Yup, it’s another one of these. To tell you the truth, I haven’t been listening to much in the way of albums lately so until I do I’m just going to dripfeed you other odds and sods like this.
It occurred to me after I finished the last entry on Sampling Soundtracks that I have an understated fondness for music in other games I’ve played over the years. Trouble is I wouldn’t have enough to say about them to justify a full entry. That’s why I’m making this a little-bit-of-everything, some of the tracks buried in a dusty cabinet somewhere in my mind, from the times of the Nintendo 64 and the Playstations 1 and 2.
So what compelled me to do this in the first place? Well, first I decided to revisit a couple of games from a series that I was historically terrible at. Playing centre-backs as strikers, either the boldest move ever or showing I’m mentally unfit to be a football manager.
FIFA 98: Road to World Cup (Nintendo 64)
We’ve all played a FIFA game at some point in our lives. Obviously my first had to be the one that has Blur’s “Song 2” as its theme, but for the N64 version that’s where the songs end. Not enough space on that cartridge for the Crystal Method so what do we have in their place?
Porn music!
No, it’s really just some decent instrumentals that were probably churned out in a day or so. Nothing special really but I like ‘em for what they are – Unassuming late 90s synthtronica.
FIFA 2000
F*cking Robbie again.
Ah but I’d be lying if I didn’t have a little dance to “It’s Only Us” when it played over the introductory cinematic. I also love the fact that it wouldn’t have been the game’s theme if EA didn’t acquiesce to Robbie’s demand that Port Vale be part of the roster (This was back in the day when it was top flight or out of sight).
Now this was on the original Playstation so I can talk quickly about the other songs. First, “Joy!” by Gay Dad. Excrement. “Sell Out” by Reel Big Fish is much more like it, turn-of-the-millennium ska with loud horns and drums. Speaking of sounds of the time, Lunatic Calm’s “LC001” has not aged well has it? Good for a dance in the dark though. More great drumming to be found in the aptly named “All About Beats”, ideal for getting you pumped up for another match.
But the MVP of this soundtrack? Apollo 440’s “Stop The Rock”. I bloody love that song. In fact I remember when I was about six I went to a party, this came on and I danced my heart out to it with a girl in front of a greenhouse so we could see our reflections. Good times.
Mission Impossible
Back to the N64 with one of the clunkiest games I’ve ever played. At times, you are engaged in proper spycraft but most of the time it decides to go in a different direction and be a third person GoldenEye. With controls like these, that’s a hard sell.
Shame because it has a decent chunk of tracks that aren’t compromised too heavily by the compression of the cartridge.
For a start it’s one of the many reasons that the first part of the Embassy Function level is just sublime. You’ve got the main tune, bass and cymbals for some sneaky undercover work as you make sure no one sees you fiddle with the vents or knock out assassins and ambassadors in the loo. Speaking of ambassadors, it’s little wonder you have to get the pianist to play the Sloborskaia March to lure him – who wouldn’t want to revel in such elegant music. In fact, that pianist clearly isn’t being paid enough, his main party piece is his own rendition of the level’s music!
Lots of great music to be found elsewhere. Good ol’ fashioned espionage with the classic Mission Impossible theme tune weaved through, namely on the track you first hear in the Warehouse. There were traditionalist fans of the TV series who resented the film, but I’m sure they would absolutely love the game’s tribute to Lalo Schifrin by using “The Plot” as music for the briefing scenes and the Lundkwist Base mission. It gets proper intense at times too, like on the CIA Rooftop and when you begin your Escape from the embassy. And then the triumphant reprise of the main theme on missions like leaving the embassy under the guise of firemen, and leaping on and off trucks in a massive tunnel.
Honestly would’ve been one of the best regarded N64 games, if it weren’t for how damn stiff those controls felt.
Rugrats: Search For Reptar
You remember that horror game craze that occurred in the early 2010s? Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Dead Space 2, Cry of Fear, and of course the Slender games and the endless clones they spawned. Gave all those screamy YouTubers like PewDiePie and Markiplier their mainstream boom and before long everyone was playing these games and making out their pants had been shat in search of likes and views.
Well to them I would issue a challenge to play Rugrats: Search For Reptar because good lord that game is unsettling.
Yes, a Rugrats game, designed for children no older than primary school age. As if being blessed with some of the most uncanny graphics of the PS1 era was bad enough, the soundtrack of looped samples is just plain unsettling. Creeps and chills down your spine in the darkened hallways of a toy store, or the halls of your home plagued by monsters that go ‘oogie-boogie’. Cold sweats on your back as you’re attacked by robots small and massive in basements and toy shops. Feelings of isolation and then some as you navigate a rat-infested sewer in search of a doll. 210bpm from jammed keyboard buttons in the background as you chase a goose that’s kidnapped your best mate.
I’m not making that last one up by the way.
But when the soundtrack isn’t acting like this is a child’s Resident Evil, it still hovers between offputting, annoying, and occasionally whimsical. I mean, baby psychedelia is never a genre I’d believe could exist but I think that best describes the music for the Mirrorland bonus level.
Grand Theft Auto: London 1969
It might honestly be for the best that I have never bothered to learn how to drive considering my first exposure to GTA came at the tender age of five. If you’re wondering how I even ended up playing this, I can only assume it came with the collection of other games I inherited. Luckily this particular iteration of GTA was made during a time before hot coffee and racist slurs over XBOX Live, and I was too young to fully understand the swear words in the subtitles, so I guess all’s good in the end.
Oh the soundtrack? Proper 60s instrumentals. You only get a set radio station depending on which vehicle you drive, and they only play two songs maximum. This does mean certain songs can get grating the further into the game you go, but you can have the whole thing wrapped up within two hours. Me personally, I was comfortable enough bombing around in a Myni (as spelt in the game) and committing hit and runs to the almost unbearably catchy “Beat Fuga Shake”. The Sounds of Soho radio station keeps the Italian imports in play with the spy thriller “Tema di Londra” from Francesco De Masi and Alessandro Alessandroni. Those two also have a couple of tracks waiting for you on Kaleidoscope radio. Oh sorry that should be ‘WAAAGGH! This is Kaleidoscope!’.
If reggae’s more your style, find a car tuned in to Bush Sounds for a double bill of the Upsetters, or Heavy Heavy Monster Sounds who provide the song that makes you go ‘Shit, my tax returns!’. Yup, it’s “Liquidator”. From Riz Ortolani, we get trumpet-led pop, the sort of pop that makes you go pop. Not my words, the words of the DJ manning Radio Andorra bringing you some of the most dissonant music for a chase or kill frenzy. And honourable mention must go to “Saturday Nite at Dirty McNasty’s” as broadcast by Radio 7, as it will become the literal soundtrack to terrorism should you find the golden tank. ‘London’s day of hell’, indeed.
But nothing compares to “Beat Fuga Shake”: ‘So let’s blow it up again!’.
Destroy All Humans 1 & 2
Everything’s getting remade these days. Star Fox, Last Airbender, Dune. And this cult classic from the Playstation 2 had a fresh coat of paint applied with a hefty pricetag a few years ago. But you know what? Good, because Destroy All Humans is never a series that truly got its flowers. Camp horror at its finest.
Game one is set in 1950s America and, being a parody of b-movie films about alien invasions that were prevalent at the time, the soundtrack is heavily influenced by that. But the great thing about it is perspective. You’re the alien, you’re the invader, you’re the villain of this story. To hear it back you up as you wipe the open world maps clean of humans and buildings, you feel tempted to crack a mirthless smile. If you were the hero, humanity’s last bastion of hope? You’d feel buggered. Heck, by the time you hear the culminative tracks of Capitol City, shit is sold as having well and truly hit the fan.
Game two keeps that motif going, but now we’re in the 60s and globetrotting. Bay City is peace and love being squashed to smithereens. Albion’s music takes inspiration from John Barry. Takoshima’s Asian flavouring provides a nice nod to Godzilla (to say nothing of the final mission in that location) and mention must also go the delightful zen track that plays when you visit the temple. Tunguska evokes the claustrophobic chills and paranoia of a backwater Russian town. And Solaris, set on the moon, has all the ingredients for a climatic showdown as events come to a head. And it’s all perfect, hence why it never needed redoing when the remakes came out over the past few years. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Glad that was adhered to, for once.
There’s some actual songs to be found in-game, and there’s always time for you to give them a listen in the pause menu. Again, it’s all to set the scene in the 60s. “Pattern Skies” was always a favourite of mine, and “Straight Thru You” is a rocker.
WWF SmackDown: Just Bring It!
Like FIFA, you always have a first when it comes to wrestling games. Mine’s 2001’s Just Bring It!, which doesn’t have a great reputation owing to its subpar story mode and madlibs commentary. However, I very much view the whole thing through the ol’ rosy specs. And of all the soundtracks I’ve talked about today, this is the one that most easily transports me to the time I was a young and impressionable boy, playing this with my best friend in his bedroom and getting soundly beat because I insisted on playing as Steven Richards of all people (Side-note, I’m not going to talk about the wrestlers’ entrance music, but Stevie’s…oi. If you know, you know. If you don’t, turn the volume down).
As time has gone on, WWE games have been made of harsh punk rock, metal or select themes from wrestlers. But in the series’ early days, they were original pieces composed specifically for the games, and at this stage they were these dark but lush techno-industrial tracks. Indicative of the turn of the millennium, sounding like they came from a not-too-distant future. And what’s most impressive about them is they somehow put you in the mindset of how a wrestler would feel in each mode, each stage.
When creating your own wrestler or their moveset, the track builds and builds as you get every fine detail right, perfecting your design to be the best in the ring. When choosing a match, you’re deciding how best to entertain yourself and the 2D crowds. When selecting your wrestler, the action’s building and you’re one step from beginning your battle for the ages.
Then there’s the background music for when you’re in a match, with guitar riffs aplenty, some electronic beats and the occasional sampled rap. Being reused when you’re wandering aimlessly backstage in story mode means going up and down a corridor will have never felt so cool.
A-Side Glance 