Hello all! Welcome back to Play It By Ear, a weekly column where every Friday I discuss my thoughts on a different video game’s soundtrack.
You can see the list of upcoming games and their corresponding playlists here. I will try to focus on lesser-known games or games whose soundtracks I feel can be a bit overlooked, but some of the bigger games may sneak their way in.
Today’s Game: Descent II
Suggested By: LumberGini
Release Date: March 13, 1996
Platform: MS-DOS, Windows, Mac OS, PlayStation
Developer: Parallax Software
Composer(s):
- Redbook OST – Brian Luzietti, Kevin Ogilvie, Mark Walk, Larry Peacock, Brad Cross, Leslie Spitzer, Mark Morgan, Ron Valdez, Johan Langlie, Type O Negative (band)
- MIDI OST – Dan Wentz
Other Works by Same Composer: Wolfenstein 3D (Mac OS version, 1994) (Brian Luzietti), Starfleet Academy (1997) (Brian Luzietti), Fallout (1997) (Mark Morgan), Fallout 2 OST (1998) (Mark Morgan), Planescape: Torment (1999) (Mark Morgan), Skinny Puppy (industrial rock band) (Kevin Ogilvie/Mark Walk)
Availability: YouTube
* Note that Descent II’s original release appears to have had two soundtracks – a MIDI one and a Redbook one. You can find a primer on the difference here, but essentially MIDI music is produced by the computer itself based on the game’s instructions while Redbook audio is recorded onto and played back from the CD-ROM. A CD-ROM with Redbook audio could be put into a CD player to listen to the music separately, and generally the track numbers started at ‘2’ (as can be seen in the playlist link) as Track 1 consisted of all of the game’s data.
The MIDI and Redbook soundtracks for Descent II were very different from each other, with completely separate tracks. We will be focusing on the Redbook soundtrack here, as it is more expansive and also, in my opinion, more interesting. If you want to listen to the MIDI soundtrack, you can find it here.
Number of Songs: 12
Approximate Total Time: 30 minutes
Played the Game? No.
What Kind of Game Is This? Descent II is a space-themed first-person shoot ‘em up (or SHMUP) game. You play as Material Defender, a mercenary hired by a mining corporation to destroy mines across six solar systems that have been taken over by rogue robots. Each system has four levels, with each requiring you to navigate to the center of a mine, destroy the reactor, and escape the exploding mine, all while being harried by robots. The game is notable both for allowing six degrees of freedom in its movement (a bit of a rarity in this style of game) as well as the large range of control schemes its supports.
Top Songs or Songs of Note (in Track Order):
Crawl
I really like the build-up with the percussion for the first 30 seconds or so. It makes the sudden introduction of the (excellent) shredding guitar riff hit harder than it might have otherwise.
Cold Reality
At first this one seems kind of low key compared to some of the others on the OST, but it ends up becoming very tense, very much like you are being chased or hunted. The evil laugh in the background definitely emphasizes this feeling.
Ratzez
Another really tense one like Cold Reality, the electronic sounds (especially that whistling-sounding segment near the end) and the distorted voice give it an unsettling atmosphere.
Crush
This one is really dynamic compared to some of the other tracks in the way it starts out loud and hard but will periodically quiet down. It has a great sense of building up to something big.
Are You Descent?
I love how intense the drums are on this one. Plus the name is just great.
Honorable Mentions: Glut, Haunted (Instrumental), Techno Industry
Overall Thoughts: I will admit, this one took me a while (and a few listens) to warm up to. I don’t have a lot of experience with either SHMUPs or industrial music, so my tastes weren’t in strong alignment with this OST and at times I found it difficult to tell the tracks apart. With each successive listen, though, I’ve found more to like and, although it’s still not my style, I’ve come to quite appreciate it.
It really is the guitar and the percussion that stand out the most across the soundtrack. (And there are some great riffs here.) Sometimes they can get a bit overwhelming for me, but in general they do a great job of working together on tracks like ‘Crawl’ and ‘Are You Descent’ to create a dark and deeply intense atmosphere. Both this tension and the heavily industrial feel of the entire OST seem to be very fitting for a game about destroying abandoned mines infested by malevolent robots. And despite my initial impressions, there are a lot of touches here and there – like the distorted vocals of ‘Ratzez’, the dynamic volume of ‘Crush’, or even the evil-sounding laugh in the background of ‘Cold Reality’ – that add some good variety to the mix. I might not have picked up this soundtrack on my own, but I am glad that I had the opportunity to give it a listen and broaden my musical horizons.
Bonus Prompts:
- Do you agree or disagree with my assessment of the soundtrack?
- Are there any tracks, that I mentioned or didn’t mention, that you would like to further discuss?
- What game soundtracks have you been listening to recently? What’s been grabbing your attention?
- Are there any game soundtracks that you would like me to cover in the future?
And there we have it! Thanks so much for reading and listening to this soundtrack with me.
Last Week: Potionomics
Next Week: Mario & Luigi: Dream Team