It’s lunch time, so it’s about time I got around to this week’s Random Music Monday as well as a quick update of my weekend gaming activities. I didn’t get in much gaming this weekend because, in a random fit of mad productivity, I actually managed to accomplish a bunch of stuff that I should have wrapped up weeks ago. When I did get time to sit down in the dull glow of my monitor, I tapped into the amazing gameplay of System Shock 2 for a bit. I had forgotten how much I love this game (and how awful it makes BioShock look in comparison), and especially the bits in which Xerxes is usurped by Shodan. I’ve always had a “thing” for synthesized corruption of speech, so when the screeching, debuffering voice of Xerxes announces “Hostile AaAAaaaaaaaIIIIiiiiiiiiiii” it’s so goddamn eerie and so freaking cool at the same time.
Anyway. My friend Dominic just posted a piece of music he composed recently to his YouTube, and as I was listening to it I was reminded of another song I hadn’t heard in a long time. After a little bit of annoyed thinking, I was able to find the song I was thinking of. By the incomparable Michael Giacchino, “Arnhem Knights” is a song composed for the soundtrack of Medal of Honor: Frontline for PS2, and was played during the level in which you run through the rubble of the city of Arnhem during Operation: Market Garden as the allies and nazis literally level the town in their attempts to destroy one another. I particularly remember turning down a back alley in an attempt to get to the top of an apartment building where machinegunners are cutting my team to bits just as the high point of this song hits, and I recall it being a rather powerful emotional experience at the time.
Anyway, here’s the music.
