEN Σ2 Soundtrack Review
The question “Why is the next review devoted to NGS 2?” has a detailed answer. First, the music of Japanese composers – not only of acknowledged classics – leaves few people untouched. It has lots of new and strange features, especially for a person who got used to European musical traditions. And secondly, the game itself is noteworthy. Read review here
03.02.2010, Halo 3: ODST Soundtrack Review
This year was poor for XBOX 360 exclusives that’s why Bungie had to quickly transform its underdone DLC (ODST was initially claimed as a stand alone disc game as a matter of fact) to a stand-alone game. As a result gamers got a nice though not very dramatically altered gameplay, outdated graphics and as many as 2 hours of music score. Fortunately, the rush hasn’t affected the quality of the product, nothing but its being annoyingly short. As for the music it’s quite the opposite – 2 disks after all. Read review here
22.10.2009, Spore Hero Soundtrack Review
This year has been definitely a successful one for Winifred Phillips. Let’s take a closer look. Electronic Arts released her music from SimAnimals in January, and it became Winifred’s first commercial soundtrack release. And the soundtrack from a fresh Spore Hero for Nintendo Wii and DS was made available already in October, nearly at year-end by the very same Electronic Arts. Read review here
26.07.2009, Michael Bross - Nomad (Review)
Nomad (EP) was released just a month after Dogs And Their Stars was issued for purchase (we consider it to be a rhythmical sequel of the album Everything is Now) but its roots are far more deeper extended to the very first Michael Bross’s album which is entitled Soul Fragments published in distant 1999. Read review here.
14.06.2009, Dark Horizon Original Soundtrack review
...It has already become usual to compose if not ambient then rather deep electronic music for both games and TV-series. Babylon 5 and Lexx may be the most shining examples. And if the very first composition of Tarr Chronicles called Fault of Ancients recalls classical Vangelis, the following track refers to Lexx cause the synths, rhythm and melodics are the same... Read review here.
13.05.2009, World of Goo Soundtrack review
To tell the truth, music from World of Goo is kinda little chamber symphony. There’s no hint of casual game genre or any other toy like features. The OST almost doesn’t contain electronic music with the exception of a couple of tracks really strongly inspired by Vangelis. Neither the leitmotif nor the common main theme is the thing that runs through the whole soundtrack. It’s more likely to be a special set of music instruments, which Kyle is using: strings, harps, flutes and a choir. This very language he uses to tell the listeners a sad story about a conflict between goo balls and The Corporation. Read reivew here.
04.04.2009, Interview with Norihiko Hibino - Ninja Blade soundtrack composer
Norihiko Hibino... That name surely known by any Metal Gear Solid fan. He was responsible for the soundtrack to MGS2-4 and was closely collaborating with Harry Gregson-Williams. There are many good titles which he wrote music for but today we will talk about his latest work - Ninja Blade. Soundtrack for this Xbox360 exclusive consits of 90 minutes heavy ethnic-sympho-electronic and selling as a separate 2-CD pack. So, if you want to know how it was made, join our discussion! Also, there you'll find demo-samples from the soundtrack. Read interview here.
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