I've always wondered about ambient collections for games, and this one delivers a pretty solid but indeed very targeted product. The introduction and fadeout tracks of each set are forgettable, but the main battle tracks offer a bevy of sonic texture. They are chaotic and use appropriate sounds to convey what they purport to, but they are low-key enough that they won't overcome your speech or be a bother (unless you blast them at enormous volume). You will get clashing blades, screams of the dying and the grunts of beasts in the fantasy battle, and clatter of horses and blast of guns in the civil war. The science fiction one sounds like someone's squeezing the trigger of that ray gun until it hits empty, and feels a bit campy.
There is a weird musicality to the loopable tracks if you listen to them enough, but they are really not meant to be listened, so much as to be played. There is one track which is musical in construction, the "Battle theme" which is an acceptable but not terribly exciting orchestral drum-and-string, of the sort you might hear in a fantasy movie nowadays. This is a very utilitarian soundset – appropriate to play over a big warfare setpiece of the appropriate period, where hundreds of blades are clashing or dozens of rifles are discharging, but not really for anything else. If you are in need of such a product, you might consider this.
Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!] |