intylab on 10/10/2008 at 00:33
Given the year that SS1 was released, the designers did a great job of using the music to set the mood. There are a few places in SS1 that I remember well.
The elevators: much like the black boxes that survive airplane crashes, the campy music still plays endlessly in all the elevators throughout Citadel station. Perhaps the music itself was composed by Shodan as a torture device for any lingering survivors. There's nothing like having that music as a backdrop while fighting a dozen mutants guarding the entrance to Level 2.
The maintenance corridors: the first thing that hits you is how eerily silent things are in Level 3. Then if you don't get your butt kicked by something you didn't see, you start to figure out that the "music" is really mechanical ambience. That makes an even better backdrop while you're fighting against who-knows-what, and contrasts the cheery elevator music when you're sprinting across the hallway to and from Level 6 in terror. I'd love to listen to the whole medley, but the only "maintenance music file" that I found and downloaded is incomplete.
The flight bays: it's the same mechanical sounds as in the maintenance corridors, but it still fills me with dread every time the music from the rest of Level 5 gives way to this. It's as if the music engine itself is operated by Shodan, and it knows where I am.
The groves: same as with the maintenance corridors, the serenity of the ambience here is shattered by the ominous growls from an approaching gor-tiger mutant, or whenever I take a couple nasty hits from a mutant plant that turns out to be right beside me! Beta grove is that much worse, since I'm suffering worse than I ever did in the radioactive trench back in Level 1, but everything is so quiet.
The executive suites: I received the first distress e-mail from someone still alive on Citadel station, and when I went to Level 5, I received a second distress e-mail. I rushed through the level to salvage a few lives, but unfortunately for them, help arrived just a few minutes too late. There were plenty of other dead bodies I encountered up until now, but the memory of the crew I could have saved was still fresh when I took the elevator to Level 6. That made the music very sad to listen to.
Does anyone else have other memories that were enhanced by the music?
RocketMan on 10/10/2008 at 03:58
some might roll their eyes but I always got pumped up by cyberspace music...i also thought cyberspace was the coolest shit ever, considering the engine is largely equivalent to the same 1992 engine that ran ultima.
Lansing on 10/10/2008 at 23:31
It was horrible, truly horrible - but the elevator music meant you had reached a haven at least for a short time. Leave that 4ft by 4ft space and all bets were off.
Other than that, it's difficult. I love the executive suite music but the reactor 'music' also matched the atmosphere of that level. I was always disappointed that the music from the end sequence didn't last longer. The CD version improved on the disk version but it still wasn't long enough imho.
