Aliascent's blog

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...

After being delayed for almost a month ( thanks to being quite busy), the new post is finally here. And today, we'll have some Castle Crashers OST. Released in 2008, Caste Crasher is a mix of Beat em All and RPG. Starting in the depths of Indie gaming, it finally rose to the rank of an hailed and praised title. Although the game in itself is a jewel of humour,fun and totally kicks asses, there is no doubt that its OST had a major role in this game success. Full of energy, mixing metal with techno, while still having the orchestral tracks you would expect from a medieval, heroic fantasy themed game. And then I heard Space Pirates. I was seriously thinking all video games now were bound to have some orchestral, grandiloquent music ; till this one started. A few high-picthed keyboard notes, followed by a groovy bass and groovy drums. Nothing more, nothing less. And by being so simple, this particuliar song directly echoes to the 90's games, when most of the music was made ...

No music this time (this will come this Sunday, in order to catch back the normal pace after the previous post, which was 1 week late), but a few words from me. Considering it went live only a few weeks ago, this blogs has a more than decent progression, as it is about to break the 100 hits mark. I'm really happy of how it goes. And this leads me to the second point: you who ended up there, don't be afraid to give your opinion. I'd really appreciate some feedback on my choices, my writing, the layout, and generally speaking how I could improve this blog even more. Feel free to use the comments for whichever questions, suggestions you may have or even to chat a bit. Or drop me a mail at aliascent@gmail.com. It'd be much appreciated. Back to music. What can you expect ? Hum let's see what I have : Some good old 8bit music straight from the 80-90's, some music epic enough to blow up your speakers taken from some of the best  underrated games released those la...

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...