Game: Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
Song: A Dark March
Composer: Danger Mouse
Above: A Dark March from GTA: Liberty City Stories
When Rockstar Games brought its flagship Grand Theft Auto series to PSP, it knew it had to immediately show the world that this wasn't some lame spinoff or watered-down version of the console originals. Liberty City Stories was a full-fledged entry in the series, and to prove it, Rockstar hired no less a musician than Danger Mouse to compose one of the best theme songs ever attached to the series.
A Dark March sets the tone for LCS perfectly, with martial drumbeats, hornriffsand what sounds like a dulcimer evoking images of old-world Italy and mob war - two things readily associated with the game's mobster protagonist, Toni Cipriani. And like most things, it's even better when viewed in its original context - in this case, the game's intro.
This being a GTA game, it also featured a ton of licensed music, althoughmost of it was relatively under-the-radar stuff compared to the instantly recognizable hits that filled out the playlists of Vice City and San Andreas. There were a few standouts, however, with the biggest probably being Scarface composerGiorgio Moroder, whose work made up the entirety of the Flashback FM radio playlist (just like it did in GTA III).
LCS also featured something new to the series: Radio del Mundo, a World-beat station that featured mainly Indian and Middle Eastern pop songs. These fit the business of high-speed driving and murder surprisingly well, although perhaps none did so as well as Dum Maro Dum ("Take Another Toke") by Asha Bhosle, from the apparently hippie-filled 1971 Bollywood movie Hare Ram Hare Krishna.
That's just the tip of the iceberg, of course - LCS featured a surprisingly big playlist for a handheld game, especially in 2005. Vice City Stories, released the following year, expanded on it even further with more recognizable hits (as well as more interesting gameplay overall), but somehow, it just wasn't as special. And itstheme song, appropriate to the mid-'80s setting as it was, was nowhere near as badass.
Nov 30, 2010
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