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Welcome to the jungle

This is the music review of
Warhead (2008).

Anyone who was lucky enough in 2007 to be able to play Crysis ot only got to enjoy a very cool sci-fi first-person shooter in a jungle scenario, but could also count themselves among the top ten thousand in terms of hardware. Because the game from German developer studio Crytek brought even the high-end computers of the time to their knees on the highest settings, I had to play it on low to medium on release. Incidentally, it's nice in this context that the recently released remaster of all three Crysis-games will probably continue this tradition 15 years later, which is why I stayed away from it straight away.

So I'm left with the pleasant memories of cozy walks on the beach in the Nanosuit's stealth mode, which allowed me to sneak up on my unknowing opponents before grabbing them and beating them into orbit in strength mode. Ah, memories... I digress. Crysis was a good game, as was its successor Crysis 2, which created a fluffier gameplay by simplifying the modes of our super-soldier-strangler, but whose 08/15 Call of Duty-world-saving-city-bombing-explosion-fetishism appealed to me less. On the other hand, I didn't even play part 3.

In mathematics, one would speak of a linear flattening of my interest - or something like that. To be honest, I never really paid attention. I simply lacked the applicability in everyday life. Back then, I much preferred listening to the soundtrack by composer Inon Zur, which I liked so much at the time that Crysis and its addon Warhead got a total of six 5-star tracks and helped propel the franchise in my Top 10 Sci-Fi Scores to number 4.

Now, for each of my reviews, I listen to the complete score again in meticulous preparation in order to check whether Past Mattis was a true music connoisseur or not. And for the first time, I was shocked to discover that I had to make a few downgrades. Of course, I knew all the candidates concerned, as they run up and down my playlist. But when your finger habitually twitches towards the skip button, it doesn't bode well. And that's what happened.

In fact, I have to admit to myself that my ratings from 2007 (or a little later) were probably due to my lack of alternatives. When I gave them 5 stars, they were some of the first in my collection and ranked alongside games like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion or Battlefield: Bad Company 2 . But just as at some point you can no longer listen to the edgy indie band of yesteryear (looking at you Ash), so it seems to be with some of these tracks. However, as this isn't supposed to be a falling-out-of-love story, here's the 15-year-late review of the soundtrack from the very first Crysis.

First of all, the positive side: with 22 tracks and a duration of around an hour, the score is pleasantly extensive without being bloated. There are no total failures, a few nice bright spots shine through the palm canopy and, what is particularly important to me, we have a real theme. One that doesn't just play in the main menu or in the intro, but actually recurs and is incorporated into other tracks, giving the game's music its own identity.

Overall, the Crysis-score (not to be confused with Crisis Coresounds like an homage to the first Predator-movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know, the one that was less Hollywood action and more survival thriller - a setting that Crysis also depicts, at least at the beginning. As we sneak through the thicket and hide from the initially human opponents, the soundtrack builds up a pleasant jungle atmosphere, mixed with a sense of danger that could be lurking around every corner.

Sometimes more focused on the thrill aspect (Terminal, Loss of Pressure, Only a Way in), sometimes more tempo-oriented (The Nexus, Gaining Ground, Losing Time) and apart from that sometimes a bit psychedelic (Scavengers), the interplay of percussions, strings and horns (even pan flutes!) works oppressively well. This impression is supported by the integration of SFX and voicelines (By a Thread, Strickland’s March), which bring some variety to the standardized music, although I'm rarely really a fan of them. Here I can just about overlook that.

In addition to the Predator-references, I also have associations with other franchises. First Light exudes pleasant Uncharted-vibes and conjures up images of dense jungles and ruins before the recurring march character of the main theme is heard for the first time halfway through. It's not incredibly exciting, but at least it's something ... even if I'm not really sad that it wasn't used in the subsequent parts. In contrast, Infiltration with its strings sounds like a piece borrowed from the Soul-Reaver-series and the theatrics of Sometimes You Lose bring back memories of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars meets Medieval 2 Total War marries The Chronicles of Narnia.

Now my mental connections say absolutely nothing about the quality of the actual soundtrack, but are only intended to explain why the score no longer ranks as highly with me today as it did back then. Because for me it sounds like things I already know and which become too unspectacular to really grab me. The ambient action tracks in particular (Legion, Reactor, Shotgun) sound more like they've been borrowed from a tabletop RPG adaptation and less like flashy shooter fare - and certainly not sci-fi. The exception here is Grave Danger, which begins comparatively quietly before working sonically with the main theme, creating a nice, diametrical contrast.

Last but not least, there's Undercurrent, which could also come from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in a similar form, as well as my highlights of the score, Sometimes You Win and Pyrrhic Victory. Both already hint at Zur's style, which he was to play brilliantly in Dragon Age: Origins two years later and are simply great fun.This fusion of cascading strings and dramatic brass provides a heroic soundscape that an adventure on a desert island doesn't really deserve, but which it desperately needs in order to break out of the uniformity of the tribal atmospheric background music and prevent the score from becoming one of many.

As a result, the Crysis-score cann set a few peaks that will certainly not blow anyone away, but at the same time have enough character for us to detect the composition in the sea of music. Like a special wine - or a tropical fruit cocktail.

No.	Title	Artist(s)	Ratings
01	By a Thread	Inon Zur	3
02	First Light	Inon Zur	3
03	Terminal	Inon Zur	2
04	The Nexus	Inon Zur	3
05	Infiltration	Inon Zur	3
06	Sometimes You Lose	Inon Zur	5
07	Legion	Inon Zur	3
08	Strickland's March	Inon Zur	4
09	Reactor	Inon Zur	3
10	Grave Danger	Inon Zur	4
11	Trespass	Inon Zur	3
12	Knee Deep	Inon Zur	3
13	Loss of Pressure	Inon Zur	2
14	Shotgun	Inon Zur	3
15	Guardians	Inon Zur	4
16	Undercurrent	Inon Zur	4
17	Sometimes You Win	Inon Zur	5
18	Gaining Ground, Losing Time	Inon Zur	3
19	Only a Way in	Inon Zur	2
20	Scavengers	Inon Zur	2
21	Prophet's Bridge	Inon Zur	2
22	Pyrrhic Victory	Inon Zur	5

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Warhead

One year after Crysis made the circuit boards glow, Warhead was released in 2008, the only addon of the series. It continues the story of the alien invasion of the first part from the perspective of Michael Sykes, alias 'Psycho', but the gameplay has less to do with the original than you might initially think. This is because, in keeping with the protagonist's mental state of health, he prefers to use conventional jaw chucks instead of stealth mode. This sounds like a departure from the virtues of the main game and devalued the game for me to such an extent that I don't even know if I played it at all.

You can tell that the game was developed by Crytek's Hungarian subsidiary instead of the original developer Crytek not only from the design decisions, but also the background music: While I mentioned in the music review for Crysis that there were many parallels to the first Predator-movie, this tradition continues in Warhead ... that is, if you compared the addon to the second Predator-movie. As we all know, it was less thriller and more cheesy action fare, and even if the setting of the game remains the same, the comparison can at least be applied to the sound.

Instead of multi-award-winning star composer Inon Zur, Péter Antovszki, who most recently appeared with the scores for Sudden Strike 4, Codename: Panzers – Phase One or S.W.I.N.E.: HD Remaster made an appearance.That sounds more derogatory than it should and only serves to compare the level of expertise these of both composers. As in football, there is a difference if Messi is playing offensive or Hummels: both are good players but with different talents.

Thus, Antovszki's tracks sound a little off the peg and thus serve exactly the problem that I was happy to have avoided with the original score. At times the score sounds like The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (Crysis Warhead), at others like one of the current Call of Dutys (Airfield Assault) or an action piece from Splinter Cell (Alien Theme, Approaching Airfield- but never Crysis. The theme from the main game is nowhere to be heard, and something to replace it is also missing. At the same time, some of the tracks hint at the jungle setting through distant allusions such as percussion (Ambush, Psycho Standoff), which was still the focal point of the composition in the main game. Here it seems irrelevant and is dealt with almost casually.

In general, Warhead musically serves the fast-food cliché of the games industry, in which the music acts as a by-product. Thanks to synths and fast beats, it all seems rushed and more like an offshoot of the later Emergency-games than an AAA title. The overall work is rounded off by dominant electric guitar riffs that sound surprisingly satisfying, which means that the score could also be placed in the action section of a well-stocked royalty-free music collection without knowing any better.

Nevertheless, the music works very well in places (like in an Emergency), which is probably due to my simple affinity for this form of acustic experience. Ultimately, we get an avarage rating, which sounds counterintuitive after all the criticism. So please let me explain: The music from Warhead is absolutely average with no character of its own; Crysis , on the other hand, has an experimental score that is more daring and consequently more polarizing. Given the choice, I would recommend the music from the main game without hesitation. However, there are also people who prefer a solid shooting orgy to a thriller. But in this case they are beyond help.

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No.	Title	Artist(s)	Ratings
01	Crysis Warhead	Péter Antovszki	4
02	Ambush	Péter Antovszki	3
03	Hovercraft Pursuit	Péter Antovszki	4
04	Burned Village	Péter Antovszki	2
05	Alien Theme	Péter Antovszki	3
06	Approaching Airfield	Péter Antovszki	3
07	Airfield Assault	Péter Antovszki	4
08	Airfield Assault [Alternate]	Péter Antovszki	5
09	Psycho Standoff	Péter Antovszki	4
10	Mission Accomplished	Péter Antovszki	3