Welcome to GamesRadar's daily blast of all things pertaining to the ever-growing field of game music. Each post will introduce new sounds, games, composers and fan-made remixes of gaming's greatest aural achievements.

June 2, 2010

Game: The Mafat Conspiracy

Song: Golgo 13 theme

Composer: Seriinu



Above: Golgo 13 theme from The Mafat Conspiracy

You can keep your Master Chiefs and your Kratoses - for gamers in the '80s, no character defined badass as thoroughly as Duke Togo, the cold-blooded, manga-basedassassin/secret agent who went by the codename Golgo 13 and talked mostly in dots.

In an era when the hardest heroes were power-pellet-firing soldiers with names like Radd Spencerand Super Joe, Golgo 13 shot people with Colt Pythons and M-16s (frequently through a sniper scope), drove Ferraris, had a logo that clearly included the skeleton of Jesus and invented the art ofhaving stronglyimplied sex with ladiesto refill his life meter.



Above: Also, his high kicks created scenes that were easy to misconstrue

Mafat Conspiracy was the sequel to his first NES game, Top Secret Episode,but nobody bought it. Partly because it didn't have his name anywhere on the box, and partly because it was an unforgiving bastard of a game with mediocre side-scrolling bits andunclear victory conditions.



Above: AGH WHAT IS HAPPENING

Mafat had one saving grace, though: its graphics and sound were a pretty big upgrade over the more popular (but stick-figure-y) Top Secret Episode, and included a more elaborate, less tinnyversion of Golgo's iconic 8-bit theme song. The rest of thesoundtrack was pretty great, too - take this tune from the first stage, for example:

Also great was Mafat's Ferrari-driving theme, meant to stir the adrenaline of NES players circa 1990:

Let's forget about thenightmarishly repetitive 3D-maze theme, OK?The rest ofMafat's music was cool. Just hold on to that.

Jun 2, 2010



The Bill Haley-inspired theme by David Wise









Running Around the City by Kazuo Sawa



Forest Falls by Chris J. Hampton