Skullkids: OverClocked ReMix Go Commercial

OverClocked ReMix Go Commercial

Wahey, OCR!

This news is so special to me that I felt it deserved a proper serious update. One with images and full sentences and everything.

Many videogame geeks, of which I am one, have a love of videogame music. It's something that people "outside" of the "industry" don't seem to understand, choosing to still only hear beeps and boops. Well fuck them, they can go back to watching Big Brother and discussing the Champion's League or whatever. For the rest of us, videogame music is something to be cherished. It can evoke emotion, trigger memories and just plain completely set the mood. There are many videogame music composers out there who just plain deserve praise and to list a handful of them here now would just be insulting to those I didn't list.

Then there are fans who have their own musical talents. There's only one possible outcome here, and that's "remixing". Oftentimes the term isn't entirely accurate as some people choose to simply update a song to modern audio standards while others choose to butcher it completely, but for the sake of arguement "remixing" is the term we use.

And to be honest, when it comes to remixing videogame music, there isn't a site with a bigger presence than OverClocked ReMix.

Boasting over 1700 songs at the time of writing, there's pretty much something here for everyone. And with a harsh panel of judges, you can usually be sure that what you download is at least half decent. It's quite possible a remixer may completely change the style of your favourite song and you might love it or hate, but usually they're at least technically accomplished.

Not too long after the site launched, they began getting industry recognition and a few big name videogame composers even submitted their own remixes, one of which I am actually listening to as I type this. Wonderful.

Eventually though, some bright sparks had the idea of remixing entire albums. They've covered Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, Sonic 2, Street Fighter II and more.

But it was the Street Fighter II one, Blood on the Asphalt, that caught attention.

Capcom, having listened to it and knowing that they were involved in a new version of Street Fighter II for XBLA and PSN in HD, had a brainwave. They contacted David Lloyd, the big cheese at OCR, and asked if they could use it.

How could you refuse that request?

In case you've had your head under the sand for the last few months, you should know by now that Street Fighter II HD is a remake of Super Street Fighter II Turbo with all new shiny HD graphics. A wonderful little team of people are drawing over every sprite to create new ones, like the fantastic Ken you can see below. The underlying game is essentially the same, it just looks a hell of a lot nicer. So it needs new music too, right?

Larry Oji, part of the OCR team, had this to say when he asked what to expect:

They can expect some really cool takes on these classic themes! All of the stage themes are instant classics, so the ReMixers didn’t want to mess with success, but you’re going to hear some excellent interpretations that sound completely at home in the Street Fighter universe. And we hope that when all is said and done, people get curious about the new music and head over to www.ocremix.org to learn more about the people who made it.

I for one am really looking forward to this now. I mean, a HD version of Street Fighter II is already pretty cool but being an OCR-related thing this is quite a big deal.

Here are some more shots of the game to keep you a little bit excited! Sorry they don't play music, which would be more relevent to this post, but you can always head over to the Blood on the Asphalt page to get a taster of what to expect.