Aliascent's blog

Let's be honest: as far as I'm concerned, the first Medievil, released in 1998 and developed by SCEE is a masterpiece and is perfect. If I were to name a single game as a standard for all to follow, this would be it. Everything was well thought and beautifully crafted with the utmost care, from the simple gameplay that gradually evolves into something more intricate, levels that were neither too short nor too long, to a clever design that never holds your hand and lets you put all the pieces together, making every puzzle solved, every quest completed feel like a victory. That alone would be enough to make a hell of a game, but there was more: the plot was simple (You went down in history as a hero, but, in truth, you died in the very first seconds of a battle against your arch-enemy. Your army, however, managed to rout him and victory was yours. Now, some time later, this villain comes back, raises an army of zombies and mind-control the living, but also resurrects you...

It's been a while since the last post, but we're finally live again. New theme, new font, new background, everything is now nice and shiny, as it ought to be. And I thought I'd get things started again by telling you about a game I've spent 400h playing: Nuclear Throne. Back in june 2015, I bought this little game for the low price of 12,99€. And boy, that was money well spent. This game is crazy, fast-paced, unfair as hell and extremely hard, but also very rewarding and satisfying. But I somehow couldn't stop playing it; its simple yet addictive game play (grab a weapon, dodge bullets, shoot back, die because why not, and restart asap) was enough to keep me interested. But what would a game with good game play and lovely graphics be without a good soundtrack to back it up ? The answer is : nothing. And Nuclear Throne sure isn't lacking in the "awesome tunes" department. Sometimes creepy, sometimes sad, but always enjoyable, NT's soundtr...

It's been a while since the last update, almost 2 months. Life kept me pretty busy, but here is for you: a shinny new post. And today we're going to have some Medal of Honor. This series started back in 1999-2000, on the PSX. It was one of the few FPS on the PSX, and due to its incredible ambiance and the "realism" of the AI, it became a renowned game. Circa 2002, MoH:Allied Assault definitely made the series incredibly popular and praised for being awesome. Although the latest entries destroyed the series ( modern stuffs ? in my Medal of honor ? WHY ?), in 2007, Medal of Honor Airborne was released. Even if it suffered from the same defect as most of the MoH games between Allied Assault and the reboot, being ok-ish games but not unforgettable, Airborne kept an essential point of the MoH series: its soundtrack. For those who have read this blog before, you'll know that orchestral soundtracks are really common, and are the easiest way to give a...

Released in 1995 by Epic Megames ( which later released an obscure game called Unreal Tournament), Tyrian was a really fun shoot'em up. Not only fun, but also well made in every aspect, from graphics to music. It featured everything: Funny gameplay, cool customizable ships,tons of weapons, eye-candy explosions, humor everywhere and some trolls by the developpers were also built in. Yep, really. And in this perfection, there is something that got carved in the brain of evryone who played it. The buy and sell music. Although Tyrian is quite a light-hearted game, this music has dark undertones on it, and it fits quite well, because it's in this menu that you'll get to read the datas you've gathered. And some of those datas are far from being funny (go play the game, it's free). So basically, this tune is the perfect representation of Tyrian: it's fun, yet scratch the surface and find the gloomy stuffs. Needless to say, everybody who played it had it stuck in ...

Just a clarification on the title: this post shoud have been n°5, but I actually published the n°6 before. So this one becomes n°7. Logic, I don't have it. Those who follow me since the beginning will have notice that so far, orchestral soundtracks have dominated this blog. So let's have a little break from that and have some metal. Released in 1996, Red Alert has been a huge success and quickly became one of the most well known RTS franchise. And there is this particular song. For the younger readers of this blog, there was a time when soundtrack weren't all  dubstep or grandiloquent orchestral pieces done by orchestras from eastern Europe (Because hey, it's cheap). Just a single groovy bass line, some melody to go with it and drums, and there you go, you had your soundtrack. And the Hell march is one of those sountracks. Starting out with some bass, followed by roaring guitars, it's a pretty good soundtrack for a game dealing with a communist invasion...

We're in september, people are going back to work, others are going back to school, and overall, it's depressing. So here is something to give you a little boost. Released in 2001, Return to Castle Wolfenstein ( from now I'll write RtCW. The whole thing is too damn long) is close of being FPS' excellence. It features a decent story-line, humour, neat graphics (at least for 2001), and a fast, skilled, unforgiving gameplay. Oh, you have probably guessed by now, it also has an excellent OST.(yep, there's a reason of talking about this game on this blog), an OST made, like most WWII shooters, of grandiloquent orchestral pieces. But then , there is this particuliar piece, simply called "action." And well, I couldn't see a better name for it. You'll mostly hear it ingame when you just failed to be subtle / something big is coming at you. And you hear it, you know  you have to move on. The massive string ensemble, the fantastic drums plowing your hea...

A few words to begin with: Since the shift to a VGM blog, this gets actually a decent number of views, my previous post  scoring not less than 40 views. While it may seems low (and let's face it, it is), i'm quite happy of how it's going, knowing the for the previous post , this blog wasn't really easy to find. Now back to the main topic. Also, this post is quite late , but having a bad connection didn't really help in posting this in time. Today's selection: a pair of music from CoD: World at War. Started in 2003 by a former team from the Medal Of Honor franchise, Call of Duty (CoD) grew up to be one of the most popular series of shooters worldwide, eventually leading Activision to get two teams to work on CoD games, Infinity Ward and Treyarch. Most of Treyarch games were frowned upon, as being "inferior CoD games", and that till the release of CoD: World at War. Far from being perfect,this game however had something more than most of the other ...

Let's get started. As I told in the previous post, I'll start talking about VGMs ( for those who don't know yet, VGM stands for Video Game Music) . And the first one i'll pick is a music from one of my favourite game series ever: Ace Combat. Back in 1994, the first Ace Combat game ( initially called Air Combat in europe, the name changed with the second episode) was basically the missing link between PC flight simulations and arcade games, by providing immediate fun to the player while still being set in a realistic context. Fast travel to 2006, and the release of Ace Combat (Zero): Belkan War. This game is a part of of what players  tend to call "trilogy",composed of AC: Squadron Leader, AC: Distant Thunder, and of course , AC: Belkan War. And the music I picked is no less than the final boss theme of this game. Throughout the game, a whole story of friendship, honor and ideals is built up, leading to a Warning: spoiler ahead:  final fierce battle betwe...