I’ve been re-repping all my music CDs (again), this time to MP3s because I want to be able to listen to them in my car. I’ve got all the love in the world for Ogg Vorbis, but let’s face it, nothing supports it, and music is my life. I’m always listening to music. I’m rewriting a little frontend of mine that I’ve been using for years to access my music too. I used to kludge the MP3 metadata into tags and sort my music that way, but now I’m just going to tag it in a database or something and pull them out that way.
Anyway, the cool thing going through all my CDs (and my crap, there are a lot of them) is that I get to handle all the ones I haven’t listened to in a long time, and as a result sort of forget that I have. The soundtrack to Icewind Dale is one of them.
Now, first of all, it’s a real shame there are not more soundtracks to computer games out there. The concept slowly seems to be becoming more popular though. This one is well worth it if you are into celtic, ambient, new age or instrumental music. Most of the tracks are pretty short, but still amazingly good. “Kuldahar’s Theme” is one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve ever heard across my entire collection. The entire score is very high quality.
If you are interested in getting your own, just buy a copy of the Icewind Dale Ultimate Edition package. It will come with a copy of the CD.
The game itself is incredibly fun. I’ve played (and solved) the first one, along with the expansion pack, Heart of Winter. I really wish there were a lot more games out there based on the Baldur’s Gate game engine. Hopefully they will open source it someday so development can continue. I haven’t solved Icewind Dale II yet, or played it in a while … I kind of remember it as being a little bit harder.
The crazy thing I found out while doing my research about the soundtrack again was that there was one released for Neverwinter Nights … perhaps my most favorite game evah! And I don’t even have a copy! Not only that, but Neverwinter Nights 2 came out last month. Man, I am really not on the ball. Unfortunately, I’m too poor to rush out and buy one off the shelf right now (car payments and all), but I certainly can’t wait. I tell you what.
Hi,
speaking of Game Soundtracks: You probably already know about it, but there’s the OverClocked ReMix project which collects different remixes of game music. Some of them really don’t hit my taste, but others do. Basically, there’s something there for anybody.
Most, if not all tracks are reviewed and rated by users. All of them are available for download in mp3 format.
For selected games, well-aranged Albums have been created.
And if you want, you can listen to a webradio, featuring these remixes.
Philip