We kick off March Music Madness month with an interview with Stephen Rippy. Mr. Rippy was the composer on Halo Wars as well as Age of Empire Mythology and Age of Empires III.
Tomorrow GDN will have some Halo Wars Soundtracks to giveaway so read carefully.
[GDN] How difficult was it taking one of the signature theme songs in all of gaming, with the Halo series, and making it your own?
It was a good challenge to try and find the balance between what people were familiar with and the new things I thought I could bring. I think once I had a couple of cues finished, it became a comfortable world to work in and I didn’t think about it too much after that.
[GDN] Did you do a lot of studying (playing the trilogy, study the previous games’ scores, etc.) when preparing to write the score for Halo Wars?
I had already played through the first two Halo games before we started production. The third one came out in the middle of writing the score, and I spent an unreasonable amount of time having fun with that. I also did a lot of listening to the soundtrack CDs, just trying to absorb whatever I could.
[GDN] What was it like transferring from doing a lot of medieval games, such as the Age of Empires series, to a game set in the future?
It was an interesting change. Mostly, it meant that I could dig out a bunch of synthesizers that didn’t sound right in ancient Egypt or colonial America. I really enjoyed hearing the blend of electronic instruments with the live orchestral playing.
