The Sound Of Awesome

Apr 24, 2010

It has been 12 long years since the Protoss, the Zerg and the Terans met each other in deadly embrace. 12 years since Terran bullets first struck Zerg Chitin and still the war continues. Starcraft 2 is now in its closed beta and from what I can tell, it’s starting to look like a complete game. The latest patch at time of writing has added the achievements, player profile images and the unlockable decals that signify the icing on a particularly sweet looking cake. A cake made from bullets and mandables and energy weapons and power armour and… and… PAIN.

The article I’m writing for you now was supposed to burst at the digital seams with eyeball watering images of the Starcraft 2 Beta. You would no doubt have wept during a video of my futile attempts to best even an average RTS player in an epic battle that would have been chiselled into the very stone foundations of Battlenet as a prime example of how NOT to play the game online.

Sadly, (fortunately) I couldn’t bring that video to you today because, after installing the beta client, downloading the obligatory 8 million patches from Blizzard, upgrading the necessary drivers on my lacklustre gaming rig and ensuring that booze, pizza and cigarettes were all within an easy reach of my comfy chair I started the game and It didn’t fucking work.

I sat expectantly at the Battlenet login screen for 10 minutes per-attempt trying to connect but to no avail. So no SC2 Beta for me… yet. However, if you took part in my cunningly interactive article, you’ll now be listening to the SC2 music in player embedded at the top of the page and you’ll no doubt be coming to the same realization as me – The Starcraft 2 music is wickedly awesome! You’ll probably be about 2 minutes into it now, so take a bit of time to turn it up, stride purposefully about the room… maybe stare out of a nearby window in furious contemplation or shake your clenched fist at your cat and swear vengeance on your enemies. Then come back, because it takes ages to write one of these articles and I’m not finished yet.

As developers like Lionhead, Blizzard, Interplay, Firaxis and Psygnosis know all too well, Music is as just key to a videogame as the storyline, artistic direction or Nolan North. Even on the 8 and 16 bit dinosaur titles from years gone by, music and sound effects were gaining them immortality while their graphics were still being dragged muggily from the primordial ooze. For me it is Tristam Village, from Diablo.

For others it’s the choral intro to Mechwarrior 2 or Out Runs Magical Sound Shower. Whatever. I guess the point behind this post is this: Music has been awesome for a long time. you may or may not have realised it at the time, but the music that accompanies your most loved or most loathed videogames can trigger fond memories of time well wasted. Post your favourite or your most hated game music of all time. You can embed in the comments now too so Do It!!!