23 January 2013

Episode 117: 1990

The year is 1990.  Wilson Phillips is on top, Full House is booming, and the president is getting saved by bad dudes.  Brent and Rob, along with guests Jerry Rocha and Andrew DeWitt from the video game podcast Gamedians, focus on games only released in 1990.  The boys put their acting chops to test in this episode and many laughs are had.  Full track listing below.



Game - Composer - Song - Company - Console - Year (North American release unless otherwise indicated)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan - Tomoko Nishikawa, Michiru Yamane - Stage 5 - Konami - Game Boy - 1990

Magic Johnson's Fast Break - Tim Follin - Title Screen - Software Creations/Tradewest - NES - 1990

Mission: Impossible - Jun Funahashi (Dog-Man), Yoshiyuki Hagiwara (Hagiiiin.) - Stage 3: Berlin - Konami/Ultra Games - NES - 1990

Low G Man: The Low Gravity Man - Nobuyuki Shioda (Eden), Mr. N, Musya - Chapter 2 - KID/Taxan - NES - 1990

Bloody Wolf - Shogo Sakai, Takafumi Miura, Yuji Suzuki, Yusuke Takahama - Staff Roll - Data East - TurboGrafx-16 - 1990

Veigues Tactical Gladiator - Satoru Yoshikawa - Level 3 Boss - Bits Laboratory/NEC - TurboGrafx-16 - 1990

Conquest of the Crystal Palace - Tomohisa Mitsuyasu - Mount Crystal - Quest/Asmik - NES - 1990

Dangerous Seed - Yoshinori Nagumo (NAUN), Yoshiki Nishimura (Yosiquin) (arr.), Akihito Hayashi (Neumann A. H) (arr.), Yoko Shimokawa (Shimokyaaa) (arr.), Totsukurzwell (arr.) - Stage Intro - TOSE/Namco - Mega Drive - 1990

Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight - Junko Tamiya - Wetland (Planet 4, Area 1) - Capcom - NES - 1990

The Ultimate Stuntman - Gavin Raeburn (?) - Title Screen - Codemasters/Camerica - NES - 1990

Strider - Junko Tamiya - Beasts/Uroboros: The Iron Ruler - Capcom - Genesis - 1990

Rescue: The Embassy Mission - Charles Callet, Hiroyuki Masuno (arr.) - Inside the Embassy - Infogrames/Kemco - NES - 1990

Final Lap Twin - Katsuhiro Hayashi - Enter Your Name/Race Music (Quest Mode) - Namco - TurboGrafx-16 - 1990

Starship Hector - Takeaki Kunimoto - Hector Bonus - Hudson Soft - NES - 1990

Pilotwings - Soyo Oka - Helicopter - Nintendo - Super Famicom - 1990

22 comments:

  1. Great tracks, AND great commentary from the Gamedians, from all aspects. Plus, the Bloody Wolf/Full House sequence was a true LMH komedy klassik. Brent should man the applause track more often.

    The Ultimate Stuntman is so rave! Somebody drop that jam into some happy hardcore, stat.

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  2. Thanks for the great (and hilarious) podcast and the greetings. This one brought a lot of memories, it was precisely at that year when my career really started to took off, concretely with Hostages (Rescue).

    However (and I don't mean to spoil the fun) I must point out that I didn't compose the NES soundtrack of that game, I just did it for some 8 bit computers (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and MSX), which can be heard here: http://soundcloud.com/joemcalby/hostages-zx-spectrum

    Moreover, the original soundtrack was composed by French composer Charles Callet for the Commodore Amiga version. You should listen to that one, it's really good.

    Speaking of Magic Johnson's Fast Break, this game must be the one which has more unrelated soundtracks under his name. Besides the exceptional work (as always) of Tim Follin for the NES version, he also composed a completely different but equally awesome tune for the Commodore 64 game, which I highly recommend. Moreover, the Amiga 500 version had different music too (supposedly by Mark Riley) and (surprise) I composed another completely different soundtrack for the Spectrum, Amstrad and MSX versions.

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    1. Thanks for the insight, as always, Alberto. I will check out the hostages tracks on soundcloud.

      You're a crazy man.

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    2. After listening to the Spectrum version on Youtube, it appeared that the track that was played on the show was an NES adaption of a track heard in the Spectrum version. So, are you saying that you just adapted the original Commodore version by Callet to the Spectrum?

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    3. Exactly. Here's the original on the Commodore Amiga:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYtQGzV_kEk
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5u1vXX4w6Y

      I remember I recorded the tunes from the Amiga to a cassette tape, then I listened them until got each note, and then coded the soundtrack directly in Z80 assembler. That was the hard way, good times!

      Rob, why do you say I'm crazy?

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    4. I suppose the NES music was based on the Amiga version, not mine.

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    5. This is infinitely fascinating to me. You do good work, Alberto. Thank you for that.

      The bit about recording onto a cassette and learning the notes...I still do things that way. Great minds think alike, I guess ;)

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    6. Alberto, Rob calling you a crazy man is in reference to the line from Bloody Wolf when one of the commandos says that to the other commando. Basically, Rob is saying you're awesome.

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    7. Ouch, I didn't get it.

      "MAYBE"

      where's the party?

      @Big Mike, thanks :)

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    8. Yes, Alberto. You are awesome. I don't really think you are "crazy" :)

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    9. Alberto is hanging out here. He's at least as crazy as the rest of us.

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    10. You can bet on it. I've been a game music fan all my life, and I still listen to retro game music regularly.

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  3. I haven't even made it to Magic's Fast Break yet, but I'm excited. That track is BAD. I love those ghostly bendy notes in the middle.

    I like the conversation happening between the melodies in Low G Man.

    Mega Man 3 IS better than Mega Man 2. On a 1-10, 3 gets a nine and 2 gets a seven. I'm prepared to defend this argument!

    What in the world, Bloody Wolf?!

    Crystal Palace sounds distinctly asian to me too, it sounds like a Ganbare Goemon. But do you guys hear the Journey to Silius in that drum and bass?

    Street Fighter 2010: When it ends in major, that's a resolve, right? Based on the rule in classical music that the ending has to resolve in consonance (major) because a dissonant (minor) ending disturbs the ears, is unsettling. Or something close to that.







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    1. For Street Fighter 2010, I think the chord progression's called a Picardy third.

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  4. Great episode! I'm glad the 1990 year focus worked out so well. I really enjoyed a lot of the tunes this week!

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  5. Rob, great job discovering that Dangerous Seed track. It's definitely one of my favorite import shooters in my Mega Drive collection just because of how 1980s the music is. The funny thing about that track is that you never hear that synth part while playing the game. It just fades out before that part and goes straight into the game. It wasn't until messing around in the sound test that I heard the entire tune.

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  6. great show -- great guests. -- need to bring these guys back for a karaoke face-off! I almost lost it at work with the Full House + Blades of Steel laughing track. Really liked Conquest of the Crystal Palace track.

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  7. "Forget the President,
    Let's go party,
    You're my best friend."

    great lyrics, or greatest lyrics?

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  9. 4 people (5 with producer?) together haven't heard of Ouroboros?

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