Tali'Zorah knows that even in the future, corded headphones are the way to go.

I really enjoyed Mass Effect 2, so much so that I like to imagine talking to people with a choice selector near the bottom of my vision. I usually choose paragon options but I know the usefulness of a well placed renegade response. Be careful with the interrupts though!

Like many good games, I find myself drawn to the soundtrack as a way of reliving our times together. I went searching for it but unfortunately they only released it in MP3 and M4A formats so far.

Call me a snob but I think our future should be filled with upgrades and that means something better than or equal to the sound quality of a Compact Disc.

No worries though because with a bit of patience you too can…

Make your own Mass Effect 2 Soundtrack

These instructions assume you are using the PC version of the game.

• Download
  • Mass Effect 2 .AFC extractor | mirror
  • Audiokinetic Wwise RIFF/RIFX Vorbis to Ogg Vorbis converter | mirror
  • Extract, Convert and Rename scripts.
• Unzip everything into a new folder.
• Copy “C:\Games\Mass Effect 2\BioGame\CookedPC\*Music.afc ” to the new folder.
  • Your path may be slightly different depending on where you installed the game.
• Run “Extract, Convert.bat”
• Run “Rename.vbs”

Epilogue

Now you can enjoy 508 pieces of Ogg Vorbis encoded music while you wait for EA to release a proper Compact Disc.

Oh and special thanks to Extirpator for the original instructions on how to accomplish this.

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There are a lot of great things about Brütal Legend. Jack Black is of course hilarious, the graphics are permeated with rock iconography and the play style is a pleasant mix of action and strategy. What really seals the deal though is its amazing soundtrack.

There are too many good songs to choose from so here are some of my favorites.

• Angel Witch
  • Angel Witch
• Anvil
  • Tag Team
• Black Sabbath
  • Children of the Grave
  • Symptom of the Universe
• Brocas Helm
  • Cry of the Banshee
• Budgie
  • Zoom Club
• Crimson Glory
  • Queen of the Masquerade
• Dragonforce
  • Through the Fire and Flames
• Judas Priest
  • The Hellion, Electric Eye
• Manowar
  • Die For Metal
• Motley Crue
  • Dr. Feelgood
  • Kickstart My Heart
• Nitro
  • Machine Gunn Eddie
• Ozzy Osbourne
  • Mr. Crowley
• Scorpions
  • Blackout
• Tenacious D
  • Master Exploder

Seems like a long list until you realize that there are 107 songs which when played end to end will shred your soul for up to 8 hours and 40 minutes! I haven’t experienced such an epic soundtrack since the seven disc Grand Theft Auto: Vice City OST.

The problem is… you can’t really buy the Brütal Legend soundtrack.

With a bit of patience, equipment and software you can however, make your own.

How to roll your own Brütal Legend Soundtrack

I’m going to be very specific about my own hardware here but the concept is certainly applicable to a very wide range of setups.

PlayStation 3

Plug in an optical audio cable to your PS3.

Settings >Sound Settings > Audio Output Settings

Choose Optical Digital, use the defaults for Linear PCM and save your settings.

Load Brütal Legend.

Change your sound sliders so everything is muted except for music.

Load your latest save, summon the druid plow and then press up on the direction pad to get to the built-in music player.

Computer

Plug in the optical audio cable from your PS3.

I’m using an Audigy Platinum eX since it has a nice breakout box with all sorts of connectors.

Change your recording source to Optical In, S/PDIF or some other similar terminology.

The official Creative drivers would only allow me to listen to the optical in so I had to switch to the kX Audio Driver for recording. Bit of a hassle but the kX software does unlock a lot of special abilities.

Fire up Audacity or your favorite audio editor.

Make sure you recording device is set to the optical port and then change your default sample rate to 48000 Hz.

Hit record and then play whatever song you want to capture on the PS3.

Export your recording to your favorite audio format like FLAC, AAC or MP3.

Bonus Tips

Make sure to unlock all the songs you want to capture before starting this endeavor. The Brutal Legend Item Map by Achievement Hunter makes this task bearable.

Make sure to stay in the druid plow when recording otherwise your audio will become positional to the vehicle.

Recording level too low? Try normalizing to -1.5 dB before you save.

Epilogue

Video game music can be infectious, repetitious, evocative or just plain fun. No matter your reaction, listening to game music can be the best link to your memories of playing them.

Like that one time in Seventh Saga at 3am when I kept dying and that @#$%^ battle music was drilling a hole through my skull and … *EXPLOSION*

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I recently received a voucher for five Pepsi Points included in a order from Amazon. These points roughly translate into one dollar which means I could download one free mp3*.

The pesky asterisk means that not every song is available. Fortunately, my taste in music is as varied as my taste in underwear and a subsequent search led to the enchanting and technically excellent Gopher by Yma Sumac. Her vocal range causes me to shiver with the utmost respect.

The quality of the mp3 encoding is good (>200 vbr), the ID3 tags are perfect and it even includes a 600 pixel image of the album it comes from. I just wish someone would sell the same breadth of songs in lossless format. The company that did would receive a great many thousands in funds from a long night of impassioned purchases. Still, the rare treat of purging something from my “Dark” music collection while enhancing my legal sonics is a welcome occurrence.

For now, I think I’ll just keep myself entertained via Weird Music until the industry catches up with my digital needs.

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