you got game (music) #4

If any three words could sum up my gaming habits in the late nineties, those three words would probably be 'Command and Conquer' or even 'Command & Conquer' if we're going to be pedantic about it. Top down real time strategy games that I was well into back then. The gameplay was solid, the tone (at least in the early games) had the vague feel of the real world about it and most importantly for the subject of today's post, it had a stonking great soundtrack that still holds up all these years later. 

Yes I have many great fond memories of the initial game and its immediate follow up, the alternate history inspired Red Alert. Over time the sheen would come off somewhat and by the time the series retired it was firmly in the realm of self-parody but for a while there there was nothing quite like settling into a game of Command & Conquer. The medium tanks! The heavy tanks! The Tesla Coils! That little noise soldiers made when tanks ran them over that sounded a little bit like the sound of a grape getting squished underfoot! Not to mention the acting in those mission briefings, oh the acting and the CGI work of the late nineties! Yes I have much love for Command & Conquer and I do wish someone at EA would get around to giving it another chance one of these days.

As I say, it wasn't just the game-play itself as good as that was, for me it was also very much about the mood and the atmosphere. The soundtrack does more than its share of the heavy lifting here courtesy of one Mr Frank Klepacki, a longtime collaborator with the team at the much-missed Westwood Studios. His soundtrack really etched itself into the brain of many a gamer back then. When news broke a few years ago of the then imminent release of the Command & Conquer remastered collection, this triggered an almost immediate nostalgia for the soundtrack of these games amongst many of my peers. Foreboding synths, rocking guitars, thumping techno assault. The soundtrack to these games are something special indeed. 

So please enjoy this selection of my especially favourite tracks from the C&C games. With the news that the entire series is now available on Steam I may just have to load up the old gaming PC and do some nostalgia hunting in the near future.