I played a lot of Second Sight on the GameCube when it was released in 2004, plus it was a Free Radical Design IP, from the same people who developed the TimeSplitters series (and a lot of former Rare employees who worked on GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark), so you knew your were playing quality. Looking back, I do not recall there being a lot of music in Second Sight, and watching a couple of videos on YouTube, at least that memory is confirmed as music in the game was very sparse. A lot of the sound design seemed to focus on the atmosphere and setting the mood for the tense situations that John Vattic found himself in, be it in a medical research facility, an asylum, tenement housing developments, or military installations in Siberia.
This particular track, "Isolation" is played during the opening sequence, as John Vattic staggers through a medical facility/prison while discovering that he has lost a significant amount of time, large portions of his memory, and discovers that he has psychic abilities such as telekinesis and projection. The theme on the piano throughout the song ends up becoming a theme for John Vattic as he uncovers the mystery of what happened to him as those few notes are reworked to fit the environmental themes in the rest of the game. In the stage in the sewers, that theme is taken up by a pitched-up and distorted piano amidst eerie and wispy drones. In the asylum stage, "Madness," the same theme takes on a warbly tone, reminiscent of the perceived state of mind of the residents. "Isolation" on its own is also played nearly identically to the menu theme.
It is a simple string of notes on a piano, arranged and twisted to suit the setting, that works beautifully.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Capture a Memory, Live it One More Time
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