Back in 2008, the television advert promoting Tomb Raider Underworld featured Gorecki by Lamb. There were two versions, one was shown on television and the other which was released online which was the extended version including gameplay and cutscenes. The song fitted perfectly with the storyline, atmosphere and clips in the trailer and for TR fans the song became connected to the series despite it not being used in the actual game.
With that in mind, it will be interesting to see if Tomb Raider would get it's own song for any of the future game. With other franchises it has worked well, even those which didn't sound as though it would fit at first. If you go on YouTube there are plenty of Tomb Raider music videos put with music and the really good videos show exactly how a song can represent a game.
If TR does decide to have one in the future, it will be interesting in who they choose to sing it and compose it. There are three different games that come to mind when I think about songs created specifically for a game franchise and containing lyrics. Crystal may want to consider the following games:
PORTAL
(Jonathan Coulton)
Of course this was going to be here! Still Alive is one of the most recognisable themes in games. Versions of the song could be heard in the actual including at the start by listening to the radio, although it was at the end credits where we heard it clearly for the first time sung by the lovable yet evil GLaDos. In the game's version it was a simple theme with clever lyrics and having it on the end credits with the lyrics is both clever and a tribute to the people in the company who's name appeared beside it.
For those who don't know Jonathan Coulton is a gamer, as well as writing "Still Alive" in Portal, he also wrote the song "Want You Gone" for Portal 2. He became popular in geek culture with his project called "Thing a week" in which he released a weekly song with songs including "Re:Your Brains" (which also appeared in Left 4 Dead 2" and "Codemonkey"
MIRROR'S EDGE
(Lisa Miskovsky)
I very much like Mirror's Edge's "Still Alive" theme because it fits the atmosphere of the game so perfectly. The song represents the strength of the character which is clearly heard. What is also interesting is the music video; which incorporates real locations but also blends them with the fictional city the game's protagonist runs around in. Using the music video as promotional material for the game was also a good technique; most of the trailers for ME used this theme, and the music video alone symbolises a lot of what happens in the game.
Lisa is a singer and musicain who began her career in the industry in 2001. She has now released several albums including "Falling Water", "Changes" and more recently "Violet Sky".
ALAN WAKE
(Poets of the Fall)
POTF is my favourite band. They have created the music for two games; Max Payne 2 and more recently Alan Wake. For Max Payne they created the song "Late Goodbye" which can be heard being sung by a number of different characters during the game and also at the end credits being sung by the band. If you have played Alan Wake you would have already heard a couple of their songs, but they were mentioned by a different name, the Old Gods of Asgard (with the exception of "War"). (SPOILER FOR ALAN WAKE EPISODE 4) Remember the epic fight scene with the Taken,Barry and the fireworks?. (SPOILER ALERT OVER) That was them with their song Children of the Elder Gods. They also wrote the songs "War" and "The Poet and the Muse" (that track contains quite a few spoilers) both could be heard as the music at the end of two of the chapters.
They are a Finnish rock band consisting of Marko (Singer), Olli (Guitar) and Marcus "Captain" (keyboard). They are often joined by Jaska (Guitar), Jani (Guitar) and Jari (Drums) if they doing a live performance or on tour. They've released several albums including; Signs of Life, Carnival of Rust, Revolution Roulette, Twilight Theater and Alchemy Vol.1.
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