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Sunset Riders Call of Juarez Red Dead Redemption Gun Smoke Wild Guns In cinema and pop music, Ennio Morricone has been able to innovate, invent and produce hundreds of songs and music considered masterpieces all over the world. He redefined and shaped the very concept of western, a film genre that literally exploded in Italy in the era of Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone, a concept already crazy thinking that we are talking about a product that is culturally and typically similar to Americans, but that Italians they made it conceptually recognizable with the vein called "spaghetti western". A genre born poor and with scarce means, but which has established itself in the world thanks to revolutionary ideas, probably born precisely because of the limited budget of the time. Morricone has inspired not only an entire film industry but all the media connected to it: comics, literature and not least our beloved video games. The sounds of his melodies are found in practically every game of this genre, and with this special we want to retrace the history of five iconic western games in videogame history, accompanied by as many compositions by the Maestro that we want to match for style, closeness and affinity.
Sunset Riders
Were the early 90's when games came in a title from the flavor strongly spaghetti western. The intro to the cartoon you was appreciate for a wonderful music in the style of Morricone, directed and cut the film to Sergio Leone . The characters were charismatic, exactly as was the case in those old movies, the '80s, the legacy of the authors of Konami who had designed the game. Billy, Steve, Bob, and the mexican Cormano, were the four gunmen can be selected in this wonderful scrolling shooter "Contra-style" sauce western. Environments are beautifully characterised and final bosses that still remember with hatred and sympathy, make Sunset Riders one of the titles from the games room, the most appreciated and sought after of the era. It arrived on the Super
Nintendo and MegaDrive. For this classic we choose a song very famous in all over the world: "For a few dollars more ", from the soundtrack of the second film in the so-called dollars trilogy directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, is the absolute protagonist. Must unforgettable, just like Sunset Riders.
Call of Juarez
we Continue our journey to discover the titles of the most iconic linked to the west with a
video game of 2006: the beautiful Call of Juarez that the sight of both
on PC and on Xbox. Released on the sly and without a lot of proclamations, the work of the Polish Techland, Call of Juarez was one of the best first person shooter of those years with fun gameplay and iconic characters. The game was varied and across many different environments, and the well-characterized are not bored easily. The story takes place between ranger, apache, farms and forts in the middle of Texas, and depending on the character used, the action of the game was radically different: in the levels dedicated to Billy (the name obviously linked to the culture of western) you acted in secret, disguised in the midst of bushes and branches, while in those where we used to play with Ray is shot from the front as in all the shoot em up classics. The game also had a multiplayer where you could do duels, robberies, and classic deathmatch. For Call of Juarez, we thought of a another masterpiece of the unforgettable Teacher: "my name is Nobody ", soundtrack of the film of the same name starring Terence Hill. The film was set in the same years in which it takes place, Call of Juarez, or at the end of '800, the period from the closing of the period western.
Red Dead Redemtpion
you can't talk about
video games and the west without of course mentioning the one that represents the "compendium" of all the stories, the clichés and the culture of that era: the Red Dead Redemption of Rockstar Games. This is actually a trilogy of games that began in 2004, Red Dead Revolver , released on the Xbox and
Playstation 2, and arrived at the last chapter with the extraordinary success of
Red Dead Redemption 2 on the current consoles. This game represents a concentrated crazy culture western, finding during the adventure virtually every situation seen in the classic Sergio Leone film. Woody Jackson, the composer of the series for Rockstar Games, has said that Ennio Morricone was the only person in the world that had the "fear of encounter", and that the historic Italian composer was known as "the Master," not without reason. On July 6, 2020, date in which is off the great composer, Rockstar Games has dedicated a tweet of remembrance, calling him "legendary" and posting the video of the wonderful song " And for a roof a sky full of stars ", that we present precisely because it is linked to
the world of Red Dead Redemption.
Gun Smoke
Remember with great affection one of
the most beautiful games of the late '80s, and it was a title western: Gun Smoke , released initially in the arcade, and then on any existing platform of the era, from the Spectrum to the NES. In versions of the housewives was graphically very simple, but with a soundtrack as powerful, and wonderful. Gun Smoke tells of the adventures of sheriff Billy (of course) who must break up a gang of outlaws that is putting fire to the city. The plot (that is to say, since it was a scrolling shooter), took place in reality in very different environments between them and once out of the village, we enjoyed the railroad, the settlement of the native americans, the Grand Canyon, the various ranch of the boss in the end of the level, rivers, and prairies. In short, there was everything in this beautiful title developed by Capcom, and that he as a designer of powered that by Yoshiki Okamoto. The legendary designer has in fact played a crucial role in the development of all the modern games western because it was him to invent the franchise of Red Dead, originally developed by Angel Studios who later became Rockstar San Diego. The company, founded by the colombian Diego Angel was initially special effects and 3D graphics, collaborating, for example, the movie "The lawnmower man" and many music videos. Then moved on the video game in cooperation with Nintendo and Miyamoto and Capcom for porting it to the N64, Resident Evil 2. Okamoto then you can consider one of the spiritual fathers (and not only) of the entire franchise Red Dead. In this amazing story we dedicate one of the soundtracks most iconic of the Master: "There was a time in the West ". And this time it is appropriate to say.
Wild Guns
We talked about how Capcom and the japanese have played an important role in the birth of all the modern titles western, and in the success of Rockstar Games with the saga of Red Dead. Always friends the japanese have been in love with Italian cinema, especially the one that goes from the '60s to the early '80s, exactly the period in which Ennio Morricone has expressed his creations, the most memorable. And the japanese have also seen, and, certainly, all of Sergio Leone's film because a large number of titles western came from the east, before the other part of the western world (where another culture is part of the DNA). The developer Natsume made it out of a title still remembered today with affection: Wild Guns . The peculiarity of this title was represented by the fact that it was a perfect combination between a western and a forerunner of steampunk, with machines and robots advanced for the era in which it was set. Having said this, however, was a title western to the bone with all the environments in the classics of the genre: the prisons, the mines, the villages and the attacks to the trains. Wild Guns was one of the most fun games of the era and went out on the Super Nintendo in 1994, and subsequently with a remake/reboot on the digital stores of the
PS4 and Nintendo Switch.This iconic title of the '90s, we dedicate an equally legendary song of Ennio Morricone" The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ", unanimously considered the epitome of the spaghetti western and one of the film's most famous Italian ever, concluded the famous "dollars trilogy" by Sergio Leone. Many filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino and consider him to be one of the best in the entire history of cinema. Also thanks to the evocative power of the soundtrack, unforgettable, by Maestro Ennio Morricone.
