The Music Of Oddworld
 

Feel free to throw away this thread if this has been chatted about before, I'm just bored at work with nothing to do at the moment.

So I've wanted for a while to talk about the music in the OW series. I haven't played N'n'T yet, but I'm mainly talking about the first 4 anyways. AO always has had a wonderful soundtrack, but I hear people saying they dislike it all the time, especially the stockyards, which may just be my favorite part, audio-wise. AE was good to me, not too memorable though. MO, while people here have a ton of mixed opinions on how good or bad the game is, I think most people can agree the soundtrack was acceptable at worst. Personally, I have one of the MO songs on my playlist of tunes I game to. Then of course there's SW. SW's soundtrack always sounded considerably different than the previous games, but at the same time felt like it'd go well in a music mix with the previous game's soundtracks.

What's you all's opinions on them? Do you dislike the AO soundtrack like a lot of people seem to? Did AE have any memorable soundtracks to you? Was MO soundtrack fantastic to you as it is to me?

With that out of the way, the best thing about the AO/AE music is the dynamic element. I mention these every time the subject comes up, but the twinkling toes of the Glukkons, and the pounding leaps of the Scrabs, really made the soundtrack feel alive.

What's interesting to me is that is the number one complaint I hear is the dynamic scrab theme. I always felt like it was perfect hearing the sudden drums when the scrab starts chasing you.

I think Oziah did a remix of that second one. I always really loved the tinny sound that comes in around 9 seconds.

I suppose that's really the key to what makes me love these soundtracks, they always felt just perfect for the situations they were in, almost as a seamless meld of a soundtrack and ambient noise.

I love both soundtracks, it's hard to pick a favorite. I disagree that AE's was forgettable, but to be fair, I think I've played far more hours of AE.


A couple of my favorites

i dont remember the music in any of the games. The music is great, it fits the settings perfectly, but its not memorable to me. Its the type of music Ill recognise when I hear it, but I wont be humming it an hour after I stop playing.

I love pretty much the entire Exoddus soundtrack. But I will always remember Necrum the most.

You come out of Necrum Mines; which was a well lit, active place. To a lonely, overgrown graveyard. The music sounds so sinister and fits the environment perfectly.



Then the Fleeches show up. The music gets tense as your sneaking past them, One false step. And this blasts out of the TV.


Needless to say, It freaked me out so much when I was younger.

The music isn't trying to be a catchy theme-tune that gets stuck in your head. (Although FeeCo is rather catchy :P)

It's trying to make the environments feel more alive. And like what Meech said, The changing dynamic elements help to achieve that.

I love the music in the first two games, it's perfect. Munch's was pretty shit, and I haven't played Stranger or the remake so I wouldn't know.
Everyone's posted most of my favourites so I'll add these little gems to the mix.






It always annoyed me that there was never a good rip of the music from the nests, because of the dynamics and all that. If anyone's able to upload the separate beat files then I'd be happy to try and piece them together, I'd rip them myself but I don't know how.

I have to disagree. Munch had some pretty awesome music. Especially the theme

AO: Love.

AE: Love.

MO: Love, but in a slightly different way.

SW: Thought it was all right, I suppose.

I think what makes MO soundtrack so much different is it lost the dynamic factor. I still love it though.

The main problem with the MO soundtrack is that it has no interesting focal points or crescendos in any of the tracks. Because there’s no dynamic element, the game cannot predict when anything interesting is actually happening in the game and so can’t emphasize that by altering the soundtrack. And because the music has to fit any situation, they went with the lowest common denominator and made bland, repeating ambience.

The second problem is there’s too much of a synthetic/digital feel throughout it. It sounds something like a camp, grungy sci-fi flick, and doesn’t really bring in any more thematic or unique sounds in any areas. The place this suffers most is the native environments, I think.

None of the native themes were really good, mainly the industrial places.

That might be why I love it.

I think the music is blood iconic. Each track encapsulates the world perfectly and it gives you an idea as to what the microcosmic cultures of each level are. Simple, repetitive beats are often the most powerful I think and AO/AE exemplified that very well.

I've talked to Vyrien in length about this subject a number of times and I think we came to the agreement that FeeCo depot had one of the best songs of all the games:

I don't think I agree; SW had a lot of very good tunes and quite a few of them are, at least to me, very memorable. Things like At the Water Facility and A Remote Town still stick in my head. In the context of the game they are especially excellent as well.

SW was good, but it didn't have the same feel the others gave me.

Stranger's Wrath had a good range of music, mostly reminiscent of western films such as the Dollars trilogy. Munch's Oddysee had some interesting tunes here and there but by far it was AO and AE that did the dynamic music changes best.

One song I clearly remember is the Slig Barracks song. It feels like a kind of military march and it has a nice kind of rhythm to it. The nature themes in the temple levels are really good as well, particularly the bits where you run away from dozens of Paramites/Scrabs.

People didn't like the Stockyards music? Eh?

A very good job was done to match the music to each place. All of it just fits. Oddworld is definitely a game I couldn't play muted. (even if gamespeak wasn't a thing)

Here's a question I wouldn't mind being answered, (maybe with spoiler tags?) Are there any tracks in NnT that vary largely or noticeable from the original AO?

For what I can remember, The Rupture Farms music (when your in the other Zulags towards the end) is the only piece that's slightly different. It's still the same RF tune, just remixed. Think back to the original Abe HD trailer. I'm fairly sure it's the same music used in that.

On a similar note, does anyone know any other game soundtracks like the first two oddworld games have?

Soundtracks to AO and AE are perfection. Each track complimented the zone perfectly, and made you want to take your time and really soak up the atmosphere as much as you could. Savor it.

Then you have Munch where it sounds like a something Trent Reznor farted out after a night of burritos and beers. And it's the same goddamn music in nearly every level. And the way it would jarringly jump into the barren sound scape like that annoying childhood friend you pretended to like for whatever reason every time an enemy would come near you? That was just plain obnoxious.

Wait- MO had multiple tracks in it?

I think it had two: the "ambient" track (quiet sporadic synthy noises) and the HOLY SHIT ENEMIES (BWAAMBWOOOMBWUM) one.

At least that's all I can remember. I haven't played the game with proper sound (aka not on a 360) in over a decade.

Yeah that's right. When anything chases you, the music gets more hectic. I remember it working really well too.

Pfft lol okay.

I remember MO music being this weird techno-proto-dubstep bull shit that took a huge duke on the very notion of ambient music. I also only remember one track.

I did like 'Fuzzle Testing' though. It's actually really cool, relaxing music.

Please don't ever insult dubstep like that again.

Don't worry, I liked dubstep when I was 16 too.

For what the music was (weird, techno-dupstep blah blah) It did work when it needed to change. That's all i'm saying.

Obviously nowhere near as well as the Abe games but that's Munch's Oddysee in a nutshell isn't it.

What I meant by what I said about SW was basically:

:)