This is something I have always struggled with in the Mechwarrior games and have not yet really found a good consensus among my friends and fellow Battletech players. I feel that Battletech has not, at any point, reached its full potential as far as scoring goes. The universe is one of sweeping wars and strife, the Mechwarrior a futuristic, post-apocalyptic knight towering over battlefields that have seen centuries of bloodshed. The Clans are alien and terrible to behold, even mistaken for extra-terrestrial in the initial probing attacks of the Invasion. One would think that this is a setting befitting epic scores that epitomize the struggles characters live and die by. There are several movies that come to mind that have music that I think really fits the universe. Daft Punk's Tron Legacy soundtrack captures the kind of wonder and majesty of a new, unfamiliar technological world with the rumbling bass so you can feel the underlying darkness and danger one comes across in untamed science fictional landscapes. You can almost hear the earth shake, as it would while a company of Battlemechs leave deap tracks in the ground. Other scores that come to mind are the new Battlestar Galactica soundtrack, Starship Trooper's "Klendathu Drop" (which tends to remind me of what might be playing in young Davion soldier's minds as they dutifully make landfall on a world they wish to wrest from the Combine's grasp), Stark Trek's scores (especially the latest film). Games like The Elder Scrolls series and Halo have done a great job creating memorable and fitting music that immediately sets the tone for their respective experiences. I've played Battletech for near on 13 years now and I just want to hear that goosebump inducing theme that immediately has 'mechs marching through my mind.
Instead, we tend to get some late 90s, overproduced, generic rock music. It lacks the passion everything else the universe stands for. This is true even of the trailers for this game. While I know that could easily be a stand-in, but I think that it really cheapens the setting and makes it sound, more or less, like an RC Car commercial that plays on basic cable children's programming. Guitar has its place --- think the twangy tone that played as you watch Serenity fly from another world in Firefly. The generic rock music does nothing but upset the tone and cheapen the setting that is in so many other ways perfect. You have your lasers firing and the rumble of your 'mech's massive feet hitting ground, I want music to really go with that! I know I can just turn it off, and if I must I will, but I would love a score, be it electronic or symphonic, that evokes nothing but 'mech warfare and the heroes and villains who have made it so iconic. Rich and diverse is the Inner Sphere and beyond --- so its music should be as well. I was hoping this bland scoring would die with the MechAssault accident, er, franchise.
Edited by Tengo Kawana, 06 May 2012 - 08:54 AM.
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