I fucking love all the Hitman soundtracks!
It was Hitman 2 that finally showed moi, how compelling & epic, orchestral music actually is. The Hitman 2 theme song was fucking badass. It really made you wonder. "What the fuck is up with that bald guy?"
One of the main problems I have with todays games is that every single one of them uses a goddamn orchestra.
IMO, most games that use orchestrated music do so, because they lack substance.
What they don't realize is that if you don't have any decent melodies. Nobody is going to remember your fucking music. Orchestrated or not.
Orchestrated music only works when used sparingly, imo. (Mostly for the epic plot twists &.or boss fights in the game.)
Or whenever it's used to fit a certain theme.
The orchestrated soundtracks for Romance of the Kingdoms IX, X & XI, are some of the best shit that Ive ever heard. Yoko Kanno actually composed some of the music for ROTK X. The ost's from Rotk IX, X, & XI do a great job of telling you that you are fighting in a near endless (& pointless) war.
IX sounded depressing, X sounded epic & climatic, XI sounded heroic.
Well, anyway back to Hitman.
Hitman contracts took it another direction by going all eclectic with it's soundtrack. (Not unlike Masafumi Takda himself.)
It's not everyday that you see someone use French hip hop in a videogame about an assassin, & actually make it work.
Blood Money was the best Hitman soundtrack by far.
As it was a hybrid of both of the styles that were used in Contracts & Hitman 2.
I love the battle music you hear when you get into a fight.
You know that opera techno sounding shit.
That's some of the most unique ish I've ever heard.
http://www.killer7.3dactionplanet.gamespy.com/silvercaseFSRmix.mp3
I like this because it mix two of my favorite genres, jazz andblues and because the song is so unique amongst all the game compositions I've ever heard, also the last part sounds so fucking sweet.
http://killer7.3dactionplanet.gamespy.com/silver/scintro.swf
Yeah, the original is good too, specially the start with the piano chimes.
For some reason that part it reminds of how most of the 90's videogame soundtracks sounded in that time.
Geah the Silver Case theme has to be the classiest theme song that I've ever heard in a game. It sounds like some cop drama.
I pretty much love all the main theme songs for the Kill the Past games.
Killer 7 had that smooth Jazzy Blackburn mansion theme.
FSR's theme was unique as hell. It starts out as some J-pop song, but as you go further in the game.
You'll eventually hear music box, rave, hip hop, piano,acapella & techno remixes of the same exact tune.
By the time you finish FSR that damn FSR melody will get stuck in your head.
"la-lala-la...lalala....la - Do-Wo-Ca!"
Just load up the index page for my FSR site to hear the basic melody being hummed.
http://www.killer7.3dactionplanet.gamespy.com/hotelfsr/index.html
I love that shit. It gets stuck in your head.
Moonlight Syndrome's theme is pretty cool, because of the way the song sets up intrigue. Normal games would've probably went for a typical David Lynch type of track.
Moonlight Syndrome went with some atmospheric techno shit. (Kinda like the music that Persona used to rock.)
That eventually added in more instruments to the main melody as the song builds up.
I love the Spanish guitar part that chimes in when you see Mika Kishi laying dead on the ground in the intro.
It has you asking "What the hell just happened here?"
Another game theme that I really liked was that R&B shit in Persona 2 Eternal Punishment.
(The main map theme. It's actually just a remix of Maya Amano's horrible Jpop theme from Innocent Sin.)
If there is some person like Masafumi Takada in the east, it's Jesper Kyd.
I agree with that. I haven't heard a bad soundtrack from Jesper yet.
His Kane & Lynch ost was a bit bland though. It still sounded better than that David Lynch influenced shit that was used in Takada's Michigan.
I think Takada is at his best when he's making them Kill the Past osts.
26. Ryo
WTF? Ryo (Kazan) has his own song? I have the track listing at my site, and I can't believe I never noticed it.
http://www.killer7.3dactionplanet.gamespy.com/dl.htm#silver
EDIT: It turns out that 26. was the one song that I was missing.
BTW according to the listing in my site there's at least two Silver Case remixes.
Can't wait to hear them. Especially if the sound as good as the SIlver Case remix that was used in FSR.
(It plays when you finally meet Tokio Morishima, and tells you about those stupid silver eyed hyenas.)