Email: Wing Commander on Sound Blaster

Sean,

Sorry to keep writing you in. But, I sort of cringed when you put out the Sound Blaster versions of music from Wing Commander. The music quality of that really wasn’t too hot. The way the game was meant to be played back in the day, the way the composers intended the music to be heard, was with a Roland MT-32. Although they were a little more pricey — it made SoundBlaster sound like crap in comparison. The game did have amazing music, but I really find the SoundBlaster versions of it to be unlistenable.

You can listen to all the soundtrack played on an MT-32 here: http://amiestreet.com/music/the-fat-man-and-team-fat/wing-one/ (just hit the play buttons to actually hear the songs).
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Why the hell should I care if you think the SoundBlaster version of it to be ‘unworthy’? That was the most popular version back then. And seeing how what preceded the Sound Blaster was, practically, the dinky PC Speaker, no one was complaining about the sound quality.

Remember, at Word Press, I can only embed YouTube videos. Look at the YouTube videos for Wing Commander I. There are very, very few. There are many ‘soundtrack’ videos done for console games excluding Gameboy systems. Commodore 64 and computer games in general are extremely unrepresented.

The way the game was ‘meant’ to be played? The way the composers ‘meant’ it to be heard? What goofjuice is this? The way for the game to be played was for the customer to BUY IT. And it order for customers to BUY IT, the game was designed for many different types of sound cards. Origin also intended for customers to BUY the Speech Pack.

What did Origin NOT intend for customers to do? They did not want customers to NOT buy their game, to NOT have a good experience with it.

Origin also did not intend for the game to only play on Roland. If they did, then why did they offer for so many different sound cards? They just wanted their game to be bought and played.

Considering that many gamers had to buy a new piece of hardware called “sound card” in the first place to hear the amazing music of Wing Commander was pushing it even back then.

I hope I never get another email with the phrases “what the developers intend” or “what the game company intends”. First, no one knows their intentions because no one is psychic. Second, their only intention is for people to buy and enjoy their product. Third, the developers or game companies’ opinions are absolutely irrelevant, it is the customers’ opinions that only matter. At that time, customers thought Sound Blaster was ‘good enough’ for them than a Roland. And these customers had the same exact experience with the game whether their sound card was Sound Blaster or Roland. Those who played the game with headphones had the same experience with those who used speakers.

I’m not trying to find the ‘best’ versions of the music. I’m trying to find the music of how it sounded at the time. Most people used Sound Blaster.