honkstar82 information

honkstar82's reviews:

Xixit: Game rip
"Contemplative chiptunes" (by honkstar82, 11 Aug 2013) [6/10]
The influence of Andrew Sega and Kenny Chou is very obvious, but these are not high-energy songs. This is light techno-rock, good for when you're trying to concentrate. These seven tunes are great mixed in a playlist with the soundtracks from other games like One Must Fall or Jazz Jackrabbit!

Radix: Beyond the Void: Game rip
"Nonstop adrenaline!" (by honkstar82, 8 May 2013) [9/10]
This entire archive is packed with aggressively paced songs that perfectly fit Radix's theme. It's chiptune industrial metal, with an attitude that would make DooM stand up and salute. At 14 songs, it's a great pack for when you need a little adrenaline in your everyday life.

Unfortunately, these songs are not labeled any more specifically than "RADIX #" and the like. Having each song matched with its level or general theme would be a great addition, but by no means does this mean you should take a pass on this great pack of in your face metal!

Theme Hospital: Game rip
"Plenty of medicine" (by honkstar82, 12 Mar 2013) [7/10]
A great little compilation of tunes from a crazy game! These are good easy-listening music, and when you hear them on an updated soundfont you can really appreciate all the work that was put into them. The songs themselves are light jazz with a bit of chiptune techno and big band thrown in, very much like the waiting music in hospitals. Hearing a pack like this makes me wish Syndicate Wars had this big of a soundtrack!

UFO: Enemy Unknown: Game rip
"Good, but not Flying Armor" (by honkstar82, 12 Mar 2013) [4/10]
The sound quality in these tunes is not great. Although all the tracks from the game are here, the bass feels overdriven and most of the other sounds are kinda washed out. This archive lacks the punch of the original game, even when listened to on a modern soundfont. Still, this will definitely bring back some memories, and perhaps even a cold sweat or two!

Tube, The: Game rip
"A fast ride" (by honkstar82, 27 Feb 2013) [5/10]
Good, unassuming techno with a solid beat. Nothing too remarkable at all, and one would expect a lot more from a track released in '95, but there's not too much to criticize. This fits great with any techno playlist and is easy on the ears, but it doesn't have that reach out and grab you visceral power of music from other Bullfrog games. Theme Hospital and Syndicate Wars obviously spring to mind. Still, judged on its own merits, this is a solid little track that pretty much defines "average".

PowerMonger: Game rip
"A mongrel of a track" (by honkstar82, 23 Feb 2013) [4/10]
This sounds like a melding of several tracks from the game into one file. The beginning part is an intro, the middle an in-game tune, and the end a decent victory or credit music. Pretty good, but nothing exceptional. It's from 1990, though, so one can't be too harsh on it. Has a very medieval feel, uses lots of trumpets and low bass to give as much of an "epic" feel as speakers back then could crank out.

Syndicate: Game rip
"Minigun Selected." (by honkstar82, 15 Dec 2012) [4/10]
That Introduction. The music really sticks in the mind after you've seen a guy get run over, abducted, and then converted into a cybernetic soldier. The game music is very fitting of a tactics game, but one could wish for a little more techno-energy when listening to it on its own. This little pack only has two songs. I recommend smacking it together with it's sequel, Syndicate Wars, in your playlists. Both have cyberpunk grimdark feel to them, and compliment each other well.

Gearheads: Game rip
"Grind your gears!" (by honkstar82, 15 Dec 2012) [4/10]
This is a great soundtrack for madcap mayhem, but it gets a little repetitive after a while. Most of the songs have a similar background, an active drumline that reminds you of a ticking clock or gearworks, but they all have their own unique twists on the formula. It's a cool little pack for the game, but it doesn't have a whole lot of independent listening value. Give it a go on a good soundfont and see what you get, it's MIDI after all.

Apano Sin: Game rip
"Sinless, but not Splendid" (by honkstar82, 15 Dec 2012) [5/10]
Apano Sin's soundtrack is brief, unassuming, but still good. The game seems to have more tracks than are listed here, but very little information remains about it either. As this archive stands, it has a nice little jolt of background space-techno that would serve well as spacers for a larger playlist. These are not exceptional, nor are they wretched, they merely are.

If the archive was larger, it could be called a good "safe listen". As it stands, these are average.

Iron Seed: Game rip
"Echoes of Iron" (by honkstar82, 15 Dec 2012) [7/10]
Iron Seed has a great tracklist of techno/space rock tunes that really get your brain thinking of the stars. There are several standout tunes, Intro 1, 2 and the Colonization music are really good. What caught my eye is that these tracks are by Andrew Sega, AKA Necros. He composed a major chunk of the soundtrack for Crusader: No Remorse, and the ear-etching song from the first level of that awesome game "Dimension 2021" is actually in this game as well!

These tunes are not as well developed as Crusader's soundtrack, clearly showing Necros at a developmental stage of his music, but are still great space-techno chiptunes that ring in the ears. Give 'em a shot and you won't be disappointed.

Deus Ex: Game rip
"MOD goes out with a bang" (by honkstar82, 14 Nov 2012) [9/10]
As someone who has not yet played Deus Ex, or the reboot Human Revolution, I have to say I am greatly inspired to by this music! Lots of good cyberpunk and techno music that shows off considerable talent from the designers. This pack is huge, after ripping it to MP3 with XMPlayer I had 130 songs. Each song is named and numbered, so the pack is well-formed and will fit great on your playlists. Highly recommended to anyone seeking some dark cyberpunk music or melodic techno.

Terminator: SkyNet: Game rip
"Trust the Machine" (by honkstar82, 13 Nov 2012) [7/10]
Military-industrial futuristic rock. Solid drumwork underneath, good effects and solid guitars. Never played the original game, but these would fit in fine with a first person shooter. These songs do not surprise, just solid music all around that stands up pretty well even without the opportunity to blast robots. One big annoyance is that the songs are not named, just labeled, such as "T204", "T100" or "TEST". Aside from that, the archive is great.

ShadowWraith: Game rip
"Revenge is Best Served on the Net" (by honkstar82, 13 Nov 2012) [9/10]
Cyberpunk infopulses from some great artists. Never played the game, but this music is extremely good. From Marshins to Stardust Memories, the archive has a lot of awesome machine-synth rock tunes with heavy techno undertones. It's pretty easy to close your eyes while listening and feel yourself in a futeristic nightclub. The entire package is sold, there are no stinker tunes in my opinion. Highly recommended, this is a great example of why old game music rocks!

Tyrian 2000: Game rip
"Beware Microsol!" (by honkstar82, 13 Nov 2012) [8/10]
Tyrian is all about big guns, bigger ships, and amazing music. This package, along with the original Tyrian archive available elsewhere on Mirsoft, is full of high-power tunes. Lots of energetic synths and chiptune guitars, along with plenty of whooming space effects, comprise these tracks. The MIDI rips are solid, try XMPlayer if you have trouble with them.

Descent: Game rip
"The music of a Material Defender!" (by honkstar82, 17 Sep 2012) [9/10]
Three hundred and sixty degrees of freedom. That's what Interplay promised, and boy did they deliver. Listen to these tunes with your headphones on and you can hear how the drums move from side to side on the menu theme, or the swirl of gas around your head in the fifth level's music. Descent has a rocking space-techno soundtrack that really gets your mind in the mood for entombed combat against corrupted robots, but it's awesome to listen to all on its own. When you're in-game you won't notice all the little nuances that a good soundfont will bring out of these tunes, and I still get chills whenever I hear the opening bars of Descent's 'Briefing' music. It's a little like 'Grabbag' for the DN3D crowd, one of those pieces of music that defines your memory of a game by letting you know that soon you'll be knee-deep in the dead.

This archive is of great quality and organized well. Unfortunately none of the levels have their actual names listed, even in the MIDI data, just a number. This is unfortunate, since not every level in the game has its own unique music. Some levels share music, and when you are paging through your media list trying to find "that one song", it's much easier to remember 'Venus Nickel-Iron Mine' than 'Level05'. It would be great if the ripper had at least included the name of the first level to feature these tunes in the filename as well as the level number, but oh well. If you're the obsessive type, try looking up the songnames on Planet Descent. This is a great pack of songs from an amazing game, and still holds up well against modern music. Oh, excuse me, kicks the tar out of modern game music.

Wing Commander 3: Game rip
"Great music, bad archive" (by honkstar82, 17 Sep 2012) [5/10]
Wing Commander III continues WCII's tradition of excellent interstellar orchestra music with a solid military feel. This is a great collection of tunes in MIDI format, but unfortunately this archive is heavily flawed. Many songs, from the haunting "Behemoth" track that plays when you fly past the massive planet-killing starship to the more mundane 'feel-good' light jazz of several of the five bar tunes that play if you step into the TCS Victory's living area, are absent. The music for flying in a heavily damaged ship is also missing, along with the music for dogfighting and defeating the Klirathi crown prince.

There is a lot of excellent music here. The game's orchestral introduction as well as both ending tunes are here, one for the Earth ending and one for Kilrah, along with shorts like 'Ejecting!' or 'Exploding!'. The whole of the archive sounds great, the audio part of this game's multi-million dollar budget was well spent, and it really makes you feel like you are fighting at the turning point of an interstellar war. However there are some problems even with the songs that are present. The names of most of the songs are only found in the MIDI data, not in the filename. Most songs have 'wc3-5' or 'wc3-a' as their titles. I cannot in good conscience give a high rating to this archive due to its flaws and absent tracks, but I do highly recommend its music to any interested listener. If you've never heard Wing Commander III's soundtrack before, this is a wonderful taste. If you are looking for a complete archive of the old game you love, this ain't it.

Wing Commander 2: Game rip
"Vengence of the Kilrathi!" (by honkstar82, 14 Sep 2012) [10/10]
Ah, WCII. Blasting furballs is always more fun with an epic soundtrack, and Origin studios did not let us down. This music is designed for a space symphony, and gives you a great sense of being a major player in a cosmic war even if you're just plodding down the street with your earbuds. This is the music that gave humanity our edge over the Kilrathi Empire, with great synthetics and piano work blending atop military-style drums. I recommend listening to this with the old Roland soundfont if you can manage it to get the authentic experience, or a better modern day soundfont that really gives you a sense of the work put into this music. It's highly recommended if you love having an orchestra tell you how awesome you are, or just want to treat your ears.

Enough gushing. One big problem with the archive is that none of the songs are named. They all have numbers, such as 'wc2-02'. This isn't really a problem for the casual listener, but if you're one of those folks who likes to hear a certain tune whenever it pops into your head you will be searching through fifty-two different tracks. This is really a bummer, because the original game had different names for its songs, from 'Scrambling' to 'Ejecting!' or 'Observation Deck'. WCII actually adjusted the music depending on how you were doing, so each song had a name and a condition it was played under. Again, the music is wonderfully ripped and I tip my hat to Mirsoft as I recommend you check these songs out, and I cannot know how difficult it was to extract these from the game's core files. Many songs also have their titles embedded in the MIDI data, but it would have been a great boon if they had been so labeled in the filenames.

Bottom line, this is a great archive of awesome songs. If you remember the glory days with a flightstick in hand and the glow of a monitor reflecting off your sleep-deprived eyes, you'll get flashbacks. If you've never chalked up a furball and don't understand half of what I just wrote, you'll still love this music!

Raptor: Game rip
"Rock of the Shadows!" (by honkstar82, 14 Sep 2012) [10/10]
Fantastic blast from the past. Apogee always rocked great music in their games. Raptor's 'Hanger' soundtrack has always been a great theme to have in your head while waiting at an airport for a flight, and the level music does not dissapoint. Highly reccomend that you check this out if chiptune rock is at all an interest, the in-mission music does not disappoint.

There are a few little problems with the archive. The song labeled 'Level04' is actually the "Game Over" music. 'Short4' is actually the game's "Credits" tune. Again, a great pack of songs from a great game!

Dark Vengeance: Game rip
"This is revengence." (by honkstar82, 14 Sep 2012) [7/10]
Great package of songs, even if you've never played the game. Several are a mix of dark environmental music with heavy emphasis on resonant noises that sound fantastic in headphones. Others, such as "Mortal Kosmic" have a nice technometal base with grim undertones. These tunes would be right at home in the back alleyway of a run-down club, and I reccomend you check 'em out if you're into game music that gets grimdark without slathering on eyeliner and sparkles. Archive is well named, with only a few of the more ambient tracks lacking a proper title.

DemonStar: Game rip
"Demons, why is it always demons?" (by honkstar82, 14 Sep 2012) [9/10]
A great set of techno-metallic environmental tracks, Bobby Prince did a great job on this set. These tracks are great to listen to even if you've never beaten the original, like me. Wish the rip included the names of all the songs, as it stands there are names for most in the MIDI data. Highly reccomend if you're into a space-techy sort of metal tune, much like his other work in DooM and Blake Stone.

Demonstar: SM1: Game rip
"Great compliment to DemonStar classic's tunes." (by honkstar82, 12 Sep 2012) [8/10]
This rip is a dandy addition to the regular DemonStar's tracklist, and carries the spirit well. Big thanks to the Archiver for including the song names in the filenames, it's always a peeve of mine to just have "Gamename 01" or something as a song's title. Highly reccomend for any fan of the original, or just someone looking for good environmental synthetic groove.

DemonStar's music isn't as rapid-fire as Tyrian 2000's, for instance, but it does a great job of conveying an epic-scale space fight against massive odds. Good for more down-to-earth listening too.