Xbox One Archives - The Greatest Game Music

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! Soundtrack

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! Soundtrack, Jonathan Geer, 2020

What do you do if you have delivered two successful instalments of your cooking simulation franchise and are wondering where to take things next? If you are developer Vertigo Gaming, the answer is: don’t change your winning formula, but have some fun with the premise. In other words: the core loop of clicking on the right ingredients at the right time while juggling multiple food orders didn’t change much. Reviewers did point out issues with the game’s UI and occasionally punishing difficulty level, but by large and enjoyed Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! (and its appetising art style). Where things took a left turn was with the game’s narrative. Set in a post-apocalyptic USA, your restaurant empire has been blown to pieces and now you’ve hit the road with a couple of helpful robots who’ve let you turn their van into a food truck.

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Genesis Noir Soundtrack

Genesis Noir Soundtrack, Skillbard, 2021

Few 2021 games were as deliciously high-concept as Genesis Noir. Its gameplay – inspired by point-and-click adventures – was relatively sparse and straightforward. What really set Genesis Noir apart were its unique art style and narrative. True to its title, the game mixed a film noir story with musings on the nature of man, time and the universe. More to the point – Genesis Noir used the events of the Big Bang as a metaphor for the archetypal crime story of a jealous rival trying to kill the protagonist’s former lover. It is now up to our hero No Man – a watchmaker representing time – to alter the course of history, just as the universe is about to come into existence. In the making since 2014, Genesis Noir was well-received by critics upon release, even though several reviewers pointed out that the game resembled an animated movie, allowing only for limited player interaction.

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Knockout City Soundtrack

Knockout City Soundtrack, The Soundlings, 2021

Just about any sport in existence has been immortalised in at least one video game (well, maybe not synchronised swimming – yet). Still, some sports have arguably proven more popular than others once turned into interactive screen entertainment. One of the sports rarely encountered in video games is dodgeball. Maybe that’s because of its inherent simplicity and lack of strategy. However, the same features can also be a strength since they make it easy to transpose dodgeball into new settings and gameplay modes. Case in point: Velan Studios’ Knockout City, which sees teams of players chasing each other through the titular futuristic city, trying to knock each other out by hitting their opponents with a ball. Sure enough, when asked why they went with dodgeball as the game’s core gameplay component, Velan Studios CEO Karthik Bala responded that it was an “intuitive” sport whose concept everyone understands.

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Speed Limit Soundtrack

Speed Limit Soundtrack, Matija Malatestinic, 2021

There have been many love letters to classic video games of the 1980s and 90s. That means if a developer wants to turn heads with yet another homage, they will have to come up with something special. With Speed Limit, Gamechuck opted for a distillation and combination of staples pulled from the history of arcade games. Their title brought together elements of run and gun platformers, racing games, isometric shooters, vertical shoot ’em ups and even faux-3D flight simulators à la Afterburner. On top of all that, Gamechuck threw in several movie-inspired setpieces. Whether the game was ultimately the best of various worlds is up for debate. Reviews were generally respectful but couldn’t help point out Speed Limit’s brutal difficulty level that made memorisation of oncoming enemy hordes necessary.

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Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X Nightmare Soundtrack

Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X Nightmare Soundtrack, Tee Lopes, 2021

The renaissance of 2d gaming, which kicked off in the 2010s, wasn’t just a boon for indie gaming. Enterprising developers successfully revived classic franchises that had lain dormant – and among them was Streets of Rage. 2020’s Streets of Rage 4 arguably didn’t break any new ground, but it was a skilfully executed take on perenially satisfying beat’em up mechanics. Commercial success followed strong reviews – a year after launching, the game had sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide. Of course, that meant DLC would soon follow and indeed arrived in the shape of Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X Nightmare. The expansion’s main addition was a new Survival Mode (seemingly inspired by roguelikes), three new playable characters and a more challenging difficulty level.

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