{"id":204,"date":"2007-09-27T20:29:13","date_gmt":"2007-09-28T01:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/204"},"modified":"2016-07-07T17:46:24","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T00:46:24","slug":"ss2e-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/204","title":{"rendered":"SS2E: Music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/ss2e-castle-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/ss2e-castle-1-300x225.png\" alt=\"ss2e-castle\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3582\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/ss2e-castle-1-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/ss2e-castle-1-768x576.png 768w, https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/ss2e-castle-1.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>The third segment of <em>Serious Sam: The Second Encounter<\/em> takes place around a bunch of castles in eastern Europe.  I knew when I got the game that there was a section with European castles, and I expected it to be presented in the usual vaguely-chivalric fantasy vein.  But no, this is <em>Eastern<\/em> Europe <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_204_1('footnote_plugin_reference_204_1_1');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_204_1('footnote_plugin_reference_204_1_1');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_204_1_1\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">1<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_204_1_1\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\"> Exactly where in Eastern Europe is unspecified.  But he year is given as 1138 AD, which probably means it&#8217;s in modern-day Thxylvania or something. <\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_204_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_204_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script> , which has a whole different set of tropes.  The styling goes dark and gothic, and the background music turns into stereotypical old-fashioned B-movie creepshow stuff.  How stereotypical?  It&#8217;s based on the exact same four-note organ motif as the theme to <em>Buffy<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>A funny thing about the music in this game: it&#8217;s tied to the intensity of the action.  I think each level has three main pieces of background music (excluding special areas with their own music): a sedate and almost ambient one for solitary unmolested exploration, a more uptempo one with more instruments for minor encounters, and one with electric guitars added for pitched battles.  The funny thing about this is that the background music actually gives you information.  Sometimes your first clue that you&#8217;re being attacked is that the music kicked up a gear.  Likewise, when you&#8217;re finishing a battle, you can tell by the music when you&#8217;ve downed the last foe.  It reminds me of <em>Jaws<\/em> (or rather, since I haven&#8217;t actually seen <em>Jaws<\/em>, it reminds me of the jokes about <em>Jaws<\/em>), how the shark&#8217;s presence was always signalled by the soundtrack before you saw it.  But usually, in a movie, only the audience is aware of the soundtrack, so there&#8217;s no chance that the hero will notice the monster theme and react to it.  In my hands, Sam varies his behavior in response to the music all the time.<\/p>\n<div class=\"speaker-mute footnotes_reference_container\"> <div class=\"footnote_container_prepare\"><p><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_label pointer\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_204_1();\">&#x202F;<\/span><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button\" style=\"display: none;\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_204_1();\">[<a id=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_204_1\">+<\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/div> <div id=\"footnote_references_container_204_1\" style=\"\"><table class=\"footnotes_table footnote-reference-container\"><caption class=\"accessibility\">References<\/caption> <tbody> \r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_204_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_204_1_1');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_204_1_1\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>1<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\"> Exactly where in Eastern Europe is unspecified.  But he year is given as 1138 AD, which probably means it&#8217;s in modern-day Thxylvania or something. <\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n <\/tbody> <\/table> <\/div><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function footnote_expand_reference_container_204_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_204_1').show(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_204_1').text('\u2212'); } function footnote_collapse_reference_container_204_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_204_1').hide(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_204_1').text('+'); } function footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_204_1() { if (jQuery('#footnote_references_container_204_1').is(':hidden')) { footnote_expand_reference_container_204_1(); } else { footnote_collapse_reference_container_204_1(); } } function footnote_moveToReference_204_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_204_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } } function footnote_moveToAnchor_204_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_204_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } }<\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The third segment of Serious Sam: The Second Encounter takes place around a bunch of castles in eastern Europe. I knew when I got the game that there was a section with European castles, and I expected it to be presented in the usual vaguely-chivalric fantasy vein. But no, this is Eastern Europe 1 Exactly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[80,81],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fps","tag-serious-sam","tag-serious-sam-the-second-encounter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3583,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/3583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}