Soundtrack Double Feature: Christmas in Springtime in Hell

This post came a little later than I'd like- my Mac had a sudden hardware failure and I had to rush it to the Apple store at the mall for repairs... thankfully unlike what happened three years ago I had a backup at the ready so nothing was lost in the long run. It still put me out of being able to work on my stuff until today, and before I was forced to bring my computer in for repairs, I had ripped two new soundtracks (or at least put them into a format one can easily put them in their music player of choice). But of course, I like to offer a little background on each respective soundtrack. 

Since 2009, retroUSB has created special NES cartridges themed around the holidays to sell on their website. While I never had a personal interest in purchasing these cartridges, they are pretty neat novelties--including a (sometimes interactive) Christmas visual with 8-bit renditions of holiday songs you can leave on in the background during a Christmas gathering and a Christmas themed game or mod. The cartridges also aren't your standard grey plastic: these come in clear white and shine internal LED's like a Christmas tree when plugged into an NES and powered on. Several of the 8-bit Xmas cartridges, including 2015 and 2016's, were showcased at the Festival of Games, a retro gaming-themed holiday event from the same hosts that brought you Long Island Retro Gaming Expo. One of these special cartridges was even used to command a literal quartet of ROB's to dance to Christmas songs.

Of course, you can also get the ROMs to plug into your favorite emulator, and that leads me to 8-bit Xmas 2021, an extensive mod of Excitebike that swaps the bikers with ducks on snowmobiles, adds four player support, and widens the track to six lanes over the original four. It only runs four (music) tracks long: the three songs that play on the title screen, and the theme of the game itself, Exciteduck, which shifts in speed depending on the speed of the ducks. The latter steals the whole show and I would recommend giving the OST a listen if only to hear the Exciteduck theme alone, though that's not to say the title screen tunes aren't worth it if you're in the mood for something a bit more relaxed and fitting for the season... in nine months from now anyways.

Grab the soundtrack for 8-bit Xmas 2021 here. Of course, this isn't the only game soundtrack I have prepped for today, as I have one more treat for everyone.

Some of you may be familiar with Doom, the legendary FPS from the 90's that spawned a million different mods providing new levels, gameplay tweaks, and soundtracks composed in midi instruments. During the end of the front half of 2022, I ended up in a sudden classic Doom phase, playing dozens and dozens of mods throughout the year and even into 2023, and one of the mods I played was the Plutonia MIDI Pack, a music mod that replaces the stock Doom/Doom II soundtrack with new compositions designed for use with The Plutonia Experiment, one half of the commercial mod compilation Final Doom, which initially lacked music created specifically for it.

The soundtrack quickly grew on me throughout 2022, and while the raw midi files were included as extras in the mod download, not many music players support midi format music. This music rip converts them to the more universal mp3 with all the appropriate tags so you can easily listen to them at your own leisure. Of course, I always encourage you to give the MIDI pack a try if you like the songs and want to see how they transform and complement the atmosphere of the Plutonia Experiment.

The Plutonia MIDI Pack's soundtrack can be found here. The MIDI version of the soundtrack (as well as the mod itself) can be directly downloaded from here.

And that's all I have for today- Next month should be pretty packed, with prepping for Easter and the first big convention of the year, and I still have some blog posts I'd like to write to fill the void while I grind out projects in the back. That said, I bid you farewell for now.