The Unofficial Free Radical Design blog

(Q)
What’s been your favorite game soundtrack to work on, and why?

(A)
I’ve been told by my PR department to say Haze. No, really, it has to be TimeSplitters 2. It might be rose-tinted  specs but there so many genres in that game., the FMV’s were all very silly and fun to do, I recorded a load of people dying by getting them drunk on a Saturday night in an East London tube.

(Q)
Why did you end up producing music for videogames, instead of, say, producing scores for movies or television?

(A)
There were two things I’ve wanted to do in my life. Play videogames and write music. Scores for videogames are much more fun than TV or movies. I don’t see games as a stepping stone to films because I enjoy the job so much.

(Q)
What are you aiming to provide for the player with your music?

(A)
I aim to make the player feel the way I used to when I first got into videogames, when I would often buy a game because of the soundtrack regardless of the game itself. I’d try and be good at a game just to hear the end of the track.

(Q)
Do you think there’s an ideal length for a piece of game music to be?

(A)
There’s never an ideal length, as with many things in life, the longer the better. As a rule, shorter than two to three minutes means the music could loop too often. That said, I’ve probably racked up a good year playing Super Bomberman on the SNES - and that tune was 16 bars long. It was infuriatingly catchy one.

(Q)
How do you decide on the theme of a piece of music, asnd at which stage of a level’s completion is the music created?

(A)
The theme is usually guided by the environment plus what part of the story the player is at this time. If it’s a snowy Russian military base (a la TS2 or Second Sight), there’s going to be some choir, snare drums, brass… throw in some windchimes to emphasise coldness. When a piece is written can vary. Ideally, it would be once the level location is done. That’s not always practical in reality so I’d rely on the design documents detailing gameplay events, location descriptions, that sort of thing.

(Q)
What are the biggest non-gaming influences on your work?

(A)
Strongbow. That’s actually a lie, it would be various composers I respect from a wide spread of genres. I’ve always loved mixing styles together, so could listen to something by John  Barry and then the Prodigy and think, “I wonder what those two styles sound like mixed together?”