Banjo Kazooie OST

Back in 1998 Rare released Banjo Kazooie on the N64 console.

 At the time it was released it already had at least three or four years worth of development and a console change, which makes for an interesting backstory. Originally Banjo Kazooie started life as Project Dream on the SNES at some point in the early 90's. It slid onto the N64 at around 1995 when it was deemed too large for the SNES. Project Dream has, as far as I know never been leaked or shown to the public bar this one screenshot printed in.. actually I have no idea where it was printed.

Interesting isn't it? There is more over here at Unseen64 including snippets of information taken from the blog of one Grant Kirkhope, who did the music.

So, you collect golden jigsaw pieces to progress to new levels - fair enough. Ten per level, with one of them being collecting five jingoes hidden throught the level. There are also health bar upgrades in the form of hollow honeycombs hidden, one per level. Lets not forget 100 notes per level which do not save upon exit and re-entry to the level (Which I just read is because  "Saving the collection state of all 100 Notes in each world was apparently too much for N64 hardware." This was apparently changed on the Xbox Live re-release. Weak! Source) In summary, Rare fucking loved item collection,.

And as is the theme with these posts, the actual bit I am archiving/posting to share is the soundtrack. Which is of course awesome. The game is jammed full of unique bouncy tunes that perfectly compliment the levels they go with. Ideally of course you'd be hearing these tunes while playing the game, but I think they have enough merit to stand on their own.

Enjoy!

DDL
Mediafire

wipE'out" OST

Wipeout (or wipE'out") is a futuristic (Released over a decade ago) racing game from 1995 made by Psygnosis -who I seem to have some kind of bias towards. It's a well rounded game in my opinion - fun gameplay, amazing art design and brilliant music.

That said, I never got too far in wipeout, I could never get a hang of the controlls for the ships and I pretty much pinballed around the course the entire race. Which is weird because I do pretty well in F-Zero X. This isn't to say I didn't appreciate the game, mind you.

 

I'm a big fan of the visuals in wipeout, they're amazingly fresh and fun to look at. Some kind of futuristic blend of everything with a dash of japanese. I recently found out after years of thinking Psygnosis were insane geniuses on this one games art direction. That the design was actually handled by a company called The Designers Republic who are amazing. (Were amazing, sadly. They closed their doors in 2009) You can find a selection of their work to get inspired about over here.

I used to have a Retro Gamer article about the production of the game and the music but I can't seem to find it at the moment. One of the most interesting bits however, was that to get the feel for the sound they needed they took the sound guy clubbing.

So, withour further ado - here is the rip of the soundtrack from sources unknown.

(I took the cover scan from here)

DDL
Mediafire

Pilot Wings OST

I touched upon the Pilot Wings OST in an earlier post (NSFW), but it's so good I think it deserves a seperate archival post.

Pilotwings was a launch title for the N64 back in 1996 (Or march 1 1997 if you were in the PAL region) It was developed by Paradigm Entertainment in tandem with Nintendo. The gist of the development saga is covered on the wikipedia page. Company is good at graphics, Nintendo approaches them, a game is made. Now that I think about it, that's actually dead on with what they (Nintendo) did earlier on with Starfox on the SNES.

The soundtrack was composed by Dan Hess, and (in my opinion) is nothing less than a masterwork of smooth tunes. Some people have said to me that they find the slow paced music boring so, it's not for everyone clearly. But for me the relaxing tunes go perfectly with the game, even if it is sometimes juxtaposed with my mounting fustration in the cave levels. If you enjoy this you may also like the Chrono Trigger jazz remix album. Track one is over here.

As a side note according to the wikipedia page Paradigm Entertainment was closed by THQ in 2008. Not many companies seem to last long in the video game world. If I have the time I'll make a flow chart some day.

Edit: I found those scans I mentioned. Wait no, somehow I didn't mention them.
The pages below are from Retro Gamer a british magazine which covers the old school, at one point Pilot WIngs 64 got a two page spread and they tracked down some of the people involved in making it.

Click on them for the larger image that you can actually read!

Enjoy!

DDL

Mediafire

Pandemonium 2 OST

For today's archival we're continuing right on from yesterday with the soundtrack of Pandemonium 2. Which is as you may have guessed, the sequel to Pandemonium! It was released on the PS1 in 1997/8 (depending on where you live) it was also ported to PC. There was going tobe a Sega Saturn port as well but it never materialised for some reason.

As you may have noticed from the cover someone decided that Nikki needed more bucket load more sex appeal, I'm not sure I really agree she needed it personally - oh well. It is perhaps less unrelentingly hard than the first game, but that dosen't nessacarily mean it's better - I'm on the fence about that. Also as with the last game whoever did the level design is a champ, the bizzare spacey levels are amazingly memorable and fun.

Moving right along - as with the last post, I did not rip this - rather jwitz over at Emuparadise forums did. So go there and give him your thanks. This is an archival backup to hopefully spread a bit of awareness about a great game.

Also as you may have guessed I love platformers.

DDL
Mediafire

Pandemonium! OST

Back in 1996/7 (depending on where you live) Crystal Dynamics released Pandemonium! a psuedo 3d side scrolling platformer for the PS1. I never got much of a chance to play it when it was released due to various reasons, but when I did get around to tracking it down years later I found that it was by far one of the best platformers I had played.

The simple yet highly functional gameplay mechanics along with amazingly well designed stages, and tight gameplay made a challenging and fun game. It and other PS1 era platformers, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot and nothing short of gaming gold. Gold I tell you.

Well I had a look around and eventually found the OST for the game - and here it is. This is an archival - not a release and I didn't rip this. The source appears to be steve2606 over on FFshrine.org (here) In the interests of getting this fun little soundtrack out there I've stuck the cover image in the folder and rehosted it.

DDL
Mediafire

Release #105 - New Dominion Tank Police OST

[Strange Scans] is proud to present a soundtrack release! This time it's the UK OST for the New Dominion Tank Police OVA's. The aptly titled 'New Dominion'. The metadata however read Dominion II - New Dominion Tank Police, so we're going with that.

I find it interesting that they managed an english release of this all the way back in 1993. (The same year Ninja Scroll came out) I also find it interesting that Anipuma and Unipuma have blonde hair in Dominion Tank Police  and on the cover of the New Dominion Tank Police soundtrack but not in the insert or the New Dominion Tank Police anime? I know that New Dominion Tank Police was a reboot but whats up with changing a detail like that? Maybe I'm too picky.

Regardless, enjoy - and don't forget to sing along with the insert!

320kb MP3

DDL  
Dropbox

Mediafire
Sendspace

FLAC
DDL 
Dropbox
Mega
Megaupload

Release #095 - Dominion Tank Police OST USA

[Strange Scans] is proud to present, yet another OST release! This one is a bit of an unusual case, it's the Dominion Tank Police OST - but it's not the japanese one with the starndard tracks. It's the tracks exclusive to the american release - the into, puma dance song and the credits song. Or if you want the track listing.

01 We'll Give it Our Best Shot

02 Puma Dance

03 I Adore you

The listed artist is 'Brown Eyes'. I have no idea who this actually is and the credits list the same thing, since Central Park Media aka Manga Corps have been gone since 2009 and this was almost two decades earlier (1992), I have little to no way of checking with anybody on this short of trying to contact the people listed in the credits - if you anything please let me know!

320kb MP3
DDL 
Dropbox

Mediafire
Sendspace

FLAC
DDL 
Dropbox

Mediafire
Sendspace

Release #090 - Iron Attack! Best Collections

[Strange Scans] rediscovers a love of metal with a Touhou themed heavy metal CD from Iron Attack! You'll have to excuse the darker than it should be cover text - gold lettering messes with the leveling. I actually left this CD in japan and had to have it posted over after I got back with an empty case, true story.

320kbps MP3
DDL

Mediafire

FLAC
DDL

Megaupload

Also, the track list in case you want to see whats actually on it.

01 SHANGHAI LIGHTNING

02 人形の森

03 TEARS OF SCARRET

04 WAIL

05 CHAOTIC RESULT

06 EVIL MOUNTAIN

07 Night after Sorrow

08 Never Rust

09 Ghost Cave

10 Final Revenge

11 Ruins in Hell

12 Rising Scarlet

13 UNKNOWN DIE UNKNOWN

14 Awaking

15 Deadly Drive

16 Unconscious Philosophy

17 Black from the sun

Release #087 - Black Magic M-66 OST

[Strange Scans] is proud to present it's very first audio release, the Black Magic M-66 OST! I am aware that this has been ripped and released before, I'm not clear on how quality that release was actually. But why not have a crack at doing an OST release? I've put up two versions - one which is a 320kb MP3 rip at 90MB, and the other which is a FLAC at 252 MB. This also includes the insert/notes sheet.

320kb MP3
DDL

Mediafire

FLAC

Edit: I am having trouble hosting this, I will fix it when I can.

Sendspace

Megaupload