Friday, October 5, 2012

October Songaday: Day 5 (Myst III - Exile)

DAY FIVE: MYST III - EXILE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHycksLLe7Q&feature=player_embedded
First, a note of clarity.  The game this is from, Myst III, has the subtitle Exile. The song is ALSO titled Exile, and was included as a bonus track on the soundtrack of the game. So if you go searching for this elsewhere, you'll need to be pretty specific with your searches.
I have never played the Myst games in memory. I know I played the first, but do not recall it. I always mean to play them, but at this point their resolution is just plain awful and it makes them more frustrating than not to play them.
I'm familiar most with the soundtrack from III, but know several songs from IV as well. III was composed by Jack Wall, the same guy who was in charge of the Mass Effect soundtracks for 1 and 2 (though he did not return for 3). He also did the Jade Empire soundtrack, which I've searched around for and just cannot find, sadly.

I'm really busy tonight (Thursday) actually, I have this 5-6 page essay I need done by tomorrow morning that I just can't seem to get started on, so I'm going to set this to go up at midnight like usual and come back and do links once I finish this essay. Agreed? Okay. I'll tweet again when I've got the links up.

In other news, Apocalypse World with Kenny, Luke, and Kris is happening tomorrow evening! And once this essay is done, I can refocus and finish off the Dungeon World and 13th Age APs from the Gamerati Game Day.

EDIT:
There, now that the essay is done and posted (go read it, I think it's pretty interesting), I can finish fleshing out this post. So, as I said, I haven't played any of the Myst games that I can remember, and I haven't read the books. It still deserves a lot of praise I think as a major kick-off point for the point-and-click adventure genre as a whole. It's a deep thinking experience, and while the level of thought (and occasional obtuse-ness) involved in the puzzles may be off-putting, I think it's what's behind the game being so important to video game history. This is, in my estimation, one of the first times real  thinking puzzles (rather than trial-and-error text parser adventure) were integrated into gameplay (rather than a dedicated puzzle game, like today we have Sudoku games).
Now, Jack Wall. Like I said, he's the guy for Jade Empire and Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2, mostly. That does, of course, make him the composer for the Suicide Mission theme. And hot damn if I don't love the Suicide Mission theme. I know less of Jack Wall's work than I do of Jesper Kyd's, but the two of them are rivals for my overall favorite video game composer. I also have a lot of respect for Harry Gregson-Williams, though I find the MGS times at times too slow for average listening (though perfect for their context in a stealth game). I'm not going to link much Jade Empire because I don't really know it, but I'll give some ME and more Myst III of course.
It's worth noting that on the Mass Effect 1 stuff it was co-done with Sam Hulick, and while Wall ran the group Wall of Sound that composed ME2, he was not personally in charge of every song.
Links:
Myst III Main Theme
Myst III Atrus' Study
Myst III Theme from Amateria
Myst III The Wheels of Wonder
The Wheels of Wonder Remix by Mazedude
Myst III Theme from Edanna
Myst III The Dilemma
Mass Effect 1 Main Theme
Mass Effect 1 Uncharted Worlds
Mass Effect 1 Spectre Induction
Mass Effect 1 Noveria
Mass Effect 2 Main Theme (Suicide Mission)
Mass Effect 2 The Illusive Man
Mass Effect 2 Rescue Tali (this one was done by Jimmy Hinson, aka Big Giant Circles of the OCRemix community! I had never realized he was a part of it until recently, though I knew of him from there)
Mass Effect 2 End Credits (don't worry, no spoilers on this one!)

Okay yeah that's a lot of Mass Effect. Oh well - enjoy! Seeya tomorrow!
End Recording,
Ego.

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