Halo Trilogy - The Complete Original Soundtracks [CD+DVD, Box set]

Although only just released over here, this collection was originally made back in 2008. Therefore, it must be remembered that Halo Wars was still not out yet, and ODST and Reach were way off, so the first three games are collected here.

If, like me, these games formed an important part of your teenage years from beginning to end, this is the ultimate nostalgia trip. If you didn't, I'd still recommend this to you, as these three games have scores that are not only a fantastic listen in of themselves, but also provide an interesting insight into how much game scoring grew between Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 3.

The first game is very clearly synthesized. Although in the game it felt like you had an orchestra accompanying the onscreen action, in isolation it's blindingly obvious it's one or two guys at a keyboard with some string samples. One thing that surprises most is how out-and-out electronic some of it is. For example, did you know that the strange, alien calls of unseen creatures in the level 343 Guilty Spark were actually part of the music, not sound effects?

For Halo 2, right from the get-go it shows how game scores changed in such a short amount of time, switching from mostly electronic with a few orchestral stand-outs to mostly orchestral with a few electronic stand-outs (as far as the 'big' titles go at least, independent games still rely on the 'one guy, his computer and his keyboard' approach). Even so, the orchestra employed is still pretty small, the game world may have earned sufficient kudos to get a real orchestra for it's scores, but it's still not big enough to get the larger, more expensive ones. However, this is not a knock against it, compared to the previous game it sounds so much more expansive and feels much 'larger'.

If there is one knock against it, though, it's how the marketing people decided the soundtrack wouldn't sell the bajillion copies they wanted it to unless they rushed it out to meet the game's release date. This meant splitting it into Vol. 1, which contained both a sampling of the game's score and that stupid, gimmicky "inspired by" rock song crap. Not that the songs are bad by any means, most are average with a few that rise above the rest, but it annoys me that the Hollywood system of using a 3-second clip of a song in a movie justifies putting out a glorified mixtape with a dozen or so other songs that were barely in the movie (if at all) and slapping the movie's poster on the cover to squeeze every last penny out of whatever flash-in-the-pan popularity the movie is having at the time. Sorry, rant over.

Actually no, one last thing: although I may bash it, Vol. 1 was still only half commercial pandering, the other half was score from the game, particularly the kickass Mjolnir remix of the theme (with guitar by Steve Vai. If you aren't automatically either buying this or the original individual CDs, you have never heard of him. If you've never heard of him, he does awesome guitar riffs for various movies. For example, you know the "EXCELLENT!" air guitar moments in Bill and Ted? He did the guitar for those). Despite this, Vol. 1 is not present here. Only Vol. 2, which covers the parts of the score absent in Vol. 1, is included. Now, I can sort of see why they did this. The DVD-sized box, the bonus 5.1 DVD, the fact that it's 99.9% score, I think they're going for the soundtrack collector here, trying to emulate the same presentation the Lord of the Rings scores got in the Complete Recordings... except without actually doing any work.

"Just get together the three soundtracks we have at the moment, throw out the one with rock songs on it (soundtrack collectors are far too snooty for that), get the 5.1 mixes we have for the upcoming game, slap five of them on a DVD, um... maybe edit a music video for the main theme in five minutes out of the behind the scenes footage we have, and bam! Money in the bank!"

"Uh sir, I don't think that'll quite cut it..."

"Ah, well slap the opening cinematic for Halo Wars on there. That'll be good for something. Ooh! I know! Shiny packaging! Cattle love shiny things!"

Okay, fine, take that tack by all means, but couldn't you have just taken out the songs and left the score parts (and the Mjolnir Mix) on there? No? Don't have the budget to actually do anything besides repackage the existing CDs? All right, but don't put "Complete" on the box when that statement is an obvious lie.

After that, Halo 3's presentation isn't nearly as angering. Hell, we're treated to two whole discs of music! By Halo 2's standards, that's downright generous. Again, by now games have been given practically equal treatment to movies, so what you hear here could easily be the score to the next summer blockbuster.

Finally, we have the Halo Wars preview. I didn't bother with any of the games after 3, but from what I hear from this DVD, the score seems pretty good. It keeps the classic theme as a brief statement towards the end while creating a new theme for the most part (think the theme to Power Rangers Zeo. Like that). Like the Complete Recordings of the Lord of the Rings, this is designed for people with far better stereo systems than I have, so it'll be lost on you unless you have one terrific setup.

Seriously though, despite my (relatively minor) gripes, if you haven't bought the soundtracks to these games already, this is the perfect way to do it.

As long as you buy Halo 2 Vol. 1 separately.

excellent price and arrived really quick. the music is outstanding. if you like the game music you'll love these. this is well worth the buy, at fantastic value.

Despite being described as the complete soundtracks the box does not contain Halo 2 Volume 1 sound track. I find this very disappointing as it was a Christmas present. I plan to contact Microsoft but failing that will most certainly be calling trading standards.