Earth 2140 - Soundtrack DLC

Listen good. Buy good.

They knew how to make soundtracks before!

The first 15 tracks were originally released in 1997 by BMG as the game's official soundtrack release and were credited to Joachim Schäfer. The tracks consist of 9 songs from the original game and 6 songs from the Mission Pack 1. The Steam release of the BMG soundtrack has been remastered by Harold Faltermeyer at Red Deer Studio. What's noticeable, that the bass was significantly turned up in the mix which makes the sound more full and rich. The quality is great, as it you get raw WAV files with 1536 kbps. On this release, the tracks are credited to Dirk P. Hassinger, who was somehow involved in the game's music (and also storyline and beta tests), according to mobygames.com. Sadly, there's no information available on the net who composed which song or if it was a collaborative effort. The information about the game's music is however present on Joachim Schäfer's website which lists videos from the game with "Earth Theme" and" 2140".(http://www.joachimschaefer.com/index.php/medien/filme) The last 9 tracks (16-24) are in-game instrumental versions from the original game without voice-overs or vocals. Sadly, "2140" in both versions, voice over and instrumental has a weird crackle at 4-5 second in the beginning of the song, which was absent from the original 1997 soundtrack release, but present on the game disc itself. Another difference is "Black Tech" which is 6:16 minutes long on the original Mission Pack 1 disc, the soundtrack version was cut to 4:14. Why the track was shortened by 2 minutes? Was it too long? What's missing: Mission Pack 2 - The Final Conflict music, that consisted of more electronic, industrial and industrial metal tracks. Most of the original game's + Mission Pack 1 compositions don't fit the game's atmosphere at all, I guess TopWare tried to fix it with The Final Conflict soundtrack (probably inspired by Command & Conquer & KKND music), and it was actually a perfect fit for the game. The weird mix of jazz and dreamy music (which would work better in a fantasy RPG) doesn't exactly fit a dystopian future Earth where two sides fight for the ultimate world domination. And I'm a BIG fan of The Final Conflict compositions, which also don't have titles nor credits who composed them. The original soundtrack's house/techno and electronic oriented tracks as well as the main theme's classical composition were good for the game's setting though. The Polish release of the game from CD-Action magazine (#12/1999) that I have and which was my first contact with the game, included Earth 2140 + Mission Pack 1 & 2 and it had completely different tracks than the regular, retail Earth 2140 releases. As I later found out, the music was taken from the Mission Packs (mostly the second one). This is the game soundtrack I'm familiar with. Imagine my shock listening to these compositions... The only songs from the original game soundtrack were "Earth Theme", "2140" and "Big Journey" (least fitting for the game), and it caused three of the Final Conflict tracks replaced with these. Why the in-game tracks from the Mission Pack 2 weren't included in this digital soundtrack release? No idea. On this release they were able to include the instrumental versions without the vocals present in-game, so they must've had the original files. And GOG was able to include all the Mission Pack 2 - The Final Conflict songs in their release, but only as 128 kbps mp3s. It would be awesome to have every song released with the game on digital media in lossless quality as the other tracks on this release. Highly recommended for the fans of the original soundtrack. Favorites: "Earth Theme", "Child of 2140", "Black Tech, "2140".

One of the old time best game soundtracks ever. Whenever I hear it, it brings me back to the days when cool tanks were crushing giant walking robots while dodging their barrage of napalm canisters.... and the music were pumping hard. The game is still awesome and the soundtrack still pumps. Never forget!