Monthly Archives: December 2021

The Adventure Continues: Talking with Composer Peter McConnell about Psychonauts 2 (2021)

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to speak with composer Peter McConnell about his work on the video game Psychonauts 2, which released earlier this year. In this game, the player controls Raz, a newly graduated Psychonaut with powerful psychic abilities, as he delves into the minds of others. Psychonauts 2 is set in a fictional, alternate world in which psychic powers exist thanks to the fictional element Psitanium – a substance brought to the planet by several meteors. The Psychonauts are an international espionage agency focused on psychic peacekeeping, scientific research of the human mind, and the development of psychic-based technologies.

Peter McConnell has composed award-winning scores for a diverse range of video games including Broken Age, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, the Sly Cooper series, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Psychonauts, Brutal Legend and Grim Fandango.

Peter studied music at Harvard with electronic composer Ivan Tcherepnin, graduating with High Honors. He has been nominated for over twenty-five Game Audio Network Guild Awards and won four, including Best Interactive Score and Best Soundtrack.

I hope you enjoy our conversation about Psychonauts 2!

How did you get started as a composer?

The short answer is that I came out to California from Boston a few years after college having made a plan with my friends Michael Land and Clint Bajakian to start a band. By the time I got out here the band kind of fell through, but Michael had gotten a job starting the audio department at LucasArts, and he needed help. But there was some history behind that. I had loved music before I could even talk, taken violin lessons as a youth, taught myself to play banjo and guitar, and in college had an epiphany in electronics class which resulted ending my studies in physics, leaving for a year and a half and returning to graduate in music. So it was less a matter of “getting started” as a composer, and more a matter of continuing a long journey.

Were you excited to return for Psychonauts 2 so many years after scoring the original Psychonauts game? 16 years is a pretty long time to go between installments, was it difficult to get back into the story after so long?

Absolutely. And honestly, it wasn’t really a matter of “going back” to the score, since in a sense I never really left the score to begin with. Those themes were always percolating around in my head. I probably spent a total of 15 minutes listening to the original Psychonauts tracks before getting started. The music was already there. I find that is generally true with me, although it was especially true of Psychonauts, since it was my first gig as an independent composer after leaving LucasArts in 2000.

Were you brought in to do the music early in the development process or late? And when you were brought in, was there a lot of collaboration/discussion with the game’s directors on where they wanted the sound/music of this game to go?

I was brought in fairly early. I was on the project for over 4 years, and I think they had done about 9 months of work on it when I started.

How much of the music for Psychonauts 2 is built off the score for the original Psychonauts? Or was it decided to go in a wholly different direction for this sequel?

I would say that the score for Psychonauts 2, like the game itself, is both a continuation and an expansion. As a composer I focus on melody, so the themes in the score are all-important. For this reason the characters that had been in Psychonauts 1 kept their original themes, but there were so many new characters! Each one got a new theme. Even the Main Title theme got a new “bridge” section, based on a significant new character in the game. And the music styles were expanded significantly. We could only afford a few live musicians in the original Psychnonauts, whereas in Psychonauts 2 we had The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, a live big band, a rhythm section from Nashville, and of course the rock and roll band featuring the voice of the amazing Jack Black.

What was the general process for creating the sounds and and music for each level of the game?

Each level is about a particular character and each character had a theme. Early on we went through a phase of just focusing on themes in the simplest form: simple piano sketches that, once approved, could be orchestrated into full pieces.

Following up to the last question, what inspired the overall sound world of Psychonauts 2? What groups of instruments did you decide to go with?

The characters inspired the instrumentation. For example, Hollis has an issue with gambling and her level is all about that. So the classic big band sound of Sinatra’s recordings with Nelson Riddle’s band had to figure into that world. Similarly, the Psy King’s level was all about psychedelic music from the ‘60s. It was the same way for all the characters, and each one pretty much called to me with a sound.

How much time did you have to score Psychonauts 2?

The score was done over 4 years, but in a project this size you don’t typically work all the time straight through from beginning to end. It’s safe to say that the entire score probably represents a couple thousand hours of work.

Were any of the game levels more difficult to score than others? For example, did you come to a certain point in the game and feel stumped as to where it was going to go musically? If so, how did you get around it?

There are often moments I run into with individual pieces, but nothing really sticks out. I think it’s safe to say there weren’t any real instances of writer’s block, or being stumped. I find if I do run into a problem, the best thing to do is listen carefully. Sometimes over and over. What comes next usually reveals itself.

Do you have a favorite musical theme/musical moment in the game?

My favorite two are probably the Lady Luctopus Boss and the Psy King music. The Lady Luctopus allowed me to combine the Melbourne Symphony, drums and bass from Nashville, and my friend Andrew Burton’s amazing Hammond organ playing in one piece. And the Psy King music allowed me to have a band reunion with Michael Land and Clint Bajakian—going back to all of our roots—and to create a piece with Tim Schafer for Jack Black to sing.

Is there any musical detail you hope players notice as they work their way through the game?

That’s a great question. There are many details I hope people will notice. For example, a careful listener may note that part of the clarinet melody in the Questionable Area and the Aquato Family Caravan music both come from a tiny little melodic fragment in a dream Raz has about his family in the original Psychonauts.

I hope you enjoyed our conversation about Psychonauts 2 and I want to say thank you to Peter McConnell for taking the time to speak with me.

My Thoughts on: Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)

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After unexpectedly enjoying Resident Evil, I pushed on and continued with the sequel Resident Evil: Apocalypse. This movie picks up almost immediately after the first film leaves off, with Alice waking up in an abandoned hospital and the T-virus raging throughout Raccoon City as the zombie apocalypse begins.

I think this film surprised me even more than the first Resident Evil movie, because it was my understanding that the films decreased in quality as time went on. But that decline clearly hasn’t started yet because Resident Evil: Apocalypse, dare I say it, is a superior film to the original Resident Evil (the lack of questionable CGI is a big mark in its favor). With the first film almost completely contained in the Hive, the sequel moving the action to Raccoon City makes perfect sense.

I really like how the film actually goes back and shows how the T-virus got loose in the city to begin with, with the meddling Umbrella executives making the situation worse by forcing the Hive open, allowing the surviving zombies (and the virus) to get loose. The montage that shows the early moments of the zombie apocalypse actually has a moment that had me laughing out loud. Remember when i reviewed the first movie and I wondered aloud if this was a universe where zombie films didn’t exist? Well, I think this movie confirms that zombie movies aren’t a thing in the world of Resident Evil because there’s a funny scene where the Raccoon City PD are hauling in handcuffed zombies in the police station and treating them like regular criminals. It’s so ridiculous, I couldn’t help but laugh.

Regarding Jill Valentine…I could see in her first five minutes onscreen why people took issue with her appearance and I completely agree with all the criticisms. Here’s the thing, when you adapt a story from video games, you are not necessarily obligated to duplicate the costumes in exact detail and I think the creators of this movie forgot that. That being said, Jill is such an absolute badass in this film that I’m willing to partially overlook it. The same goes with Alice. She was already a major badass in the first film, but she took things to a whole different level in this movie. I really loved the stunts she did with the motorcycle.

One thing that I wasn’t expecting at all was to see Oded Fehr in this movie (aka Ardeth Bey in the Mummy movies). I’ve been a fan of his for years and if I’d known he was in Resident Evil movies I probably would’ve started watching them years ago.

The biggest issue I have with this movie is Nemesis. I have a hard time believing that this…monstrosity…is supposed to be that one character from the first movie. Yes, I get that the ending of the first film was heavily implying that this character was mutating…but honestly, did that much time pass between the first and second movies for him to mutate that much? Not only that, but the makeup for Nemesis is just…I don’t like it. It’s a significant improvement over the bad CGI Licker from the first movie, but it still falls short and could’ve been better.

I admit, I honestly thought the sub-plot of rescuing the daughter in exchange for escaping Raccoon City was going to work out for our heroes. That moment, when we find out the villain has been aware the whole time…man that hurt. If you’re going to do a twist like that, that’s how you do it. At least the villain got his comeuppance and then some, it was very satisfying when he tried to take the easy way out and I heard the empty gun go *click*.

While Resident Evil: Apocalypse does have its fair share of problems, it is a marked improvement over the first film with a healthy dose of “Oh BLEEP” moments scattered throughout.

Let me know what you think about Resident Evil: Apocalypse in the comments below and have a great day!

My Thoughts on: Resident Evil (2002)

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So one of my goals in 2021 was to continue to expand my knowledge of horror films after finally admitting to myself that I do in fact enjoy the horror genre, albeit selectively. It seemed a no brainer to include the Resident Evil movies, starting with the first film in that series: Resident Evil.

Before I talk about the movie itself, I should make it perfectly clear that I have never, ever, played a single Resident Evil game (nor do I intend to) and aside from knowing about some of the more nasty monsters (like Lickers), I really don’t know anything about how the games work or how they connect, if at all, to the Milla Jovovich series of movies (I’m aware the 2021 reboot is a more direct adaptation).

All that being said…I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying Resident Evil for the most part. The initial set up with the Red Queen and the Hive is pretty scary, and I felt particularly bad for the scientists caught in the flooding lab. I also like how the film takes its time in revealing the big threat of the film, i.e. the zombies. Though speaking of the zombies…I have to wonder if Resident Evil takes place in a world where zombie movies don’t exist. Because, thinking back, it takes the group an awful long time to realize that there’s something really, REALLY wrong with the first zombies they encounter.

Once the zombies *are* introduced to the story and recognized as the threat they are, well, that’s when things get really interesting. There’s so many jump scares with those zombies I lost count. I wasn’t sure I would make it, to be honest, because zombie movies really do scare me, but thankfully the story kept the action moving enough that I didn’t have too much time to think about it.

Two of my favorite actors in this movie were Milla Jovovich as Alice and Michelle Rodriguez as Rain. I really liked how the story gave Alice amnesia so that she starts the movie knowing nothing about the situation, thus putting her in the exact same position as the audience. As Alice learns about the situation, so do we, so we have something in common with her.

I’m also a really big fan of the Red Queen, the malevolent AI Alice and company find themselves up against for most of the movie. This movie is further proof that artificial intelligence will someday be humanity’s doom (in fact I almost included this movie in my dissertation because of the Red Queen) and I love the role she plays in the latter half of the film.

That’s not to say that Resident Evil isn’t without significant flaws, because oh my God are there some glaring flaws in this movie. The most notable of which is the godawful CGI for the Licker. Oh my lord, I CRINGED when this creature first emerged and I cringed every time it appeared thereafter. I can’t even give the year as an excuse for how bad the CGI looks, because the early 90s CGI in Jurassic Park looked better than this travesty. It’s almost like the animators were 2/3 of the way done with the Licker and just decided to stop. Even the “mutated dogs” looked better than that monstrosity. I also take issue with the reveal of how the T-virus was let loose in the first place. If you’re trying to escape with a sample of the virus…why are you letting a sample go? I’m probably overthinking it but I thought it was pretty stupid of that character to set the T-virus loose like that.

Flaws aside, I did enjoy Resident Evil, enough in fact to continue watching the series (though that is a story for another day). It’s flawed, sure, but few movies are perfect.

Let me know what you think about Resident Evil in the comments below and have a great day!