In a surprise to absolutely no one, I was unaware of this game before coming across the music for Descent. And by "the music for Descent," I mean the music for the PlayStation 1 version that was released in 1995, and not the music for the PC Ad-Lib OPL3 version, or the Mac version, or the MS-DOS version, or the RISC OS version, and apologies if there is any overlap for the MIDI version or any other variations in the music. From what I can tell, and I fully admit that I might be wrong in this assessment, the music for the PlayStation version of the game is vastly different than the rest of the music for the game, so I am not 100% sure if the same composers who are credited for the Ad-Lib OPL3 and MIDI versions are the same who wrote the music for the PS1 version.
That being said, "Virtual Tension," being the music for the first stage is interesting and I realized that as the song plays and new instruments and elements are introduced, I become more invested in the song and where it is going. When the song starts, I feel like I am listening to a generic early-mid '90s house techno song. Even the clap/drum beat nine seconds in makes the song slightly more interesting, but not so much that I want to blare this while driving on the freeway. The rapid baseline at 0:16 receives a similar reaction, more interesting, but still kind of, "meh." But it is not until the clap/drum beat comes back at 0:31 did I realize that it stopped at 0:16 when the baseline started, and the combination of the current elements now has my brain going, "Okay, maybe we've got something here."
And just like that, I start to lose interest in the song again because at 0:39 it feels like the song is now going in another direction. But then the guitar comes in at 0:55, and now I am more excited by this direction and then at 1:11, the guitars are boosted even more and that is when I am fully in on this song. I could do almost whatever it wants, but as long as the song builds again to those guitars (which it does at 1:56), then I am a happy person.
Knowing the full song now, I really wish that each segment of the song lasted longer than 10-15 seconds, but that is just me thinking how "I" would try to improve a 28-year-old song.
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