Written and produced by BAFTA® award-winning composers Jeremy Soule and Julian Soule, the music in Prey is being hailed as featuring the first movie-length soundtrack for a video game. With a running time of over three hours, the release of a two-volume soundtrack album looks set to demonstrate how high the bar has now been raised in video game scoring practice.
So high, in fact, that Prey is destined to effect industry-wide change: from defining a new standard by which music commissions for flagship interactive titles can be judged, to sounding a welcome death knell for the use of through-composed material. It is a key milestone and one that is the culmination of a decade's work spent to bring the true sound of Hollywood into the home. The result: a soundtrack which breathes color into a monochrome landscape. Indeed, nothing quite like this has come before in the games industry and, when Prey ships, the dust is going to take a long time to settle. So, reload and pack some stims because if you want an answer to where video game music goes from here... it's arrived.
-- Prey: Video game music finally grows-upSo high, in fact, that Prey is destined to effect industry-wide change: from defining a new standard by which music commissions for flagship interactive titles can be judged, to sounding a welcome death knell for the use of through-composed material. It is a key milestone and one that is the culmination of a decade's work spent to bring the true sound of Hollywood into the home. The result: a soundtrack which breathes color into a monochrome landscape. Indeed, nothing quite like this has come before in the games industry and, when Prey ships, the dust is going to take a long time to settle. So, reload and pack some stims because if you want an answer to where video game music goes from here... it's arrived.
Hrm. I didn't have high hopes for the demo to run on my cheap gaming rig, so I haven't bothered getting it. Perhaps once a bit of fervor dies down, I'll see how it plays ... or at least sounds.
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3 comments:
First movie-length soundtrack? How can they make that claim? Heck, the first Monkey Island game had a movie length soundtrack, and that can't have been the first!
Maybe they mean movie quality, but that's still ignoring a wealth of games with full orchestra soundtracks, not the least of which are Harry Gregson-Williams' Metal Gear Solid scores.
Are they just -completely- making things up as they go along?
True, Monkey Island clocks in at around two hours ... so I'm not sure what the inclusion of an extra hour suddenly makes one "movie length" over another.
Although, to clock that much it looks like you need to hit the bootlegs:
http://musicbrainz.org/artist/8bc7fe7d-afcb-4a3e-9cbd-859c73db0cef.html
The official soundtracks are shorter. Still, somewhat overhyped for sure. Though it is hard to sell gaming music somewhat, so I suppose it's somewhat expected.
They have a clip:
http://www.soundtrack.net/media/2006-06-25-prey/005_raidingthekeepersfortress.mp3
Which is ... good? Not sure it's raising any bar though. Interestingly Monkey Island also introduced iMuse to coordinate music with the action ... now that's raising the bar.
I'm not going to laud the soundtrack as raising the bar, but nearly all of the audio, save a few bits of voice acting, are really solid in the demo.
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