SWIM has found his PERFECT trip out music. Also about Age of Empires (RTS PC game).

[Akewstick]

SWIM couldn't decide to put this thread in Cannabis, DXM, Deleriant Antihistamines or Nitrous Oxide, so it's here.

From the ages of 13-14, SWIM played Age of Empires religiously, he knew the ins and outs of every civilisation, and had done everything it was possible to do on the game 400 times. When Age of Empires 2 came out, he got it straight away, and soon knew it as intimately as he'd known the first one, and the same for the expansion packs.

Those of you who have played these games know that one game can take 5+ hours easily when you're at the very hardest level, and longer than that depending on how you set it up.

SWIM lost months of his life to this game, SWIM hasn't done heroin, but he can't imagine that it's any better than Age of Empires at blocking out the real world. SWIM recently has cause to block out the real world again, and his wallet can't handle drug binges, and he's not sure his mind could either. So, SWIM recently got hold of Age of Empires 2 and the expansion pack, and has regained some of his skill that he's lost through lack of practice. He's also rekindled his passion for it, or at least, it is once again something that he can turn on and fall headfirst into, only to be catapulted back to the real world 2-3 hours later when the words "You Are Victorious!" flash up on the screen.

SWIM loves going back to something he hasn't done for years, those old memories, he's not nostalgic about it, because it's exactly the same now as it was then. But SWIM had forgotten the music!

The music to the first 2 games was shit, it was what microsoft thought medieval music would sound like, in cheesy blip-and-fart synthesiser format. But the music to the expansion pack for the AoE2, Oh SWIM's God! It's ambient, it rises and falls and completely absorbs SWIM, it's enormous sweeping operatic crescendo one second, and fast techo beats that make your skull vibrate the next second, and it all blends into itself perfectly, seamlessly.

SWIM has never heard music more beautiful and more (excuse the term) trippy than this anywhere, and what a stupid place to find it. It might be the hours, days and weeks SWIM has sat with it blasting out from his headphones, paying no attention to it, but letting it set the mood for his pointless battles and achievements on Age of Empires. Eitherway, the music is one 30mins 50secs track (this is played on a loop when you play the game) and SWIM has converted it to MP3, and it is now on his ipod.

Any of you played these games?

Any of you have huge chunks of your childhood/adolescence flood back to you when you hear the electronic music from a much-loved computer game?

Editted to add: the track is called "Subatai Defeats the Knights Templar" and the artist is officially "Microsoft". If any dirty stoners who pride themselves on deciphering music in terms of trippiness (I know you're out there, you who have ordered pink floyd's albums in descending order of trippiness), I'll get SWIM to upload the file, it really is worth a listen if you like music that will suck you in and bounce your head around.

[dnb warrior]

SWIM was completely hooked on age of empires 1 and 2 before he tried any drugs... they are great games, so much strategy involved, and addictive as hell. vast chunks of SWIMs life were wasted getting beat at AOE online!. unfortunately he never played the expansion packs so he doesn't know this track you speak of! you have inspired him to dig up the disc for AOE2 though. but the AOE2 music was shite, he liked a lot of the music from the first game though.

recently while fucked off his face on something or other, SWIM remembered which game had the best music of all the gamees out there... transport tycoon! cheap tinny sounding MIDI music, but some of the best jazzy compositions SWIM has ever heard. its a good game as well, and now there is a free version available to download called open TTD, with the same great music as the original, SWIM would definately reccomend it!

[Trebor]

Love Age of Empires, all of 'em. I play them daily. Akewstick, I have to disagree, Pink Floyd is the trippiest music you can come across (not counting the Salvia songs Swim has heard).

[Akewstick]

Love Age of Empires, all of 'em. I play them daily. Akewstick, I have to disagree, Pink Floyd is the trippiest music you can come across (not counting the Salvia songs Swim has heard).

I'm listening to floyd right now, Meddle, it is the best album, people who say dark side is the best are evil, even though darkside is absoloutely fucking gorgeous, that can't be your favourite, it's so cliché. The Wall also is beautiful.

Trebor, if you like Pink Floyd, you should download the album "The Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson, it's not as easy to listen to as floyd, but if you're lying down, eyes closed, letting music influence CEVs, Floyd are gorgeous, but that album will just completely fuck you up.

Reputation Comments on this post:

I prefer Meddle too. :)

[Trebor]

I like A Momentary Lapse of Reason. It's very misunderstood but I think it makes for excellent trip music.

[Akewstick]

Noooooo, not a momentary lapse of reason, good trip music or no good trip music, post Wall Floyd are EVIL!!!!!

[Trebor]

Wall Floyd is mainly Roger Waters fucking up vocals.

[StigmataLectron]

AOE music kicks ass. I haven't played the game in about, uh, three or four years, but sometimes I still have the music from it pop into my head. Your thread actually makes me miss it and RTS gaming in general.

Command and Conquer had some kick ass shit too, but that's not the same cup of tea really. Of course SWIM hasn't listened to it on Deliriant Antihistamines or N2O, but he can vouch that listening to it on cannabis or dex will make him feel like an emotionless machine, but in a good way.

King Crimson kicks ass. "In The Court of the Crimson King" really doesn't require drugs to make you trip off of it, it's that cool.

[Alicia]

wha...swia used to play populas 3, she remembers age of empires 1 loved the title music... ages ago.. things were so different back then.. sigh.. oh well

[Akewstick]

AOE music kicks ass. I haven't played the game in about, uh, three or four years, but sometimes I still have the music from it pop into my head. Your thread actually makes me miss it and RTS gaming in general.

Command and Conquer had some kick ass shit too, but that's not the same cup of tea really. Of course SWIM hasn't listened to it on Deliriant Antihistamines or N2O, but he can vouch that listening to it on cannabis or dex will make him feel like an emotionless machine, but in a good way.

King Crimson kicks ass. "In The Court of the Crimson King" really doesn't require drugs to make you trip off of it, it's that cool.

Yeah command and conquer was good, but SWIM never got into it as much as AoE, did you ever play "Empire Earth?", it was an obvious rip-off of AoE, and not as good, but instead of 4 ages like in AoE, there were about 30, and you could go from prehistoric times all the way through WWII and vietnam and then about 200 years in the future and build robots and whatnot. That was pretty cool.

And hell yes about KC, that album is SWIM's fave album of all time, he shelled out on a 1st edition vinyl copy of it even though he was broke, KC after 1970 kinda piss SWIM off a bit, but those first 3 albums, oh my gosh!

Wall Floyd is mainly Roger Waters fucking up vocals.

How dare you insult Roger Waters. Listen to Brain Damage and Eclipse and tell me those vocals are shit. Yeah he's not the best singer, but he's a genius and he's beautiful, and besides all of that, he's Roger fucking Waters!

[Trebor]

Originally Posted by Akewstick

How dare you insult Roger Waters. Listen to Brain Damage and Eclipse and tell me those vocals are shit. Yeah he's not the best singer, but he's a genius and he's beautiful, and besides all of that, he's Roger fucking Waters!

Roger Waters sucks. He has a shit voice, can't write and is an asshole.

[StigmataLectron]

Originally Posted by Akewstick

Yeah command and conquer was good, but SWIM never got into it as much as AoE, did you ever play "Empire Earth?", it was an obvious rip-off of AoE, and not as good, but instead of 4 ages like in AoE, there were about 30, and you could go from prehistoric times all the way through WWII and vietnam and then about 200 years in the future and build robots and whatnot. That was pretty cool.

I think I may have come across Empire Earth at best buy once or twice. I could never really understand why you'd want to have so many time periods in a single game. Did different players advance through them at their own pace as in AoE? I guess back when I had the chance I was too interested in the ancient/mideval history that the AoE series focused on to really give it a chance.

[antigenesis]

Wow, AoE... Thats something I haven't even thought about in years... Damn my love for RTS games involving buildable walls + siege engines. Wasn't there some cheat for that where you could get like a porsche or ferrari or something with machineguns mounted on it?

[Akewstick]

Wow, AoE... Thats something I haven't even thought about in years... Damn my love for RTS games involving buildable walls + siege engines. Wasn't there some cheat for that where you could get like a porsche or ferrari or something with machineguns mounted on it?

Yeah, in the 1st one you could get a ford Cobra in blue and white that could do drive-by shootings, and another cheat gave you a man in a white jumpsuit with a machinegun. The 2nd game had a cheat for a ferrari with a machinegun on it, and another cheat gave you a squad of men that ran around incredibly fast with lazerguns that could demolish castles with a single shot.

[antigenesis]

Ahh man, good times. I lost more than a few hours of my life to that game.

[antigenesis]

Empire Earth is VERY fun. I think I like it better than Age of Empires. It's like an evolution thing, where you need a couple key buildings from each era before you can 'research' the next era. Empire Earth had incredible gameplay. Also, before beginning the game you select the range of allowable eras. If you don't like stonage and copper age like me you can cut them out. If you don't like how a good play can be running around with cyborgs and laser tanks while others are using muskets, you can limit the later eras.If you like Age of Empires and you haven't played EE I highly suggest you try it.

[Akewstick]

I think I may have come across Empire Earth at best buy once or twice. I could never really understand why you'd want to have so many time periods in a single game. Did different players advance through them at their own pace as in AoE? I guess back when I had the chance I was too interested in the ancient/mideval history that the AoE series focused on to really give it a chance.

Yeah, you moved through them at your own speed, like I say, it was almost an exact copy of age of empires, the screen was set up exactly the same, the controls and hotkeys were the same, but I never thought it was as good. Too busy, it sacrificed good gameplay for things that the creators included because they thought "wouldn't it be really cool if ______" while they were playing Age of Empires.

[emoduckie]

I remember the music from the expansion. I burned it to a cd years ago.

I remember sitting in my cement basement with the music playing in windows media player on windows '98.

good shit.

btw, roger walters doesn't need to have outstanding vocals to make them amazing. Pink floyd is incredibly trippy because the music is so atmospheric and deep.

[Nature Boy]

SWIM was a massive AoE fan back in the day as well. I think he still has the original game CD buried under a pile of newspapers somewhere. Massively playable game, you could get lost in it for hours. He was obsessed with it that he used to design his own campaigns based on lesser-known figures from around the same era in history. He got AoE2 a few years later but never found it to be as satisfying an experience. It was prettier and had some great innovations but it lacked the user-friendly appeal of the first version in its level design.

He's never actually played AoE3 so he might look into it if he wants to rekindle the addiction. Although computer games have made big advances over the last few years, SWIM often finds more joy in games that are 5-10 years old than brand new games with flashy graphics and even flashier price tags. His favourite games at the moment are the original Quake and Sim City 2000, not SC4 or even SC3000.

[Wierd Logic]

Monkey knows what you mean!! He's never thought about it but was very into Age of Empires 2 back in the day. Haha, he should bust that out some time.

[Jerc]

god swim loves age of empires.. hasnt played in years though :/