Into the Score - December 13, 2007

StarCraft

1) Intro
2) Contact Info
3) 1998 in Gaming
4) Story of the Game
5) Effect of the Game on the World
a. Gamer Revolution and South Korea
6) Composers
a. Glenn Stafford, Jason Hayes
7) 
8) Real-Time Strategy
9) The Music
a. Approach
b. Instrumentation
c. Modern Influence


INTRO

(TITLE)

I'm Kenley Kristofferson... and this is Into the Score.

Happy Holidays and a good evening to all! Welcome to Into the Score, the only podcast solely devoted to the academic study of video game music.  My name is Kenley Kristofferson and I will be your host for this holiday AND anniversary episode, Episode 16! That's right! December 29th of 2007 is the one year anniversary of "Into the Score," Happy Birthday, podcast! Tonight, we tackle Blizzard's 1998 release, Starcraft, with its score by the Blizzard soundteam, comprised of Glenn Stafford, Jason Hayes and Matt Uelmen.

Before we launch our battlecruisers into the episode, it's 3-2-1 contact.

(CONTACT INFO)

CONTACT INFO

The address for Into the Score is www.intothescore.com, as always.  If you would like to reach me, you can always send me a note at Kenley@intothtescore.com, so k-e-n-l-e-y@intothescore.com! Definitely leave comments on the episode of your choice or an any episode at all! It is always awesome to hear from you!

It has been a tremendous three weeks since last we spoke! Our high school completed its musical production, "Little Shop of Horrors" and it was a tremendous success.  Over the last 19 days, 16 of which contained rehearsals and shows, so the amps were turned-to-eleven on this show and it was worth every minute - my pride and kudos to all the Maples students and staff who contributed! I directed the pitband, lots of conducting and pointing... good times.   

Tonight's episode is part one of two - you're obviously listening to part one, but part two will have a bit of a delay.  Part 1 is a study of the game's musical score and importance in the video game and VGM literature, while Part 2 is an interview with Glenn Stafford, lead composer of Starcraft as well as Starcraft II, which I estimate will be released in 2008, but no date has been released or confirmed as of yet.  Alas, this episode is not about number 2, the original Starcraft released in 1998.  Big year? Let's find out... but first, some music, this is from the first section of "Terran 1" from the Blizzard Soundteam's score to "Starcraft."

(TERRAN 1 - 0:00 - 2:00) 

1998 IN GAMING

1998 was a big year for gaming with some very notable releases.  Let's go chronologically: Capcom's sequel to it's zombie-killing Resident Evil was released in late January of that year and Square releases it's action-adventure Paraside Eve for Japan in March and in the US and Canada later that year.   On April 1st, the subject of our show sees the late of day - Blizzard unleashes Starcraft to the masses.  In May, the cutting-edge first person shooter entitled Unreal takes the stage on the PC and would spawn many subsequent titles.  

While the summer of that year was not particularly noteworthy, the four months following it would mark history for franchises all across the world.  Let's start with September.

September 3rd - Konami releases Metal Gear Solid for the Sony PlayStation and it was wildly successful worldwide.  This franchise is a staple in post-SNES gaming and is still continuing today.  Twenty-seven days later (the 30th of September), Nintendo publishes Pokemon Red and Blue which are the second highest-selling GameBoy game of all-time (second only to Tetris, which was bundled with GB) and the highest selling, unbundled games of all-time.  When I say "unbundled," I mean that it was not released with a console.  The source for that stat is in the shownotes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#Game_Boy_and_Game_Boy_Color

Now, where were we? Ah yes, September 30th.  On the very same day, LucasArts gives us the macabre PC adventure/strategy game, Grim Fandango, in which the skeleton travel agent named Manny Calavera moves through the Land of the Dead to find his illegal client, Mercedes Colovar.  The music to this game is fantastic, this might make it on Into the Score in the future.

On October 20th, another goliath of gaming is released and this time, by Square.  The Sony PlayStation releases the mecha-anime inspired Xenogears on October 20th of 1998 and is wildly successful and scored by the uber-awesome Yasunori Mitsuda of Chrono series fame.  One month plus a day later, Nintendo releases Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64 and is widely considered as one of the strongest games of the series, even now.  On November 30th, only 9 days later, Starcraft sees an expansion pack entitled "Brood War" and Interplay gives us Baldur's Gate, the expansive role-playing game for PC.

All of the quotes were taken from the wiki on 1998 in video gaming and if you would like to check that out, the URL is in the shownotes!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_in_video_gaming

So while that is a very solid year for Blizzard, that was nine years ago - what has happened since then? At our current stage in history, Blizzard is renowned for its MMORPG called World of Warcraft - just to jog our memories, MMORPG is an acronym for "Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game" - kind of a lot to say, good thing it has an acronym! The game has over 6-million people in the world subscribed to its service and is growing by day.  Some of these players are younger, maybe in their early teens and some are much older - men and women who have families, corporate jobs, the demography is all over the spectrum.  

What a lot of younger players do not realize is that there is a grand lineage of Warcraft, starting with the original Warcraft released for PC and Macintosh in 1994, which was ground-breaking, and won many awards (http://www.blizzard.com/inblizz/awards.shtml).  We'll talk about the influence of the original Warcraft later on in the episode, but for now, let's stick to the genealogy of the series.  Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness came out in December of1995 and saw much more forward success, having improved graphics, higher-quality music and sound effects, increased gameplay as well as a gripping story that continues the war between Humans and Orcs.   Like the first one, game was developed for both PC and Mac.  According to the awards section of "Blizzard.com," the game won 23 awards including many "Game of the Years", "Best Strategy Game," "Best Online Game," and the list goes on.  Now ladies and gentlemen, this is definitely no frivlilous list! Some of these awards are coming from PCGamer, MacWorld, c|net and the list goes on! If you'd like to see the list, it's in the shownotes!

http://www.blizzard.com/inblizz/awards.shtml





A third Warcraft was released 7 years after and then finally, World of Warcraft in 2004.  I don't want to focus on Warcraft III or World of Warcraft quite as much because I want to focus on the window between the second and third titles in the series.  With the success of Warcraft II and Blizzard's firm grasp of the RTS or "Real-Time Strategy" genre (which we'll discuss later in the episode), it appeared that the company was finding its stride in the gaming industry and decided to expand it's empire in new directions: They had conquered the past with its medieval fantasy RTS, where was another direction that they could go...? If you were thinking "the future," you would be correct.  What does the future sound like? Only one way to find out - this is "Terran 2" from the Starcraft OST written by the music team at Blizzard.

STORY

Upon Blizzard's decision to make a game similar to Warcraft, but set in space, the team had to carve out a plot for this new project.  There are three different species that dominate the story for the game: the humanoid Terrans, the insectoid Zerg, and the genetically-engineered beings of ridiculous power and energy, the Protoss.  

While the backstory to Starcraft isn't overly necessary to play the game (as the in-game story is quite intense), it links the three species together immediately helps create the universe for which Starcraft exists.  According to the "Story Arc" section on the "Starcraft Series" wiki, this is what happens before the game's opening: 

"The story focuses on the activities of the three species in a part of the Milky Way known as the Koprulu sector. Millenia before any of the events of the games, a species known as the Xel'Naga genetically engineer the Protoss[4] and later the Zerg[5] in attempts to create pure beings. These experiments backfire and the Xel'Naga are largely destroyed by the Zerg.[5]  Decades before the beginning of StarCraft in 2499, the hardline international government of Earth, the United Powers League, commissions a colonisation programme to as part of a solution to overpopulation. However, the computers automating the colony ships malfunction, propelling the Terran colonists far off course, arriving at the edge of Protoss space.[6] Out of contact with Earth, they form various factions to maintain their interests. The Protoss are intrigued by the behaviour and mentality of the Terrans, remaining hidden to examine the humans and protecting them from other threats without their knowledge. However, the Zerg begin to target the Terrans for assimilation[5] in its quest to assimilate the Protoss to become a perfect race, leading the Protoss to attack tainted Terran colonies to contain the Zerg infestation.[7]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft_universe#Koprulu_Sector

So, with that said, the game can now begin.  The plot is set in three chapters: The Terran, The Zerg and finally, the Protoss.  The Terran chapter has you assume the role of the colonial magistrate of the Terran colony of Mar Sara.  The first character you meet is Jim Raynor, the Marshall of those parts and some hunting of Zerg becomes a quick priority, especially as they infest a Terran outpost.  

So, you and Jim (being the heroes you are), destroy the infested colony and save a slough of people; the catch is that you've just destroyed some of your own Confederacy's property and then some arrests get made... not too cool.  The good part is that Arcturus Mengsk and his renegade, anti-Confederacy faction "The Sons of Korhal" come in and break out you and Jim, but not without Arcturus having plans of his own.  
There is more to the story, but seeing as it would be fun to actually PLAY the game and discover things, I don't want to disclose too much - however, I do want to play some music.  To give the Zerg a little bit of action, this is "Zerg 1" by the Blizzard soundteam and it's from the Starcraft OST.

(ZERG 1 - 3:00 - 4:30)

Definitely rocks harder than the "Terran 1" that we heard earlier, along with some wild insectish sounds... we'll talk about that later.

THE GAME'S INSIDES

Before we dig deeper into the music, there are two things we have to talk about: Firstly, the RTS or "Real-Time Strategy" genre and secondly, Starcraft's effect on gaming and the world around us.  

First, Starcraft is designed as a "Real-Time Strategy" game, which means that the strategy involved in a game (playing an important part, obviously) happens in the linearity of chronological human time... in other words, it is not "turn-based" or nobody "takes turns," everybody does everything at the same time.  The games often take place as the player looking down onto a large map of where everything is taking place, called in gaming as "top-down" perspective.  So right now, we know that you (the player) is looking down onto this map, where everything is happening in real-time.

The next logical question to ask is "what exactly am I looking at?" Well, seeing as it's called a "real-time strategy", there must be some strategy involved as to achieve the end goal, whatever that may be.  The most common denominator of something requiring strategy is war... more often than not, RTSes revolve around conflict or war of some kind, and this war is taking place on your map.

Also more often than not, you build structures on your map (that you are looking down on) and each structure has an innate ability, maybe producing soldiers or upgrading weapons or armor.  So strategy is involved in making units or buildings, but then what do you do with these things?

Well, if they're units, you can send them into war on an opposing player - this is where the strategy comes in: Who do you send in? Where are they? How do you attack them? And so on and so forth... but what kinds of games would be built on such a structure?

While there are many precursors to the RTS genre, including Nether Earth for the Commodore 64 or The Ancient Art of War released in 1984, the most dominant precursor of the modern genre is Westwood Studios Dune II, released in 1992.

After the mechanics of the RTS had been in place, other games and publishers followed with releases like Command and Conquer (set in a modern military genre) and Blizzard's Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, a precursor to its sequal Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, which inspired Starcraft.  Wow, maybe we can tie Kevin Bacon into that one... okay, not funny.

This leads us into our second marker of Starcraft - it's effect on modern gaming and the world around us.  For a time in the late 90s, Starcraft was one of the most popular multiplayer games around, with Blizzard's online service, "Battle.net" booming at all hours of the day or night.  Now, while hundreds of thousands of people playing one game online would probably constitute someone saying "wow, this game was popular and important," the single most interesting and ground-breaking news comes out of South Korea, the most wired nation on the planet, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or the CBC.

Interestingly enough, the CBC has a lot to do with this next tidbit of South Korea's involvement with StarCraft.   Blizzard's StarCraft is a professional sport in Korea, with sponsored teams competing against one another in sold-out arenas while the games themselves are being shown on massive screens over the computer terminals.  This is often a footnote in most Western StarCraft sites, even the wiki on the game only briefly mentions this unbelievable achievement in gaming and ultimately, it's effect on society.

The one report that I believe got it right is the CBC's documentary on video games, culture and the next generation of youth and it is called "Gamer Revolution."  It is fairly recent, released on the first February in 2007 and is produced by Red Apple Entertainment.  And while this is a newer documentary, they still have an entire section on StarCraft, even though the game came out almost10 years ago.  Thankfully, for those of us who do not have the CBC in their TV, it has been put on YouTube and the addresses of all parts are in the shownotes.



Anyways, we are going to listen to a snippet from the StarCraft portion of the show - this is "Gamer Revolution"

(CLIP)

The video clip for that section is also on YouTube and can be found in the shownotes.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8qYhH2H_TM

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0MYeIG4E7c

Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OekCLo6HyKU

Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV4mlZSDlQE

Part 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s6Y_jJVBn4


Okay, so we know that it's important, let's dig into the sounds of this beast then! We've heard a bit of the Zerg and a bit of the Terran, so let's hear what the Protoss sounds like - this is going to catapult us into the "Music" section of the show.  This is "Protoss 3"

(PROTOSS 3 - 0:00 - 1:30)

THE MUSIC

That was the opening section of "Protoss 3" written by the Blizzard soundteam.  Just to recap, there are three races: The Terrans (who are humans), the Zerg (which are insect-like) and the Protoss (who are these energy-based uber-soldiers).  All three are different from one another - this is partially because of the scrutiny that Warcraft II fell under, when people said "ooooo, you can be the Humans OR the Orcs, but they're pretty much the same groups with the same units, just with different names." With that said, Blizzard made HUGE differences between the races, their strengths, their buildings, their units... you name it, and you can tell that this bled into the music.  First, we're going to look at the Terrans, then talk about some aspects of that music before we jump into the music of the Zerg and Protoss.

For Terrans, there is a balance between orchestral elements, as well as rock elements.  I mean, it's the typical Human unit in an RTS, the balanced fighters, the group who are pretty good at everything.  The combination of the two creates an epic feel in the music, I would say most similar to an epic film score, but again, it's a balance.  "Terran 1" is an epic, mostly-orchestral score written to sound like a "call to arms" or to mobilize the troops, and it gets you pumped.  We've actually already listened to it, but let's review - this is "Terran 1"

(TERRAN 1 - 0:00 - 2:00)

And that's just a snippet, there are more sections of that piece, but to hear more of it, the best way is to just pick up StarCraft and start playing.  It's an old game, probably won't cost you more than... I don't know, $15?  ANYWAYSWith regards to "Terran 2," it is far less orchestral and is WAY more of a driving rock groove, like a counterbalance to "Terran 1," let's have a listen to this.

(TERRAN 2 - 0:00 - 1:05)

So the first half was driving super hard with some syncopation in the bass part and some distortion guitars going on, but it still carried some orchestral elements in there too, especially near the end; again, finding a balance.  Now, after the slower part develops, we move back into a groove, this time with horns and a synth taking the melody.  So this is still "Terran 2," but it sure sounds different than what was happening a minute before it.

(TERRAN 2 - 1:45 - 2:45)

Now, there is one more Terran work, aptly titled "Terran 3."  One thing that I love about "Terran 3" is that the instruments agree with each other on a style.  That's a bit of an abstract thing to say, but in "Terran 1" it is very epic and orchestral; in "Terran 2," it's all about the groove and the holy trinity of the rock band: drums, bass and a loud guitar.  
But in "Terran 3," it's like, the two styles of music agree on one symbiotic driving, yet epic feel and that comes in about a minute in.  It starts more contemporary, but when those strings come in, you best brace yourself - this is "Terran 3."

(TERRAN 3 - 0:00 - 1:40)

Okay, so those are three Terran pieces, what do we notice about them? Some of the questions that we ask ourselves or the score when we study music are concepts that we've been looking at over the past year.  There are some very basic ones: Does it loop? No, it does not - the music in the game cycles through different pieces like a jukebox, so one particular level or mission does not have its own music.

What else can we ask? Is it thematic or ambient? Is each piece driven by a melody or is it more the combination of sounds? In other words, is it thematic or ambient? Let's have a listen to a piece and see if we can figure it out.  What about "Zerg 2?" Here's the first, I don't know... 30 seconds!

(ZERG 2 - 0:00 - 0:30)

Well, what do you think? Is there a prominent melody that you'll be whistling as you walk out the door today? I think not - the music is definitely more ambient than thematic.  That isn't to say that there's no melody, but the composers used sound to colour the landscape and really enhance the experience before placing a hummable tune in the forefront of the music.  

The next logical question to ask is what kind of style is this music in? Or, is it eclectic? Well, the score is written by the five composers on the Blizzard sound team and all of them have their own individual style, so I would say that it is a pretty eclectic score.  BUT, here is the other point of interest - by having different people work on different sections of the score, you truly get a DIFFERENT experience with different pieces of music.  I know, that sounds dreadfully obvious, but remember how we said earlier the Warcraft II got criticized for having the races be so similar? What better way could there be to separate the races than simply by having different people with different experience work on them? With that said, let's dig into the Zerg profile of music a bit, here is "Zerg 1."  In particular, listen to the differences between this work and the Terran pieces we heard earlier - are the instruments different? Is the style different? Sonically, does it sound different, almost as though it could be from a different game? Just keep those in mind, here's "Zerg 1."

(ZERG 1 - 0:00 - 1:45)

For Zerg, things are not the same as for Terran.  Which would make sense because the Zerg and the Terran aren't very similar at all - one is human, the other is insect; one constructs buildings, the other evolves into them; one produces units, the other hatches them from eggs... the list goes on.  

The Zerg music uses a lot more sound effects, which are also done by the sound team.  A lot of clicking and chirping and randomness.  Just listen to the last 30 second of our last excerpt and listen to the sounds that are put into the music...

(ZERG 1 - 1:15 - 1:45)

Crazy.  Another big difference in the Zerg music is that it uses live guitar, rather than sampled.  All of the Terran guitar is sampled (and a lot of it used too), but the Zerg use real guitars, here's the opening of our previous excerpt, just for the sound of the guitar... and then the drill that finds its way in there... very cool.

(ZERG 1 - 0:00 - 0:40)

NOW, for the Protoss.  Jason Hayes was involved in writing for the Protoss and according to an interview between GameSpy and the Sound Team, this was Jason Hayes' first project.  Interview URL is in the shownotes!

http://archive.gamespy.com/legacy/interviews/blizzard_composers_a.shtm

The Protoss are beings with an enormous energy potential; in fact, some of the units are swarming with this blue aura, it's quite impressive.  We hear this in the music, through some use of effects like chorus or phasing, which colours the individual instruments and alters their sound.  To hear that effect and some of the innate characteristics of the Protoss, this is a section from "Protoss 3." 

(PROTOSS 3 - 0:00 - 1:30)

Yeah, especially near the end of that excerpt, some of the sections are a little bit blurry, almost as though one is listening underwater - which is the effect.  A very cool sonic painting going on there.  

Another interesting thing to consider is that the Protoss are soldiers, they are highly organized and highly powerful - they are a military force.  Their music also represents a sort of Spartan attitude towards warfare, especially in this one - "Protoss 1."  I find that it really comes out when the melody enters, about 45 seconds in, then the usage of the timpani and harp thereafter... have a listen, you'll hear it, "Protoss 1."

(PROTOSS 1 - 0:00 - 2:00)

So all the races have different elements, and those elements will be discussed in further detail come our next episode, which will be a shorter addition to this one... in the form of an interview.  The guest for this episode is the lead composer for Blizzard sound team, Mr. Glenn Stafford and I am REALLY excited to have him! It's going to be amazing! But let's wrap this up!

This has been Episode 16 of "Into the Score," it is the anniversary edition of the show, happy birthday, ITS! You can always find the show at http://www.intothescore.com and PLEASE feel free to leave comments, they are always welcome and discussion is always welcome on the posts! If you want to reach me, you can always do it at Kenley@intothescore.com, which is k-e-n-l-e-y@intothescore.com ! Next episode, we have Glenn Stafford on the show and we'll look at constructing the score to StarCraft and all of the ins and outs of its design! Going to be awesome! See you next episode!



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