July 1st, 2008 niki
So I could get my hands on this hard to find 1993 CD-ROM version. I was pleasantly surprised to notice it indeed had redbood (CDDA) tracks, and here they are.
They were arranged from Charles Deenen’s compositions by Eric Heberling. The main theme sounds more like the early PC version while the shire theme surprisingly sounds exactly like the SNES version. I’m sad the arrangements aren’t that great too, as they lose much of the atmosphere of the originals by using an almost constant “blaring trumpet” synth style. Well, it’s still pretty cool to have new versions. :3
Most ingame tracks are very long and loop a bunch of times. Track 5 sadly skips a lot, which I’ll try to fix if I can find another ISO. Tracks 6 to 16 contain dialogues.
Enjoy ~
>> Download <<
!!! 31-08-2008 edit: Track 5 updated with a repaired copy provided by Sagi ~
Posted in Interplay LotR, Medieval-ish, Video Game Music | 5 Comments »
June 3rd, 2008 niki
As avid fans of the book, me and my brother bought the SNES version of this in the early 90ies. Offended by both the image it gave of Tolkien’s work and the horrible gameplay, it was one of the few games we actually resold. If one positive thing we remembered though, it was the music …
Years later, internet is here and I’m in my early web scouring moments. I discover the wonderful SPC format, and naturally searches, among tons of others, for Interplay’s Lord of the Rings music. In vain, since it turns out some weird drivers make the game music undumpable.
After a while, armed with a SNES emulator, action replay codes and a wave recorder, I decide to record the game music myself. I’ll go through the game in a couple hours to discover it contains a grand total of 4 tunes, all of which accessible in the first 20 minutes of the game … unless of course the last Moria level featured something new or the game actually had an ending theme, which I doubt. I’ll probably never know since the game froze while entering the Moria. A common bug happening even on true SNES hardware, I read … ~_~
Anyway, the music, while short, is still great especially the main theme. It was composed by good old Charles Deenen, whom I actually discovered at that time by the way.
Searching around, I noticed other versions of the game existed, and recorded the C64 and Amiga versions as well. They sound very much alike without being completely similar. They’re also completely ripped off Basil Poledouris’s Flesh + Blood score, unless it’s actually a traditional medieval composition, which I also doubt. Nonetheless pretty awesome too, and included in this archive.
What’s now missing is the PC DOS recording, which could be full of Adlib greatness. And of course the one and only sequel of that intended trilogy: the Volume 2 also on PC DOS.
In the meantime, enjoy ~
>> Download <<
Posted in Interplay LotR, Medieval-ish, Video Game Music | 2 Comments »
So I could get my hands on this hard to find 1993 CD-ROM version. I was pleasantly surprised to notice it indeed had redbood (CDDA) tracks, and here they are.
