X-COM Apocalypse Soundtrack - 03 - Dawn Over Barrier Walls

Soundtrack for arguably one of the best games ever made, developed by a presently defunct company called Mythos Games. It was published by Microprose.
Lead Composer: Richard Wells
Additional Music: Dave Punshon, John Broomhall
Credits also go to Julian Gollop, whose brilliant and innovative mind brought the world of X-COM to life.
Playlist URL: www.youtube.com...

[@christ3187]

Miss this game...wow so many memories. I remember thinking about how much this track reminded me of the theme from Twin Peaks

[@frothfrenzy]

You're right - it does have that moody, dreamlike feel that permeates the show. Big fan of the 1st and 2nd season, but not so much the 3rd.

[@christ3187]

@@frothfrenzy it definitely captures a mood that's for sure. It's like it's own mood.

[@JuraIbis]

The creator of this game hates it, because he never got to finish it properly to his own taste. It is still a pillar of its genre in time, and I am sad he cannot comprehend that.

[@NOTWARHOL]

why isn't he helping out with OpenApoc?????

[@HelmetHair]

@@NOTWARHOL He is doing Phoenix Point

[@user-nt3qx4vr4b]

@@HelmetHair Not Xenonauts2?

[@padcarr1183]

Suffered an immediate flashback to the trauma suffered playing this game. This game is so difficult... but the right kind of difficult... the kind that makes you determined. I have unfinished business.

[@frothfrenzy]

+Pad Carr Can't agree with you more. With two playthroughs on varying difficulties and strategies, I would say I have no unfinished business with this game. Except the last one - the superhuman kind ;)

[@ft354]

it took me years to understand you could check the statistics panel for alien invaded corporations and send your squads there to hunt aliens even without a current UFO on the flight, like the game was alive and growing even when there was nothing coming from the hyper-portal.

[@AgenonTaeche]

This music....cant find words what i feel from hearing it again, the memories just come flooding back and theres nothing bad in them. Thank you for uploading this, thank you.

[@Dishol]

This particular track fills me with nostalgia for some reason. Great game.

[@frothfrenzy]

It does for many people, myself included. It's _the track_ that gets associated with Apocalypse and it really defines the tone of the game in some way. If you like the sound of this, you might want to look into goth ethereal, dungeon synth, and electronic acts from the late 80s and early 90s. I've been into dungeon synth especially over the past year and found some amazing albums though you have to sift through a lot of crap as well.

[@AragarVarnus]

Who the hell disliked the video?????? WHO????? Yes I'm still here, I still listen to it at work. Yes, 2 years later.

[@frothfrenzy]

They must have been using the monitor upside down... Enjoy your stay as much as you like! I remember replying to you two years ago.

[@AragarVarnus]

@@frothfrenzy hahahaha good one :P

[@SelimCGN]

this is really the best xcom soundtrack, what a game and what a time, good times. One of best games ever

[@MarxistMedia]

This always makes me think of Laura Palmer's theme! I can't be the only one, haha.

[@frothfrenzy]

Never thought of it in that way, but now that you mention it - it has some similarities! On a random related note, what do you think of this year's season (2017)?

[@adammclaughlin845]

frothfrenzy It sucked, hard. But then I could never get into David Lynch or that style of stuff. Too much empty space in each episode, too much meaningless gibberish that the pretentious viewer will call "masterful" or "intriguing".

[@frothfrenzy]

@Adam McLaughlin I never received the notification for your reply, I only just found it now randomly. Wanted to say that I agree completely. I hate-watched the whole season and although it did have a few interesting concepts and ideas, it's a flat 1/10 for me. 1st season of Twin Peaks was really good, though, and the 2nd one would've been better if only it had half the number of episodes. As far as his movies are concerned, you might want to give Blue Velvet and Lost Highway a try. I'd say these are his best works, and are definitely more 'available' than stuff like Eraserhead.

[@lordhoot1]

​@@frothfrenzy You're both wrong. Thanks for the upload though, I love this track

[@MrTax-mp4ju]

Amazing track. Really makes you think about the state of the world in Apocalypse. Also 2:02 moment is simply mindblowing.

[@airwolfman]

When I look out of the window at the city, this music plays in my head xD. Along with "beyond the Light of Day".

[@Fealorin]

two anthropods didn't like this track

[@adammclaughlin845]

This music was always the second one to play whenever I loaded it up. And when the cityscape loaded after an intense mission, this music playing as you return home with new loot or you've fought off an alien fleet and all is quiet again. Sending hovercars on patrol routes around the city, modding in useable/purchaseable civilian vehicles just to roleplay... good times.

[@BOF303]

This is such an amazing game.

[@joyman2000]

deep, reflexing, sensitive, very good ambient music game, expresive, this music are awesome, and play accord the game is.

[@2wMaliman]

This is the first song you hear. I remember initially feeling disappointed that the whole experience was so drastically unlike xcom unknown. It didnt take long to win me over.

[@adammclaughlin845]

Me too, although I was excited at the tremendous variety of vehicles available right away. I also loved how cool new stuff became available each week and some stuff such as psiclone had to be found.

[@2wMaliman]

@@adammclaughlin845 its a shame roads blew up and vanished. made land vehicles next to useless.

[@frothfrenzy]

I totally agree. I actually prefer this to the original UFO, regardless of it being another masterpiece. Also, what most people don't know is that X-COM: Apocalypse is actually an unfinished game. The developers wanted to implement other things such as a complex politics system between organizations, multiple parallel alien dimensions and the like. However, they were out of time and out of funds. You can find more information on Wikipedia and third-party sites on the subject :)

[@helikestv]

My summer and fall of 1997 basically consisted of playing this game and listening to Moby's "Animal Rights" album. Incidentally, the ambient parts of that record have a very similar feel to the XCOMA OST.

[@adammclaughlin845]

Listened to that for the first time last night after reading your comment. You're right, the first track sounds so much like this.

[@frothfrenzy]

Target audience is the source of the problem. Most games nowadays are made to favor people that fall within the interval of about 14-22 years of age. This comes as no surprise because that kind of audience yields the most profit. Same goes for the movies. Things were different 10-20 years ago. As for XCOM - if the developers think the original was crap, then they're bound to fail. The first three X-Com installments were perfect products that required no fixing. Only newer graphics, perhaps.

[@FeelingShred]

Played Xcom Terror From The Deep for the first time this year 2019 (without ever playing the first one before) What a memorable experience that game. All within 20 MB.

[@gabrieltallent1658]

I never got far in this game, a testament to the complexity it has over its predecessors. Xcom has earned a place among the cadians and the EDF as the best alien killers humanity has produced.

[@adammclaughlin845]

You owe it to yourself to try again, this is a fantastic game and the harder difficulties become extremely challenging, though not as ridiculous as TFTD.

[@frothfrenzy]

@AgenonTaeche You're welcome. This is one of my personal favorites. The atmosphere it brings forth is truly X-COM.

[@Silencerof]

No... I played this game, well I was back 13? 14? I thank u for uploading this! This game was EPIC!

[@Karunel]

Playing the new one currently, it's a very good game, but in no way better than the original or Apocalypse. Playing it is making me want to replay Apocalypse, actually. Still, better than what I expected.

[@BaconHer0]

I loved this song

[@JeriDro]

This is that ride back from the alien dimension, you lost 2 of your best soldiers but the building came down.

[@Johnny0Masters]

Great music. I used to play this game all the time. A few years back i tried reinstalling it but my cd didnt work, tried downloading from the internet, had some troubles, made it work, but there was no music. No atmosphere. Couldnt play it again =\ Wish i found a way to play this game again with music, or that a true sequel, spiritual or not, is made.

[@akigreus9424]

Good start, mission 1 of klingon academy complete, congratulations on finishing this game on very hard, now that you've complete the first tutorial mission on Sim City, you're ready to move to the 2nd one, xcom util.

[@Forgotten-Gaming]

Yep the maps were a little too large (vertically and horizontally) for turn based mode, but finding aliens got annoying in the original too. Apocalypse at least had the motion scanner and if you used the Marsec chest armour you could fly making scouting much quicker. The games not perfect but it's this and not the original that I return to time and again. The city scape, variation in levels, ufo/alien/research types, alien dimension, corp relations/raiding etc just immersed me more.

[@JeriDro]

This sounds like the theme from Escape from New York. Love apoc

[@21willyx21]

My favourite tune! Can anyone recommend some music or artists that sound similar to this? Thanks!

[@LoomisPC]

Hard one! But check out Sabled Sun and Phoenix Point OST.

[@TheReaverOfDarkness]

You just gotta try it on turn-based. With toxiguns and a little planning, you can devastate hordes of aliens in relatively short amounts of time, sustaining no or almost no casualties. All you need beyond that is megapol armor.

[@TheReaverOfDarkness]

Oh you're absolutely right. It's a shame that they had such a tight schedule.

[@skaruts]

@WahookaTheGoblinKing You could always intercept them without having alien infiltrations. I usualy saved and saw at what time the aliens would come, then load the game and before the time I'd set my hovercars and stuff near the portals. Of course, it's a bit like cheating, but I started doing that after I went through what you say. :)

[@paladinnoir2]

omg I love this game!

[@TheReaverOfDarkness]

There are games that come close, they're just old. Fact: good games don't sell. Publishers know this, and so they release crap on purpose. No matter how much crap they release, they will never saturate the market for crap games enough to make a good game profitable. But indy games are becoming more popular, so try some of those if you want a smidge of a chance they'll be good games. Steam often sells these for really cheap. Also check out the X-Com remake that's coming out soonish (not the FPS)

[@Ma3gau]

YEs, the game is extremely hard. It gets exponentially harder as the time passes(at least before you start cranking out xcom armor, energy shields, shields for aircraft and xcom craft.). I can't beat medium difficulty.

[@WahookaTheGoblinKing]

The game had the serious flaw similar to TFTD liner missions - huge maps with "alien in the closet" syndrome. I remember many times when some silly single alien was still alive so I had to sweep whole building multiple times just to get him. It's impossibly frustrating on turn-based, and it is not nice in real-time either. Other than that, the game is a bit rushed, it could be even more, no matter how awesome it is. It makes those bad sequels after even more sad ...

[@Ma3gau]

Awesome game and very hard one also, great atmosphere and game mechanics. But turn-based mode isnt balanced with insta poppers and alien wtf explosives and real - time mode is pretty hard to use because when you have 2 squads of 6, real time gets you killed.

[@Foeshear]

I was recently enlightened this past year that there is a genre of music known as doom jazz... kinda similar atmosphere. Search for Bohren & Der Club Of Gore - Sunset Mission (Full album) HD.

[@MrRevoltRed]

Lets just hope they can make the second part, Terror from the deep. Not sure if it would be good as either a dlc or a new game entirely (building up from the first).

[@Manopapo]

The new xcom is awesome allready and 1000000 players do care, you can still play this masterpiece and the original until the aliens come and turn all of you into dopplegangers...

[@AragarVarnus]

Anywhere I can buy or download the Apocalypse Soundtrack? I googled it but didn't dig up much to be honest.

[@frothfrenzy]

+AragarVarnus I don't think you can buy it. I remember downloading the OST rip from some obscure forum some time ago which probably isn't active anymore. If Google doesn't help, your best bet is KZbin-to-MP3 converter. Google that and there are several platforms to choose from.

[@AragarVarnus]

+frothfrenzy I was trying to avoid using the software because of... lazyness hahaha I'll google a bit more then, if I don't find I'll just do what you said and use the software. :P Thanks a bunch. :)

[@frothfrenzy]

+AragarVarnus I got ya covered :D I already used KZbinByClick twice for downloading entire playlists. The quality is great, just make sure you check "best" on quality controls. You can use that or possibly some other entire-playlist-downloader if you're feeling particularly lazy... really saves the time :P

[@AragarVarnus]

+frothfrenzy Ha! Shweeet! Thank you very much for the tip!

[@frothfrenzy]

Ha! Dude! :D Np, enjoy!

[@frothfrenzy]

There are several versions you can download off the internet that have the music, cutscenes and everything. However, given that most operating systems are simply "too new" to run it, you would either need DOSBox to make it work, or install an older version of Windows on a virtual machine. Both are more or less easy to do, but DOSBox is what I used, and it worked perfectly. If you know what you're doing it's about 15 minutes of work :)

[@JeriDro]

Agree'd!

[@joyman2000]

almost geoscape 3 of Xcom 1 are awesome too (and psx version reworked too)

[@WahookaTheGoblinKing]

This game could have been so great if it was not full of long and repetitive encounters. Tried to replay it recently, but couldn't be arsed to clear out same place 5 times a day.

[@adammclaughlin845]

A bit late here with the reply but I've noticed the same types of buildings and organisations get raided all the time. Playing on a larger city (higher difficulty = bigger city) helps and it seems kind of random which type of buildings the aliens will infiltrate. Each playthrough has different buildings getting raided.

[@uwebde]

I like this good game It runs good with DOSBOX and D-Fend reloaded...

[@Ma3gau]

you can download it in the internets and play it on dosbox and music works

[@mrstaceyjackson]

some kind of mystery why theres no games that even come close to this.

[@blackhawk35i]

epic!!! :D

[@mrstaceyjackson]

i agree the firaxis xcom looks (terrible) my only faint hope is for them to continue developing it after release with out all the devastating crippling mistakes. one squad of agents is a good example of where they have failed.i watched several interviews and realised they seem to be saying the original is crap in a veiled manner. i understand why they made it how they have but unless they get real and fix this for adults like me ill be un interested

[@GAnimeRO]

Firaxis is amongst the No.1 game rapers are there. What they did to the UFO game is horrible.

[@aaNJooRKENDOV]

I resent hasbro so much for closing Micro Prose. Bloody impatient money greedy executives complaining because the is a decent amount of time before you get a return on your investment. Since the day I discovered what hasbro did I have not given them a single penny because they didn't deserve anything for destroying a great legacy. I apologize to anyone who believes I'm a butt-sore fanboy but screw you! I am.

[@semiconductorwave7859]

aaNJooRKENDOV The world is in desperate need of more people like you.

[@frothfrenzy]

Agreed :D

[@Fenris77]

@Johnny0Masters You can by the game on Steam and they have made it playable on Windows 2000/XP and VISTA so it "should" work! Last time I tried I tried with an emulator(another geek-expression) but the sound was all FU**ED up(= imagine hearing "echoes" of everything you do,Annoying or what?)!

[@nvatek]

did you manage to find a way to play it again?

[@frothfrenzy]

I might be wrong, but this could be related to the developers having insufficient funding to continue balancing the game. Six more months of play-testing would've probably proved that some weapons don't really have a use, and in turn would've been subjected to a number of changes. Also, I don't think that the developers at that time gave too much attention to balance as their contemporaries do nowadays. Only diversity was what mattered. Regardless, what they made was still a fine product :)

[@albinscott]

Splendid track! Also: PBS Space Time?...

[@frothfrenzy]

I'm fond of that show but what is the reference here? Background music?

[@albinscott]

@@frothfrenzy I think so

[@frothfrenzy]

Yeah, synths are usually recognizable in that way. I recommended this in another comment but you might want to check out dungeon synth, ethereal goth and early 90s electronic acts if you're looking for a similar sound. Dungeon synth especially is a recent discovery for me and even though it's very hit or miss - the good stuff is really good. Try Googling "Vale of Pnath - Hymn of the Plants" or "Jim Kirkwood - Master of Dragons" and see how you like it.

[@albinscott]

@@frothfrenzy Will do. Thanks!

[@Forgotten-Gaming]

The best X-Com game by far IMO. Never understood why fans of the original criticised it just because they put in a real-time mode. The game is so full of atmosphere it's great. I recently finished it on Normal using only real-time and though the die-hards may not give it a go, it works excellently, the soldier AI even use cover by themselves. The trick to beating the game is to get the Toxigun ASAP and get the C-type ammo. Oh and use humans not androids since with training they are far better.

[@whenindoubtdo]

I have no idea why this game is not more popular. It was clearly the best made of the X-com games. I hope someone, somewhere out there will make a remake of this and the real-time tactical combat.

[@JeriDro]

A lot of old school xcom players didn't like this game and I have no idea why. This is the only xcom game I play, I wish they could up date it

[@frothfrenzy]

Nice find, I can see some similarities. Not my cup of tea, though :)

[@Fenris77]

I´ll have my friends from the "geek" brigade help me out they do they fiddling I do the lifting!

[@BoroMonokli]

Needs repeat mode! :)

[@TheReaverOfDarkness]

It would have been nice to see a few balancing fixes so that heavy plasmas aren't over powered (they can still be the top weapon) but other plasma guns should have a reason to be in the game. And heavy lasers should have a use but they're crap. A few minor fixes like that would have been great. But nothing major. Like the disruptors in Apocalypse being pitiful compared to brainsucker launchers, and the accuracy in that game didn't work at all.

[@Karunel]

The new X-com is gonna be terrible but who cares, we can still play this masterpiece and the original until the aliens come and turn all of us into dopplegangers...

[@arirahikkala]

Apocalypse was honestly not a good game. And its soundtrack is honestly not great. This piece in particular is just a couple of synth pads that anyone could play. I don't even have nostalgia for it, when I played the game as a kid I only had a pirated version without the soundtrack. ... and I keep coming back to it. It really has the perfect tone for the game's setting: Mankind is diminished and nostalgic, but still optimistic; life is calm and orderly for now; but a new alien threat is somewhere out there, and it could be the end of humanity. Somehow they managed to pack in *exactly* the right feeling.

[@frothfrenzy]

My theory is that such games produce little profit for the publishers. Not much of the gaming community is interested in games that stray too far off the current stereotypical approach. I think some kind of a squad-based FPS set after the events of Apocalypse would probably be the best bet to satisfy both the fan base and the global community. The newest XCOM looks ok, but I'm skeptical if it could deliver the same atmosphere as its predecessors. That remains to be seen.

[@mariosuck123]

Trump soundtrack