Give me the "we can do mp3 files now" 2000 era video game songs (this was supposed to be in all caps)

Games Video Games
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Fun thing about the 2000s for games was that we were suddenly able to store MP3 files in game disks and developers were all like “shit let’s be santa” and the worst and best era of game music ever happened. Sometimes we’d get songs that already existed, and sometimes a company would outright fucking contract some butt rock band you never heard of to do a theme song and it never worked and it was incredible.

Any and all Sonic tracks are allowed to be brought up, and I encourage this in particular.

To start us off, for some reason no human being has ever been able to explain, this song played on the menu for X-Blades a 2007 Russian PC action game ported to consoles worldwide two years later because it looked anime and the main girl had a thong and publishers were cashing in on the kids just now discovering Naruto hentai.

This song has absolutely nothing to do with X-Blades.

I am flabbergasted this happened in 2009 and I doubt this was in the original 2007 Russian version. It has piano, a singer giving it his all alongside a Linkin Park ass rapper, AND THEN IT JUST HAS A SLOW ACOUSTIC GUITAR BREAK. W-WHAT. WHY. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS. WHY IS THIS NOT IN EVERY VIDEO GAME EVER MADE!?!?!?

The band, Metaphysics, is also from Italy apparently, and I’m not sure if that band I looked up is the same one who did this song cause, you know, this song isn’t in Italian. WHO KNOWS!

But let us not forget Midway, the king of bad decisions during the sixth console gen! Literally every idea they ever had was a bad one! Take the theme song for Psi-Ops they commissioned!

WITH MY MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIND
WITH MY MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINDDD

I think the only way you could hear this in the game was in the credits, btw, which I never saw because those invisible enemies at the temple are horse shit. My favorite part is that it reads like Cold just took an already existing love song they already had in mind and then just started rewriting it to include mind powers. AND I’LL IGNITE YOUR FEELINDEYEI(???)

Listen to this Kroger the Ogre throat singing nonsense. It’s like if Creed and Korn got smashed together in a car accident. Oh, and Cold, the band, has apparently been around since 1986. Because nothing makes sense.

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This to me is in the introduction of the book on video game butt-rock in the 2000s.

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I really loved Breaking Benjamin in high school, saw them in concert and had a few of their CDs. Haha, good memories, I wonder if they hold up at all after a few years of not listening.

I would just post the whole MX vs ATV soundtrack, that was peak this era. But I’ll just post my favorite track when I was younger

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the same song has been posted four times. y’all can’t fool me

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I used my mom’s cassette recorder she had in college to record every Sonic Adventure 1&2 track that had vocals and I listened to it until the recorder broke.

Then I got an mp3 player and discovered khinsider and I was set on music till sophomore year of high school.

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This moment in Final Fantasy X really took me by surprise…

At the time, I couldn’t decide whether I loved it or hated it. I still can’t.

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ESCAPE FROM THE CITY. That’s all

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This predates the mo3 move a bit, but Interstate 76 was a PC game about driving cars and shooting guns and it had a great soundtrack that cribbed from the sound of 70’s film and tv. It came on a dual layer CD so that you could either play the game, or listen to the games soundtrack as an actual CD. Which I thought was the coolest thing.

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Obligatory posting of THPS, Burnout, and NFS

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I think a lot of the poor musical decisions made at this time were mostly because nü metal and mp3’s in games were around at the same time.

That said

  • Otherworld is incredible
  • Powerman 5000 are great too.

Anyways, I get this song stuck in my head once a week

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That doesn’t really count because that is an actual video game track composed by an actual composer. Granted, it does sound like the weird approximation of what Japan thinks Slayer sounds like, but not enough to really fit this collection of what even.

What makes the Sonic series difference is that the artist they got to sing tend to overpower the initial composition, and they apparently get to decide a lot of the English lyrics (at least Crush 40 does).

But then you have Powerman 5000 in Shadow the Hedgehog and I just don’t know anymore.

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I almost posted this song! That intro is soooooo much.

Really all the shadow the hedgehog track could be here, should be here

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What a thrill…

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I literally laughed out loud the first time I heard this song and I still chuckle whenever I hear it now. This is the true garbage of my youth.

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SNAKE EATER AND DEVILS NEVER CRY DON’T COUNT!!!

I’m talking about the weird, unfitting nonsense put in solely because video games could have recorded music now. Snake Eater is a homage to Bond films created for a thematic purpose. Devils Never Cry was a cheesy theme made for a cheesy game that absolutely fits what happens in it.

This? This is a rap from a Latino group they stuck on the menu of a B-game rip of GTA and Max Payne because the game took place in Mexico, despite the lyrics not fitting what happens in the game at all.

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To keep up the trend of extreme sports games, here’s the intro track to Splashdown:

Still think this is one of the best video game openings ever:

(full song if for some reason you wanted to hear it)

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Surprised nobody has brought up Tony Hawk 3: The Hawkening begins with Ace of Spades, my introduction to Motorhead but one of the more ill-fitting tracks in that game.

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Oh boy, I’ve got one. Ace Combat 5’s intro starts with this Gregorian chant and then abruptly rolls into Puddle of Mudd for NO REASON! It’s some glorious trash, considering the soundtrack for the game itself is awesome.

The “drop” is at 2:30

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Oh my god I completely forgot about this song and this was the best way to be reminded it existed

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But difficult to explain to people who were not paying attention at the time. “Well, see, it’s Rob Zombie’s little brother’s band and they were doing this sort of retro-science-fiction-themed industrial metal…”

still on my gym playlist though

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