WRATH UNLEASHED

JACK WALL

Rating:

Game Zone Review by Joseph W. Bat: LucasArts is no stranger to the game industry. One of the most distinguished and oldest developers still making games, their portfolio is quite amazing to look at, and they have been responsible for creating some of the most cherished games in history, developing several games based on such classics as Star Wars and Indiana Jones, but also several original titles, such as The Monkey Island games, and the most recent Mercenaries. Wrath Unleashed was LucasArts attempt at trying something different, an action fantasy game. It was also LucasArts out sourcing their developing to another company, Collective Studios. Wrath Unleashed has you taking control of mythological creatures in a fighting based mechanics. To complement the epic feeling LucasArts was creating visually, composer Jack Wall was hired to write a powerful orchestral score. Wall is well regarded within the game industry, in the past writing the award winning score to Myst III: Exile, and has quickly established himself as one of the busiest and best video game composers.

For Wrath Unleashed, Wall used Basil Poledouris’s Conan scores as a reference point to the scope and sound he wanted to create. Wrath Unleashed is a straight action game, so there is really no room for soft moments. In the “Main Theme”, Wall starts us off slow with heavy trombones playing the theme for the game. Things quickly change as the tempo increases into marching percussion, which takes away from the trombones into strings and trumpets leading the theme. Although I’m no composer, I would have liked to have heard a rendition of this theme with a chorus singing the theme. Speaking of chorus, this score has plenty of it. In “Intro”, we have a short glimpse of some great mysterious orchestra writing, performed by a lovely chorus. The tempo again changes into the theme for Wrath performed by strings and brass with a dramatic male chorus.

The chanting chorus is a dominate element of much of the music in Wrath Unleashed and makes several appearances. In “Dark Order Realm”, Wall shows off his ability for writing diversely. Opening with an ethnic flute, there are some really abstract passages performed middle-way by the woodwinds. But nothing is stranger than the deep male chanting in “Dark Order Aftermath”, which almost sounds like gurgling. Wall changes up the style of the music for different parts of the game, such as in “Dark Chaos Realm” and “Dark Chaos Battle”, where the score becomes much more abstract and percussive. A lot of the action pieces feature the orchestra performing in one tempo and quickly changing into quicker tempo’s, as heard in cue’s like “Light Chaos Battle” and “Light Order Battle 1”. Clearly this is deliberate by Wall and it makes sense, since it follows the format of an action fighting game. The quick tempo changes by the orchestra really increases the drama. By far the most enjoyable parts of the score are contained in the Light Order pieces, where the action never stops and continually builds to epic proportions. It is here where Wall has really pushed for that large heroic sound Poledouris made popular in Conan.

Wrath Unleashed was not the success LucasArts was hoping for. In fact, you have to dig real deep within the contents of LucasArts own website to find Wrath’s webpage. This is a real shame, since Jack Wall’s fantastic music gets lost with this. It is also unfortunate that Wrath never received an official soundtrack release. Even a limited release would have been sufficient. Even if the game were a huge success it would be doubtful a soundtrack would have been released. LucasArts has never been big on releasing soundtracks for their games, but history has shown they do tend to release them later on. One can only hope Wrath Unleashed see’s a release in the near future.

Track Listing: Running Time: 43 minutes 39 seconds

LucasArts Promo (2004)

Music composed and conducted by Jack Wall. Performed by The Northwest Sinfonia. Orchestrated by Steve Zuckerman. Recorded and mixed by Simon James. Album produced by Jack Wall.

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