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The Greatest Video Game Music 2 review

On November 7, 2012 by Ash Meehan
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‘The Greatest Video Game Music 2’ by the London Philharmonic Orchestra is the second video game music collection made by the Orchestra. This collection contains 17 songs and focuses on orchestral music from pretty recent games. Songs in the collection include such well known songs as ‘One-Winged Angel’ from Final Fantasy VII. ‘Still Alive’ from Portal, ‘Far Horizons from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and more.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is no stranger to creating video game soundtracks as the Orchestra have created the likes of Symphonic Poem Hope for Final Fantasy XII, music for various Dragon Quest games, and more.

Andrew Skeet, who composed The Greatest Video Game Music 2, composed the previous video game music collection along with ‘Classical Remix’, ‘The Movie Soundtrack 2’, and more.

Now let’s have a look at some of the songs in the collection. As there are 17 songs I will be going through two songs that really interested me for better or worse.

The first song in the collection is ‘One-Winged Angel’ from Square’s (now Square Enix) PlayStation 1 classic Final Fantasy VII. The orchestra did a brilliant job re-creating the amazing awe inspiring presence the song originally created in the game. The instrumental work from the violinists, pianist, and other instrumentalists are at a really high level and it feels like it came from the original creators. The choir which sang the lyrics once again made the game feel great and didn’t detract away my feelings from the song as they hit every word in the song spot on with the feeling and tempo the original version brought.

The second song in the collection is ‘Still Alive’ from Valve’s Portal. The collection’s version of the song is a little disappointing in my opinion because unlike the majority of the songs in the collection they decided to include vocals. The song in the collection was sung by Sarah Covey (We Will Rock You) and honestly to say it would be difficult to live up to Ellen McLain who sang the original song at the end of the game would be an understatement. Honestly Sarah Covey did an alright job, but her singing just didn’t live up to Ellen. Sarah just couldn’t seem to match that tone and emphasise Ellen put on some parts of the original song. Personally, I feel the song would have worked well if removed the vocal track because even with the singing ‘Still Alive’ is still a memorable song.

The other 15 songs are rather impressive with the likes of ‘Never Forget/Peril’ from Halo and ‘Icarus Main Theme’ from Deus Ex: Human Revolution wanting me to go back and play the games in the collection again.

Overall I really enjoyed listening to the collection and brought back memories of the games that were featured in the collection. While the collection is great for a gamer’s perspective, this fact is also a downside as it limits its market to only gamers.

The Greatest Video Game Music 2 information:

Composer: Andrew Skeet

Orchestra: London Philharmonic Orchestra

Release date: available now

Soundtrack list:

  • Assassin’s Creed: Revelations – Main Theme
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Far Horizons
  • The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker – Dragon Roost Island
  • Final Fantasy VII – One-Winged Angel
  • Mass Effect 3 – A Future for the Krogan/An End Once And For All
  • Halo – Never Forget/Peril
  • Sonic the Hedgehog – A Symphonic Suite
  • Chrono Trigger – Main Theme
  • Luigi’s Mansion – Main Theme
  • Kingdom Hearts – Fate of the Unknown
  • Super Metroid – A Symphonic Poem
  • Diablo III – Overture
  • Batman: Arkham City – Main Theme
  • Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Icarus Main Theme
  • Fez – Adventure
  • Portal – Still Alive
  • Little Big Planet – Orb Of Dreamers (The Cosmic Imagisphere)

Where to buy: iTunes, Amazon.com

Author: Ash Meehan

Hi, I’m the creator of SG Gaming Info. When I’m not working on my writing or creating content for this site’s YouTube channel, I like to relax and enjoy character driven story games.


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