Obviously with Spielberg being involved at some point in the production, rather unsurprisingly, the music is a rather good John Williams imitation effort, although it owes more to the Indiana Jones scores than Saving Private Ryan. The main theme is presented in Medal of Honor and is a gritty, but patriotic affair with the Northwest Sinfonia brass getting a fine work out and is a fairly memorable effort, setting the tone most effectively. The theme appears in brief snippets in many of the other tracks, but is never really given to endless outright quotations. In fact the subtle blending is very effective, putting some more well known composers' use of motifs to shame.
This being primarily an action orientated computer game, much of the music is going to be rousing and dramatic. The openings of many of the tracks are something of a red herring, often starting with subdued bouncing string figures that are rarely promising - just repeated orchestral phrases and nothing substantial - but this is not the case as Giacchino develops the music around these openings and often gives rise to some quite thrilling action music. Taking Out The Railgun has hints of the Tank Chase from Last Crusade, with the swirling 'cello and bass figures (which seem to be something that Giacchino is particularly fond of, as they appear a number of times), but soon brass, woodwind and percussion are layered on top and we have a brassy and exciting slice of over the top orchestral action. There are more tense and suspenseful episodes such as Locating Enemy Positions and Rescuing the G3 Officer which make good use of more dissonant material that occasionally recalls Born on the Fourth of July.
The final few tracks are perhaps a fraction unnecessary, the Road to Berlin is a pastiche big band/jazz type thing and the final cue adds dialogue on top of the music featured previously to turn it into a radio broadcast as featured in the game. I would be hard to tell apart the alternate Medal of Honor from the opening track, but it's a nice way to round out the score (if you bypass the final album track). Certainly there are plenty of John Williams ideas mixed in, but no more than some of Joel McNeely's earlier works. If Saving Private Ryan was too subliminal by half, then this might just be what you were looking for. It may be pastiche, but it's done with such flair and performed so convincing by the Northwest Sinfonia, that it hardly matters after a while. Great fun.
Rating ~ Total Time ~ 73:11
While not exactly elderly, my perceptions of computer game music are somewhat rooted in the miscellaneous bleeps and nondescript synth efforts of the early 1990's. With the onward advance of technology, the ability to programme in more complex music has now made it possible to track in actual orchestral scores as the game plays out. Obviously the music must be pre-recorded and thus is unlikely to exactly match what is happening on screen, but it does make for more interesting listening. Michael Giacchino has previously written music for Dreamworks' Lost World computer game and the success of that effort led to Medal of Honor which is a thinly disguised spin-off from Spielberg's superb Saving Private Ryan.
