As a gamer, I’m not normally the type to look down upon the gaming habits of others.  Sure, I’ll make the odd quip about “freestyle” DDR players now and then, but generally I don’t give my fellow gamers too much grief for doing whatever it is they choose to do.

This stance has lead me to defend Guitar Hero / Rock Band, games which I have played very minimally, whenever someone brings up the “you should just learn a real instrument” argument.  I’ve even argued this point with my dad, who is an actual musician (he plays bass guitar).  I had an epiphany at a GameStop which changed my views on this slightly, and which makes me wonder about how far the rhythm games can go before they’ve gone too far.  It also makes me wonder if I’m the only person who’s ever had an epiphany at GameStop.

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Yup, that’s right - that small collection of Mass Effect paraphernalia is indeed mine.  Including the two books.

I’ve never really been much of a fan of this sort of thing.  You can count me among the ranks who look down on the Halo novel crowd with disdain, and don’t even get me started on the horde of people reading World of Warcraft inspired librams.  I may be somewhat of a geek at heart, but even I have to draw the line somewhere.

But now I find myself in possession of not only the Mass Effect game, but also the soundtrack, and two books.  I’ve always been a bit of a game music connoisseur (a quirk that extends itself to the occasional movie soundtrack as well), but never a book guy.  Novels based on games always seemed cheap to me - like milking a franchise and its fans rather than paying worthy tribute to any redeeming values the original work may have had.  Not to mention the fact that I wouldn’t want to be spotted in public with my nose stuck inside a book with Master Chief plastered all over the front cover.  Despite all this, however, I found myself in Barnes & Noble some months ago, and on recommendation from a few friends, walking out with a brand new copy of Mass Effect: Revelation in hand.

The novel didn’t take me all that long to finish, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun I had reading it.  Revelation might not be as engrossing as a full-fledged, self-contained science fiction books like Ender’s Game (one of my favorites), but it makes a great companion piece to Mass Effect itself, and helps flesh out a lot of the backstory that was merely alluded to in the game.

My misgivings over game-based fiction are mostly gone now - Mass Effect: Revelation was a good read.  I don’t want to say too much about it, in case anyone out there is planning on reading it in the future, but I recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the game and wants to learn a bit more about the characters involved.

As for Ascension, I’ve yet to read it.  The book was only released a week ago, and between the two books, I decided I’d finally read one of the largest books I own (and one of the most famous): The Lord of The Rings.  I got it as a Christmas present from my parents a few years ago, dug it out of my closet the other day, and began reading.  I’ve got about 1,000 pages to go, and it’s all good stuff.

I’m sure though, that if Ascension is anything like Revelation, it’ll be worth the wait.  Drew Karpyshyn did an excellent job with the first book, and I have no reason to believe the second will be anything less.

And with so much to read before I even get to start on Ascension, maybe we’ll be close to another book release by the time I finish with it!

Ever get absolutely lost in a game’s soundtrack? With the increased capacity of game media, like DVD and Blue-ray disc, it’s become much more commonplace for games to include epic, fully performed / orchestrated music. Of course, there’s been great game music in all periods of gaming history, whether the music was a masterfully sequenced chip tune or prerecorded by a live orchestra.

Over the years I’ve found myself drawn to many games by their amazing music, and I’d like to share a few of those games (and their music) here so that you might also find some enjoyment in them. I’ve actually found so many game soundtracks that I like, I’ve collected them in a series of installments from different eras of video game history, starting with 8-bit systems and below.

Many of the soundtracks for the games listed below can be found online, and can be listened to as MP3’s or via a plug-in for Winamp, and I’ve provided links to these resources where possible. Plug-ins for Winamp which allow you to play the raw music files of games can be found at Zophar’s Domain, which is an excellent source of a lot of different video game utilities.

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