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A Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community
About Me :
I'm a grownup nerd living in the Boston burbs. I write computer programs for a living and plays for fun.
I'm married to a wonderful woman, and we share a nice little house with our daughter and our cats.
I'm a humanist, a technologist, an artist, and an idealist. I believe in reason, freedom, love, equality,
and democracy. (Did I mention that I'm
an idealist? I did, OK.)
I'm also a pragmatist and an empiricist. I reject ideology and dogma, especially when they conflict with
practical facts (i.e., pretty much always). I particularly hate willful ignorance, which tends to go hand-in-hand
with ideology and dogma.
Like the alignment of the planets, this blog gets updated as I have the time, inspiration, and inclination to do so.
Like the alignment of the planets, this blog gets updated as I have the time, inspiration, and inclination to do so.
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Little MIDI Memories
I stumbled on this site surfing yesterday (when I should have been fixing bugs, but that's another story). It's got all the music from DOOM and DOOM II -- and, for good measure, all the music from Wolfenstein 3D -- served up as MIDI files. You'd think that after ten years, I wouldn't remember that music, but hundreds of hours of obsessive play have burned these tunes into my head. It was really, really fun to listen to them all again, especially the better ones (I'm particularly partial to e1m5, e1m8, and e2m1). It's worth listening to if you're an old fan, or a student of game music, so much of which is utterly forgettable (then and now).
DOOM still stands out as a classic precisely because so much attention was paid to the style of the piece, a fact which is much more apparent today, long after its technology has ceased to be cutting-edge. It was the first game that actually made me feel frightened. The music was a very important component of the whole. Some of the music is straight rock-action riffing, which is all right, but the better music successfully conjures up the dark and dread-filled world of DOOM. I think the music stands up really well, even after all these years, and even though it's only available as MIDI files.
PS: I remember how this game and its music sounded on my Gravis Ultrasound card. It's a shame the GUS died, because the Soundblaster just didn't do justice to DOOM. In fact, the Soundblaster, which shortly after DOOM's release became pretty much the only game in town, kind of sucked. But that's the magic of the marketplace for you!
I stumbled on this site surfing yesterday (when I should have been fixing bugs, but that's another story). It's got all the music from DOOM and DOOM II -- and, for good measure, all the music from Wolfenstein 3D -- served up as MIDI files. You'd think that after ten years, I wouldn't remember that music, but hundreds of hours of obsessive play have burned these tunes into my head. It was really, really fun to listen to them all again, especially the better ones (I'm particularly partial to e1m5, e1m8, and e2m1). It's worth listening to if you're an old fan, or a student of game music, so much of which is utterly forgettable (then and now).
DOOM still stands out as a classic precisely because so much attention was paid to the style of the piece, a fact which is much more apparent today, long after its technology has ceased to be cutting-edge. It was the first game that actually made me feel frightened. The music was a very important component of the whole. Some of the music is straight rock-action riffing, which is all right, but the better music successfully conjures up the dark and dread-filled world of DOOM. I think the music stands up really well, even after all these years, and even though it's only available as MIDI files.
PS: I remember how this game and its music sounded on my Gravis Ultrasound card. It's a shame the GUS died, because the Soundblaster just didn't do justice to DOOM. In fact, the Soundblaster, which shortly after DOOM's release became pretty much the only game in town, kind of sucked. But that's the magic of the marketplace for you!
