Game Music #1

Star Control 2 - The Precursors Remixes

Anyone who's played the awesome Star Control 2 (a.k.a. Ur-Quan Masters) will be familiar with the high quality of its audio. Not just music, but many fantastic and memorable sound effects, and hours of speech from the game's various races too. But, yes, the music was particularly grand and has been a permanent fixture on my Cellphone/MP3 Player. Whether it's making the long journeys across hyperspace more interesting, increasing the already prevalent feeling of fear when the pack of anonymous ships chasing you turns out to be a fleet of Kohr-Ah Maruaders intent on 'cleansing' you, filling you with a sense of determination as you face enemies in battle, or making you feel like a pioneering explorer as you discover new planets in the furthest corners of the galaxy, all the music in Star Control 2 is fantastically composed, atmospheric and suits the situation it's used for perfectly.

The Precursors project is the brainchild of a Finnish gentleman by the name of Riku Nuottajärvi. He was the composer of some of the original songs from Star Control 2 itself, and he had the idea of remixing all the 69 (giggity) songs found in the game. This would of course be a lot of work, so he recruited some help from the fan community. Although many helpers came and went while the project was underway, the core group of composers would eventually become Riku, Jouni Airaksinen (also from Finland), and two Norwegian fellows called Espen Gätzschmann and Tore Aune Fjellstad (I'm guessing SC2 is popular in Scandinavia!). Between them they have remixed over 40 full-length songs, as well as various shorter tunes and ditties from the game, and as far as I know, the project is ongoing. I hope so because the results so far have been outstanding!

The remixes so far are mostly in a dance/trance/techno style, which suits the game pretty well. They are a mixture of alien race theme songs, and other songs such as the hyperspace, quasispace, battle themes, etc, and are free to download, so you have no excuse not to listen to them! Granted, neither game music or dance music are to everyone's tastes, but those of you who enjoy either are advised to check them out. It just goes to show how dedicated the Star Control fan community is!

Special Note: The Precursors remixes are free to download from their homepage here. Further fan remixes (non-Precursors ones), not to mention loads of other Star Control-related stuff, can be found at The Pages Of Now And Forever here.