Halo: Reach [Original Game Soundtrack]

As has been the case with every Halo game to this point, Martin O'Donell and Michael Salvatori have created a gripping and atmospheric soundtrack to assist in telling the Halo tale.

For some of us, the music of Halo is a bit of an unsung hero (pun intended). The music plays in the background, sometimes without you even realizing there IS music playing, but as you finish a level you start pulling all of the pieces together in your head and realize that while you may not have consciously heard the music, subconsciously the music has stirred emotion in you and pushed you to fight or exerted influence on your heart strings when the horrors of war take what is important from the character you play and the Halo world as a whole. Masterful music at its best.

I won't say every piece is a master work, but many of the pieces are stirring, jarring and fit perfectly in the scenes in which they play. In game there seems to bit a bit of dynamics at play on how the actual...Read more

I enjoyed the games, but the music in all the Halo series has been phenomenal! It is increasingly difficult to create new, exciting, and moving musical themes in a well known series. Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori raise the bar in excellence not only for video game soundtracks, but for instrumental soundtracks in general. This soundtrack is right up there with Star Wars, Gladiator, The Lord of the Rings, and other big name compositions. My favorite Halo soundtrack before Halo Reach was Halo 3: ODST. If you like the music of the Halo series at all give this a try and you will not be disappointed. A great bonus for this soundtrack is that you can listen to it anywhere. Plus, the soundtrack is close to 2 hours in length. You are definitely getting a bargain here. People overhearing the music are usually surprised that this is a video game soundtrack. The music is more somber and dark given the tragic storyline, but there are occasional rays of instrumental hope.

Halo:Reach is the last of five Halo games from Bungie Studios. I have purchased (to my knowledge) all of the Halo CDs to date, and have enjoyed them. The two most recent offerings: Halo 3:ODST, and Halo:Reach, have sounds that separate them from the other three. I realize that if you're reading this, you want to know about Reach, but please bear with me. ODST offered up wonderful, nostalgic, noirish sounds, mixed with just a hint of John Williams Star Wars score. This is not to imply that Marty O' Donnel and Michael Salvatori can't write their own music. I meant it as a compliment.
Reach, however, gives us something completely different. I have found little, if any, similarities between this and all the others. The exotic sound of Overture and primal sound of Winter Contingency really set the tone for the epic scale of the game, and hence, the entire soundtrack. Marty O'Donnel and C. Paul Johnson have truly saved the best music for the last game. If you've hesitated in...Read more