Medal of Honor: Underground Soundtrack (PS1)

Medal of Honor: Underground Soundtrack (PS1), Michael Giacchino, 2000

Medal of Honor worked hard to create a first-person shooter experience that left an impression on players beyond the mere satisfaction of shooting enemies before they could shoot back. Yet the way it advanced the FPS genre in terms of subject matter was not its most revolutionary aspect. Instead, that distinction belongs to the widespread critical recognition of game music’s quality outside the gaming community. Michael Giacchino’s Medal of Honor score modelled itself on John Williams’ action writing from the late 1980s and early 1990s. Astonishingly, it met the elevated standards implied by such role models. As a result, bloggers, film-score collectors, and music fans more broadly – many of them for the first time – took serious note of music written for a video game.

Even more than Medal of Honor, Underground aims for historical authenticity, and thus for reverence. Its protagonist, Manon Baptiste, is based on the real-life French resistance fighter Hélène Deschamps Adams, who also served as a consultant on the game. These efforts underline the designers’ growing ambition to enrich action-driven gameplay through the retelling of an individual’s personal story. As a consequence, the Medal of Honor: Underground soundtrack shows greater interest than Medal of Honor in illuminating its protagonist’s inner life.

Giacchino finds a clever way of anchoring this exploration of Manon Baptiste’s emotional states in the score’s thematic foundation. His solution is simple in design but ingenious in execution: he derives Manon’s two themes from the same musical cell, an ascending two-note motif. From there, variation “A” moves into the major mode, conveying a sense of national purpose similar to Medal of Honor’s main theme, though less solemn and noticeably more lush. Variation “B”, by contrast, turns towards a minor-sixth chord and ends on a more reflective note. Adding further complexity to Manon’s musical identity is a swelling two-note ostinato motif, representing her determination to carry on amid the chaos of battle.

A cue like “Panzer Blockade” beautifully demonstrates how Giacchino uses these musical building blocks. First comes a yearning statement of variation “B” on solo trumpet against a hammering orchestral backdrop. The music then segues into the resolve motif on swelling strings that continue to gather momentum. Despite being mercilessly assailed by other instrumental groups, that motif ultimately erupts into a statement of variation “A”. This is music with a simple yet gripping dramatic arc, one that offers real insight into the emotions of the game’s protagonist.

To this highly malleable new main theme, Giacchino adds the expected return of Medal of Honor’s domineering Nazi motif. He also continues his practice of building action cues around newly introduced subsidiary ideas. The result is an immensely rich tapestry that makes the Medal of Honor: Underground soundtrack one of the most thematically developed works in the Western game music canon.

What distinguishes Underground from its predecessor even more obviously than these new themes, however, is its emotional direction. More lyrical and light-footed than Medal of Honor, the score announces its intentions straight away with the opening track, “May 10th, 1940 (Main Theme)”, which features accordion, boys’ choir, solo cello, and a frankly romantic statement of variation “A”. These softer, more colourful sonorities signal Giacchino’s desire to broaden the score’s instrumental – and therefore emotional – palette. They also point forward quite clearly to the operatic, heart-on-sleeve outpourings of Medal of Honor: Frontline.

The compositions on the Medal of Honor: Underground soundtrack are not only richer in orchestral colour than those in Medal of Honor; they are also more subdued and varied in mood. Certainly, Medal of Honor already knew when to ease off the action and incorporate stealth into its musical design. In Underground, however, these more hushed reflections become far more central. That makes perfect sense, considering that the score accompanies the work of the French resistance. These men and women could not hope to defeat the Nazis through open confrontation, but had to rely on covert operations instead.

For all this introspection, though, this is still the score to a first-person shooter. As expected, Giacchino supplies first-rate action music in abundance. To his credit, he infuses these battle cues with the same sensibilities that shape the quieter material, preserving the score’s coherence. On these action tracks, Giacchino deploys greater shifts in dynamics and orchestration than he did in Medal of Honor. In addition, a leaner overall sound, carried more by strings than by brass, gives solo instruments more room to breathe and allows climaxes to stand out all the more strongly.

There are many highlights, but the finest of them is “The Motorcycle Chase”. The way the cue’s subsidiary motif interacts seamlessly with statements of variation “A” and the Nazi theme is deeply impressive. Its development includes a passage of thunderous, unaccompanied percussion before the music grows steadily more frantic through ever-thickening textures. Finally, the resolve motif leads into the score’s most triumphant reprise of variation “A”, set against turbulent counterpoint.

It is a moment of boisterous orchestral bliss, and one that beautifully sums up the intellectual and emotional pleasures to be found in the Medal of Honor: Underground soundtrack, which manages to underscore both firefights and character beats with equal mastery.