Look­ing back among all the Gam­ing in Stereo’s I have posted the only fight­ing game sound­track I have fea­tured was var­i­ous Street Fight­ers. Today, we are going to lis­ten to a recently released fight­ing game that has been cap­ti­vat­ing my time, Injus­tice: Gods Among Us. Injus­tice is from the tal­ented peo­ple at Nether­Realm Stu­dios, the peo­ple behind the crit­i­cally praised Mor­tal Kom­bat (2011). Injus­tice is based on DC comic char­ac­ters like Bat­man, Super­man, and The Flash, and thrown into a chaotic fight between two worlds. Dur­ing DC’s many story lines there have been alter­nate earths, show­ing dif­fer­ent real­i­ties. In Injus­tice, one of these earths shows an alter­nate real­ity where Super­man, grief stricken by the mur­der of Lois Lane at the hands of the Joker, has seized con­trol of earth; he has lived long enough to see him­self become the vil­lain. I applaud Nether­Realm for being gutsy enough that dur­ing this alter­nate real­ity, they killed off some char­ac­ters. Nether­Realm has set the bar for sin­gle player cam­paigns in fight­ing games and Injus­tice is no excep­tion, clock­ing in around 8 hours, which is bet­ter than most AAA titles. The game mechan­ics are solid and there is a bevy of con­tent in the S.T.A.R. Lab mis­sions, unlock­ables, and online game modes. The music is just as epic as the combatant’s them­selves. It was a shame that I had to go into the set­tings and turn up the music, but once it’s heard it fits nicely into the game. Today we are going to look at two specif­i­cally, and funny enough they both appear in menus. I hope you enjoy the music of Injus­tice: Gods Among Us.

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Injus­tice: Gods Among Us – Christo­pher Drake

This is the title track for the game and shows up right after you hit start. This track plays dur­ing the main menu, but just because it’s at a menu doesn’t make it any less effec­tive at hyp­ing you to watch show downs between DC finest heroes and vil­lains. The march like atmos­phere lead­ing up to the (1:46) feels heroes march; that you are about to walk amongst gods. At the (1:46) mark the song tran­si­tions into some­thing more seri­ous, that feel of heroes ris­ing to an occa­sion. Through­out the story there are plenty of heroes and some where you would least expect them.

Jus­tice is Done – Dean Grinsfelder

This track I per­son­ally hunted down, there is a por­tion of the track that plays dur­ing the char­ac­ter viewer that is breath­tak­ing. As some­thing sim­ple as look­ing at a char­ac­ter model, turns into an epic gaze. The later part of the track reminds me of the music from Nolan’s Dark Knight Tril­ogy, which was done by Hans Zim­mer. The part of the track that is played dur­ing the char­ac­ter viewer starts at the (1:22) mark. It just reminded me of how epic these char­ac­ters are, how much they sac­ri­fice, that despite adver­sity they still over come, these are the heroes earth deserves. The title of the track is fit­ting, Nether­Realm has given these char­ac­ters justice.

Through­out this con­sole life cycle, my pri­mary gam­ing machine has been the 360. I have a Wii and a PlaySta­tion 3; but most of my friends had 360’s, I pre­fer the 360 con­troller to the DS3, and until recently, Xbox Live was the way to go. Though I do enjoy Microsoft’s box, doesn’t mean the that Sony’s or Nintendo’s sat idly by. There has been sev­eral series I have enjoyed on the PS3 and today we look at some of those themes. I spent the entire week­end, out­side of Fri­day, div­ing deep into my PS3 col­lec­tion and rekin­dling a love with Warhawk. I updated the game early on Sat­ur­day and spent the remain­der of the day enthralled with the huge map lay­outs, vehi­cle com­bat, and the glo­ri­ous flight of the Warhawks. Sun­day I spent the day, before Game of Thrones, try­ing to fin­ish my playthrough of the only God of War title I have never fin­ished, God of War II. In between updates to titles and Warhawk matches, I played matches of PlaySta­tion All-Stars Bat­tle Royale on the Vita. I was knee deep in PlaySta­tion good­ness all week­end and it is now con­verg­ing into an all-star theme line up on Gam­ing in Stereo, enjoy!

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Nate’s Theme 3.0 — Uncharted 3: Drake’s Decep­tion Offi­cial Sound­track — Greg Edmonson

I have fea­tured Nate’s Theme from Uncharted: Drake’s For­tune as per­formed by the Lon­don Phil­har­monic Orches­tra on here before, but today we are get­ting the orig­i­nal com­po­si­tion and what I feel is the great­est ren­di­tion. Nate’s Theme is quite pos­si­bly the great­est known theme of the PS3 era. Naughty Dog crafted a impeca­ble tril­ogy with Uncharted, that took a cin­e­matic approach to gam­ing like no one before. Uncharted 2 still is one of the high­est rated titles on the PS3 and of this gen­er­a­tion. It ranks, on GameRankings.com, as 8^th high­est reviewed game of all time right under the likes of Super Mario 64, Soul­Cal­ibur, and Leg­end of Zelda: Ora­rina of Time. Nate’s Theme per­fectly describes the series with music. The epic horns, exotic drums, and Indi­ana Jones like theme crafted a well sense of trea­sure hunt­ing and expe­di­tions. Lighter touches, for instance at the (0:42) mark, make you feel that this is an adven­ture about peo­ple. The superb voice act­ing, scripts, and motion cap­ture make you care about Drake, Elena, Sully, and the rest of the cast. The series may have it’s beau­ti­ful vis­tas, excit­ing fire­fights, and glo­ri­ous set pieces; but the romance between Nate and Elena, the mentor/father fig­ure Sully is to Nate, and watch­ing Nate grow as a char­ac­ter was where I found Uncharted’s bril­liance. Eas­ily one of best trilo­gies avail­able for PS3 and one of the best sound­tracks of this gen­er­a­tion; if you have played the Uncharted series, I hope you loved it as much as I have, Enjoy!

God of War III Over­ture — God of War III Offi­cial Sound­track — Ger­ard Marino

The God of War series was some­thing I got into late in the PS2 cycle. I played the first one on the PS2, played both PSP titles, and played the third on the PS3. God of War II unfor­tu­nately slipped by my radar, it was also shipped extremely late in the PS2 life­cy­cle. The series has always enjoyed crit­i­cal and com­mer­cial suc­cess. An action game wrapped deeply in greek mythol­ogy, the series known for its bru­tal com­bat, epic sound­tracks, visu­als that push it’s hard­ware, and Kratos, the main pro­tag­o­nist that has rage and daddy issues. Kratos and the God of War series has become syn­ony­mous with the PlaySta­tion brand. New con­soles or hand­helds typ­i­cally will fea­ture a God of War title some time in its lifes­pan. The PS2 had 2 titles, the PS3 just received its sec­ond title, and the PSP had 2 titles as well. The height of the series cam with God of War 3. GoW3 pushed the PS3 hard­ware to cre­ate some amaz­ing visu­als that ran most of the time at 60 FPS. The scope of the third entry dwarfed those of the pre­vi­ous titles; the open­ing of 3 was an epic assault on Olym­pus by the titans, led by Kratos. The God of War III Over­ture cap­tures the main musi­cal ele­ments of the series and brought them into a epic con­clu­sion. Sony released the God of War Saga (which I had to pick up), which include God of War 1–3 and the two PSP titles in one pack­age on the PS3. Ama­zon cur­rently has it for $36.

Dark Pur­suit — Warhawk Offi­cial Sound­track - Christo­pher Lennertz & Tim­o­thy Michael Wynn

Warhawk was one of those titles I bought a PS3 for. Warhawk is a mul­ti­player only title, but is one of the best mul­ti­player titles avail­able this gen­er­a­tion. This third per­son action game com­bined what I love about Bat­tle­field (large open maps and unprece­dented vehic­u­lar com­bat) and Advanced Wars/Battalion Wars (a quirky, chunky style), into a recipe that,  despite being launched in 2007, still has an active com­mu­nity to this day. Hav­ing an active com­mu­nity for a title as old as Warhawk, is typ­i­cally unheard of on the con­sole scene. To accom­pany the action and thrill of flight, Lennertz and Wynn have crafted a sound­track that feels lifted out of a World War 2 movie. From the start of the track until the (1:48) mark, is what plays dur­ing the menus. The menu has a run­ning of video of flight through clouds and the track feels like that sense of won­der, of accom­plish­ing flight for the first time, and liv­ing in a time of advance­ment and spec­ta­cle. The can be had for the small price of $2.99 at a local GameStop. It is as epic as Dark Pur­suit and some of the most fun I have played on the PlaySta­tion Net­work. I salute Warhawk for stay­ing strong and pre­vail­ing through a gen­er­a­tion where mul­ti­player titles don’t suc­ceed unless there is a Call of Duty trade­marked into the title. Archipelago is by far one of the best maps I have ever played. Go give it a try to see the epic 32 player action title can offer.

Releas­ing last month on Over­Clocked Remix, Milky Way Wishes is the lat­est album to come from the great com­mu­nity of con­trib­u­tors. Milky Way Wishes is a trib­ute to on the Kirby’s SNES out­ings, Kirby Super Star. If you are new to the fea­ture, Over­Clocked Remix is a com­mu­nity ded­i­cated to video game music and remixes. It’s a non-profit group that started back in 1999. All the arrange­ments are free and done by the com­mu­nity; for the love of the game, as they say. With some of the albums, there is some great art­work to be has as well. With this album, the down­load con­sisted of the dou­ble disc album and a folder filled to the brim with cre­ative art­work. The art fea­tures the same sto­ry­book style the game shares, there is a gallery of sam­ples at the end of the arti­cle. It’s timely that I decided this week to fea­ture Kirby, as he makes his Wii U Vir­tual Con­sole debut this week on the 17^th.

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The BEST 2 Min­utes and 14 Sec­onds of YOUR LIFE (Peanut Plains) — ProtoDome

I picked the three tunes from the album I enjoyed the most but there is wide range of genre’s rep­re­sented on the album. I loved this track for it’s use of chip­tunes and the pur­pose dri­ven stut­ter­ing and stops. The most dra­matic stop is at the (0:56) mark, the first time I lis­tened to the song, I thought it was over; just to come back with a big­ger sec­ond half. There is a sec­ond break at (1:47) to fin­ish out the track. It’s a fun track and that can best describe the Kirby titles; they were never truly dif­fi­cult, but you had a hard time ton­ing down the smile.

Spelunk­ing in Space (Cocoa Cave) — Hylian Lemon

This one starts off a lit­tle calm and des­o­late, then at the (0:23) mark kicks the track into dance mode with puls­ing beats and great use of chip­tunes. I love the lower bass hits at (1:04). Around the (1:49) the song tran­si­tions into a slower ser­ine  feel, only to be sped up again hit­ting back into the chip­tunes. The great melody and tempo tran­si­tions make this track just as fun as the pre­vi­ous. I can’t remem­ber this orig­i­nal track off the top of my head, I may have to dive into my Kirby 25^th Anniver­sary col­lec­tion and fire up Super Star; love the track though.

A Green Green Ded­ede (Great King Dedede’s Theme/Green Greens) –Sir_NutS

It wouldn’t be a Kirby album with the inclu­sion of Green Greens, one of the most iconic Kirby tracks. The track starts with King Dedede’s theme and tran­si­tions over at the (1:36) mark. It’s another heavy dance beat, chip­tune infused track. I would love to play this at a club and see the reac­tions. The King Ded­ede theme at the begin­ning of the track feels like it came off on of the Mega Man OC remix albums; fast tempo, lots of infused sounds, just as impos­ing as a Robot Mas­ter fight.

The album is full of great music rang­ing from dance beats; to somber piano pieces; to clas­si­cal Japan­ese inspired pieces; to even a Ska piece. I urge you to down­load it your­self, it is free. You can down­load the album + art­work combo from here, the eas­i­est way to down­load it is to just hit one of the mir­rors. Again, below is a gallery with some of the fan­tas­tic art­work, there is plenty more in the full down­load. I hope every­one enjoys Milky Way Wishes.

To be quite hon­est, I was never sold on Assassin’s Creed 3. I never cared much for the time period, I still want Vic­to­rian Lon­don. I really don’t care for Amer­i­can his­tory. It’s dread­fully bor­ing; full of ter­ror­is­tic acts; forc­ing the Native Amer­i­cans from their homes; and full of ques­tion­able “heroes”. Until 3, I have much love for the series. Even the lesser titles like Rev­e­la­tions, I played till com­ple­tion, and enjoyed my time with them. I hardly heard good things said about the main pro­tag­o­nist, Con­nor Ken­way. Jes­per Kyd, one of my favorite com­posers, was not return­ing to score the third entry. I did, how­ever, wanted to see how the cur­rent Desmond story arc fin­ished so when I found the game for a good price, I picked it up recently.

After sink­ing well over 25 hours into it and have still not com­pleted the main story line, my atti­tude towards the game has dra­mat­i­cally changed; I still loathe Amer­i­can his­tory though. Despite being set in the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion, the time period in itself is intrigu­ing. The story between the Tem­plars and Assas­sins dur­ing the time period is the most intrigu­ing of the series. Con­nor is the son of Haytham Ken­way, a British Tem­plar and Kaniehti:io a Native Amer­i­can. He falls into the Assas­sins by way of a vil­lage elder and under the guid­ance of Achilles Dav­en­port, a retired assas­sin, becomes an assas­sin him­self. Con­nor took some time to get used to. Con­nor is not the suave, charismatic hero that Ezio was. Con­nor is brash, angry, and head­strong. Orphaned as a small boy; never really fit­ting in since he was of two worlds; find­ing and meet­ing his father to find out he is the enemy; con­stantly being manip­u­lated by his father and rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies; this all could be a bit much. I feel it all came together to give me a proper feel for this char­ac­ter; he is tragic. I never felt bad for the other assas­sins in the fran­chise despite some of them see­ing hard­ship, though Con­nor I feel for. After putting all this time into the game and hear­ing what Lorne Balfe did with the sound­track; this is becom­ing one of my favorites in the series. Lorne Balfe did con­tribute to the Assassin’s Creed: Rev­e­la­tions sound­track as well as help­ing Hans Zim­mer on sev­eral game and movie soundtracks.

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Assassin’s Creed III : Main Theme — Assassin’s Creed III Offi­cial Sound­track — Lorne Balfe

I finally sat at the main screen long enough the other night to expe­ri­ence this full song, and I instantly bought it. Though parts of the theme, and the Vari­a­tion below, can be heard through­out the game. The theme is epic; rang­ing from mod­ern sounds in the begin­ning, to the lower brass fea­tur­ing the main theme, and at (1:00) giv­ing way for the main thor­ough­fare to break through. The song feels heroic, yet tragic; As with Con­nor. I really wish I would have given this game and sound­track time last year, this song could have eas­ily bro­ken my top five list.

Assassin’s Creed III: Main Theme Vari­a­tion - Assassin’s Creed III Offi­cial Sound­track — Lorne Balfe

This vari­a­tion on the main theme plays through­out the game when fin­ish­ing mis­sions or one of Con­nors plot points are fin­ished. I love the sin­gle vio­lin at the begin­ning and the con­stant drum­beat are rem­i­nis­cent of other tracks that can be heard through­out the cities and is very fit­ting for the time period. It’s not a long vari­a­tion but the main theme’s from the orig­i­nal are car­ried over, with the the­atrics toned down a bit. I am really happy with what Mr. Balfe did with the soundtrack.

With the upcom­ing Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag due out this fall, I am not tired of this yearly release. I am inter­ested though, since it will be a pre­quel and fea­ture Edward Ken­way, Con­nors grand­fa­ther, will we ever see Con­nor again. Ezio had three games, Altair was in one and parts of Rev­e­la­tions. If not, it has been a great jour­ney play­ing as Ratonhnhaké:ton (Con­nors proper name) and expe­ri­enc­ing this unique, if not widely appre­ci­ated character.

I apol­o­gize again for miss­ing last week, I caught some­thing that had me inca­pac­i­tated last week and even post­ing head­lines was a feat; but this week I am back and so is my reg­u­larly sched­uled arti­cles. This week on Gam­ing in Stereo we will lis­ten to two tracks from games that had or have released this week. They are both ren­di­tions from the Lon­don Phil­har­monic Orches­tra, though both are very close to their orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions. This week Luigi’s Man­sion: Dark Moon saw release on Sun­day and Bioshock: Infi­nite makes it along waited debut tomor­row. The tracks are from their pre­de­ces­sors. If I wasn’t broke and had to chose which game I got this week, I would have been play­ing Luigi’s Man­sion already while wait­ing in line tomor­row for Bioshock: Infi­nite. Both are great series and see­ing both back after such a long hia­tus is a wel­come site. Enjoy!

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Luigi’s Man­sion: Main Theme — Lon­don Phil­har­monic Orchestra

The orig­i­nal theme was com­posed by Kazumi Totaka, who also voices Pro­fes­sor E. Gadd in the game. Totaka has pro­vided sound­tracks to other Nin­tendo games such as Yoshi’s Story and Ani­mal Corss­ing, but those are noth­ing like the fun yet haunt­ing tracks of Luigi’s Man­sion. The Main Theme has that clas­sic Mario magic feel to it, but it also feels like it fell out of a Tim Bur­ton film that was scored by Danny Elf­man. It’s light heart­ened but has enough villainous, dark tones to feel like it prop­erly fits in a haunted man­sion. Just lis­ten­ing to this over an over again makes me want Hal­loween to be every day. I, for one, and very happy they finally made a sequel to one of my favorite Game­Cube games.

Bioshock: The Ocean on his Shoul­ders - Lon­don Phil­har­monic Orchestra

Bioshock was not only a rev­e­la­tion in the FPS genre, but it gave new mean­ing to the term “atmos­phere”. The shrill of the muted brass at the begin­ning gives way to the ter­rors that await you in Rap­ture, though slowly taper off to the beau­ti­ful vio­lin show­ing the beauty of this once great city on the ocean floor. Irra­tional Games has a knack for cre­at­ing beau­ti­ful, real­ized worlds; Rap­ture was full of promise, sci­en­tific genius, and yet, full of mani­a­cal men dri­ven mad by greed and power. Gary Schy­man did the orig­i­nal score for Bioshock and Bioshock 2, he has returned for Bioshock: Infi­nite. It just so hap­pens his musi­cal genius was also heard in the depths of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, another favorite game of mine from this gen­er­a­tion. Enjoy!