Medal of Honor Soundtrack, Michael Giacchino, 1999

It’s hard to find a historically more significant, more influential Western game score than Michael Giacchino‘s Medal of Honor. Sure, the Medal of Honor soundtrack wasn’t the first orchestral game score to convincingly emulate movie scoring conventions. But there were a number of powerful factors that turned Medal of Honor into a force that changed the course of game music history – and it wasn’t just the fact that Giacchino’s work was married to an immensely successful game.

First and foremost, there is the soundtrack’s sheer artistic quality. Its strongest predecessors in the genre of Western live orchestral game music – Heart of Darkness, Total Annihilation, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – had already delivered some outstanding music. However, the Medal of Honor soundtrack surpasses them all in terms of both breadth and consistent quality (early Japanese orchestral game scores by the likes of Yoko Kanno, Jun Nagao and Takayuki Hattori are a different story). What’s more, the score’s thematic sophistication set a new benchmark for live orchestral game music. Giacchino writes no less than three main themes that run through the entire score. He always uses these melodies judiciously and to further the music’s storytelling capabilities. On top of this, Giacchino introduces a new secondary motif on almost every track, builds the respective composition around this motif, and then masterfully weaves in the three major themes.

Of course, it’s hard to ignore just how much the Medal of Honor soundtrack sounds like John Williams’ action scoring from the late 1980s and early 1990s. But in this case, that comparison is actually an enormous compliment. Giacchino manages to write orchestral action music of the same quality as the maestro himself. That applies both to the music’s intelligent thematic constructs and sheer aural pleasure derived from it.

What’s so pivotal to the success of Medal of Honor is how successfully it realises its storytelling ambitions. The score creates gripping narrative arcs both within each composition and throughout the album as a whole. The smart use of various themes is obviously key to this achievement. However, there are two more factors that help Medal of Honor to play just like a first-rate film score.

Firstly, there’s Giacchino’s clever use of dynamics. True, Medal of Honor derives a lot of its reputation as an orchestral powerhouse from adrenaline-charged pieces like “The Radar Train” and “Rjuken Sabotage”. These are irresistibly propulsive creations that still stand as some of the best action music written for any video game. However, what allows the Medal of Honor soundtrack to sustain its running time so well is the fact that Giacchino also knows how to write quieter music that keeps listeners on the edge of their seat. The result is a superb build up and release of tension. A composition like “Securing the Codebook” seamlessly moves from quiet snare drums to a ruthless rendition of the Nazi theme. Similarly, the subdued “The U-Boat” gets enough time to paint a strikingly vivid image of its claustrophobic location.

Secondly, Giacchino develops his compositions exceedingly well, superbly tying together their many changes of moods, dynamics and orchestral textures. Like the best orchestral game music, never do the pieces lose focus or direction. Equally, never do these compositions feel like a more or less well connected tapestry of musical gestures. A work like the Medal of Honor soundtrack is a resounding demonstration of how to write orchestral game music that follows a flawless internal logic. As a result, Giacchino’s cues emerge as fully-fledged compositions that effortlessly function as rousing musical statements outside of the game.

It’s this near perfect emulation of cinematic role models that helped Medal of Honor – and game soundtracks in general – to break through to the wider music mainstream. Many within the music industry and community finally realised that yes, game music could be as good as film music. Of course, that had already been the case for many years, long before Medal of Honor came around. However, it took a conservative revolutionary like Medal of Honor to introduce outsiders to game music. It did so by taking a more familiar genre’s conventions and applying them to game music in flawless fashion. And thus, game music became acceptable to more conservative tastes that had trouble appreciating the electronic sounds of the vast majority of video games thus far.

Of course, the irony is that while film music so obviously inspired the Medal of Honor soundtrack, Giacchino’s work sounds like no Hollywood war film score would have in 1999. That a World War II first-person shooter could be scored in 1999 like a rollicking adventure movie shows that while Medal of Honor‘s music perfectly imitates cinematic conventions, there was still a lot separating the aesthetics and tone of video games and movies.

That doesn’t change the fact that the Medal of Honor soundtrack changed the industry’s perception of live orchestral game music. Previously a rare extravagance, over time it would become a de facto standard. What Medal of Honor did was to bring game music into the musical mainstream like very few other game scores. And what’s more, it has the substance and quality to back up such an elevated position.

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

Medal of Honor strove hard to create a first-person shooter experience that left an impression on players beyond the mere satisfaction of shooting bad guys before they could shoot you. However, the fact that the game progressed the FPS genre in terms of subject matter wasn’t its most revolutionary aspect. Instead, that particular achievement would have been the wide-spread critical recognition of game music’s quality outside of the gaming community. Michael Giacchino‘s Medal of Honor score fashioned itself on John Williams’ action scoring of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Astonishingly, it matched the elevated standards that come with such role models. As a result, bloggers, film score collectors and music fans in general – many for the first time – took note of the music produced for a video game.

Even more than Medal of Honor, Underground aims for historical authenticity (and thus reverence). Its main character Manon Baptiste is based on real-life French resistance fighter Hélène Deschamp Adams – who also served as a consultant on Underground. These efforts highlight the game designers’ increasing ambition to enrich action-driven gameplay through the retelling of one 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 psyche.

Giacchino finds a clever way to anchor this exploration of Manon Baptiste’s emotional states in Underground‘s thematic foundations. Giacchino’s simple but ingeniously implemented solution is to develop Manon’s two themes out of the same musical cell, an ascending two-note motif. After these two notes, variation “A” of the main theme leads into the Major key. It conveys a feeling of national purpose, similar to Medal of Honor‘s main theme, albeit less solemn and markedly lusher. Variation “B”, on the other hand, leads into a minor 6th chord, ending on a more thoughtful note. Adding more complexity still to Manon’s musical representation is a swelling two-note ostinato motif. This musical thought represents Manon’s determination to carry on in the chaos of battle.

A track like “Panzer Blockade” beautifully shows how Giacchino uses these musical building blocks. First there’s a yearning quotation of the “B” variation on solo trumpet against a hammering orchestral backdrop. The music then segues into the resolve motif on swelling strings that keep on building. Despite being mercilessly attacked by other instrumental groups, the resolve motif finally erupts into a rendition of the “A” variation. This is music with a simple, yet gripping dramatic arc that provides insight into the emotions of the game’s protagonist.

To this malleable new main theme, Giacchino adds the expected return of Medal of Honor‘s domineering Nazi theme. He also continues his technique to write his action tracks as variations on a newly introduced sub motif. The result is an immensely rich tapestry that turns the Medal of Honor: Underground soundtrack into one of the thematically best developed works in the Western game music canon.

What differentiates Underground more obviously though from its predecessor than these new themes is the music’s new emotional direction. More lyrical and light-footed than Medal of Honor, Underground heralds its intentions straight away with opening track “May 10th, 1940 (Main Theme)”, which features accordion, boys choir, solo cello, and a downright romantic rendition of variation “A”. These softer, more colourful sounds signal Giacchino’s desire to broaden the score’s instrumental and thus emotional palette. This tendency is also an obvious pointer towards the operatic heart-on-your-sleeve outpourings of Medal of Honor: Frontline.

Not only are the compositions on the Medal of Honor: Underground soundtrack richer in orchestral colours than Medal of Honor. They are also more subdued and varied in their mood. Certainly, Medal of Honor knew very well when to tone down the action and integrate stealth elements into the music. On Underground however, these more hushed musings become far more dominant. And that’s only fitting, considering that the music underscores the actions of the French resistance. These men and women couldn’t hope to beat the Nazis through open confrontation, but had to rely on covert operations.

Despite all this introspection, this is of course still the score for a first-person shooter. As was to be expected, Giacchino delivers first-rate action material in spades. To his credit, he injects his battle tracks with the same sensibilities as the quieter compositions to keep things coherent. On these action tracks, Giacchino implements greater changes in dynamics and orchestration than on Medal of Honor. Additionally, a leaner overall sound, carried by strings rather than brass, gives solo instruments more room to breathe and climaxes the chance to stand out even more.

Highlights are numerous, but best of all is “The Motorcycle Chase”. The way the cue’s sub motif seamlessly interacts with quotes of the “A” variation and the Nazi theme impresses. The composition’s development includes a passage for thunderous, unaccompanied percussion, before the cue grows more and more frantic with ever thicker textures. At last, the resolve motif leads into the score’s most triumphant reprise of the “A” variation against turbulent counterpoint.

It’s a moment of boisterous orchestral bliss, and one that beautiful sums up the cerebral and emotional pleasures to be found on the Medal of Honor: Underground soundtrack, which manages to underscore both firefights and character beats masterfully.

Conversion notes

Medal of Honor Underground is arguably an unlikely candidate for a Game Boy Advance conversion – but that’s exactly what happened in 2002. The prospect of a chiptunes-style demake of Giacchino’s orchestral pieces has its appeal. Sadly, that’s not what this port is going for – instead it aims to translate the original compositions as closely as possible for the GBA’s limited sound hardware. Given that many GBA games struggled to produce even SNES-standard sound quality, it’s a doomed undertaking and produces predictably unpleasant results.