CEONSS

Thaaaanks <3

Btw:

Aaaaaand Playgroooound:

Man, I can't believe it's been a whole year since the last time I posted a game soundtrack. I know I said I'd keep a lax pace, but damn. Time for some electronic VGM goodness once again

.

In case you've never heard of it, Frozen Synapse is an excellent tactical squad, simultaneous turn-based strategy game made for the PC in 2011 by a little british studio in Oxford known as Mode 7 Games. It featured themes like a cyberpunk dystopia with corporate govts and AI agents controlling human drones, had a pretty slick, albeit minimalistic, top-down presentation and a poker-like quality to its gameplay depth by forcing players to read and anticipate their opponents when planning their squad's individual unit actions, simulating possible enemy responses and, finally, committing their orders to wait for the mayhem to play out in realtime when all sides are done. Ugh, long sentence there, sorry.
More crucially to this post's purposes, however, is that it also has a pretty kickass soundtrack, composed and produced by Paul Taylor, aka nervous_testpilot, who's also the co-owner of Mode 7 (how often does a studio bigwig also happen to've creatively contributed to a game's assets/music? I can only think of Ikaruga director Hiroshi Iuchi as the only other such case). Granted, this one's not as consistently upbeat or chiptuney as Shatter's OST and, instead, feels a bit more introspective and atmospheric to match the game's kinda overbearing/moody tone, but IMO the result is just as good and evocative. Take a look at this trailer set to the first 2 tracks of the game's OST back to back to see just what I mean:

The innate unpredictability of its outcomes (like that heroic shotgunner run @1:20-1:30) and the flexibility of its unsynchronous playstyle which allowed ppl to have multiple games in progress with different folks at the same time and upload caps of fun matches to YT all led to Frozen Synapse becoming a critical darling for 2011 and won it a couple o' awards and numerous accolades, including for its music. TotalBiscuit said he loved it as well, sooo... there's that too if that means anything to you, I guess. The game later came out for Android & iOS devices and also got an xpack last year in FS Red. Red featured 6 new music tracks, but while worth a listen, they're not as good as the original 10 IMO. Okay, I think that's enough background info for now.

Anyway, if you like what you heard, you can listen to the entire OST on YT starting here. Alternatively, if laggy, rolling pages of YT HQ playlists ain't your thing, you can hear the whole thing more neatly at Bandcamp as well. In either case, keep in mind that the OST proper ends with track #10; don't bother with "Menu" as it barely qualifies as music, let alone anything on par with the rest of it. Feel free to support the artist if so inclined too. Grab a good pair of headphones and have fun

!

Recently I had to travel half through Germany having to listen to several different radio stations. Quite annoying all this charts shit, repeatedly played no matter where you are or which station you pick. Honestly, Kate Perry 10 times a day? :vomit:
Luckily, we got an alternative radio station here at Hamburg, no mainstream at all

Always some fresh new bands instead like

Is it wrong that this song gives me the horn?

Well, by this point I imagine Angus' music might've justifiably started being used as a legitimate clinical pathology exam to test for one's vital stats and basic motor functions, sooo yeah, your reaction too falls within normal params, Cat

. Also, holy shit, it took 15 pages to lure him out, but Heinz finally posted some music! The end days are upon us!

Ahem. Anywho, I had other plans for my next post, but then I came up across something earlier today I figured was post-worthy enough to hold all that off. Following the life-affirming, statistical analysis trend Cat kicked off awhile back, here's some Barenaked Ladies for ya as visualized by popular american machinima-and-sundry comedy troupe Rooster Teeth (and YT friends!).