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                        Review: The music from "Zool"    
                                                         
                           Music by Patrick Phelan       
                                                         

                          Reviewed by Wayne Andrews

The  title  music  of a game is crucially important as far as fist impressions
go.   The  track  should  be  of a high quality, and yet accuratly reflect the
games'  personality.  Zools' title track scores well on both counts; it's fast
and fun.

The music starts with a very funky little bassline, accompanied with a sampled
giggle from Zool himself as he jogs across the screen.  The main melody of the
tune  is  carried  by  panpipes,  an  oriental sounding piano, and an electric
guitar,  which  while not particularily well sampled is effective enough.  The
tune  also has some very diverse little samples lurking about, a cock crowing,
breaking  glass,  breaking  wind  (!),  and a ruler being twanged on a desk (I
think) to name just a few.  All in all the tune is very well put together, and
will certainly have you taping your feet for a few minutes at least.

The  in-game  music  is selected before play commences, and once you've chosen
it, you've got to stick with it until the current game is over.  You have five
choices :  Sound Fx, Rave, Green, Funk, and Rock.

As  the  first  level loads in, your ears are treated to another little upbeat
offering.   The  bass and drums happily thump along, and in comes Zools' voice
again  :  "Get Ready", he says.  It's the same music between each level, but a
nice touch all the same.

Playing with the sound fx only is at best O.K, although there are a great many
good  quality samples to be heard :  Zools' footsteps as he runs, his cry when
he  gets  hit, the screech of his shoes when he tries to stop too quickly, and
the pops and explosions as Zool fires at, and jumps on his enemy.  The trouble
is  that  it  just  sounds too empty, often all you can hear are the sounds of
Zools' feet as he bounces around the screen.  It's a shame, if the programmers
could  have  given  two channels for music, and two for FX, I believe it could
have been very good.

The  Rave  music  selection  is  probably the best music to play Zool to, it's
hardly  original,  but  captures the spirit of the game well.  The song itself
has  all  the  components  of a Rave tune you'd expect, a well worn drum beat,
orchestrial hits, short bursts of distorted guitar, and an almost acidic bass.

When I saw 'Green' as an option for music, I thought of large plains of grass,
valleys, and mountain ranges.  Soft soothing music perhaps, hardly the correct
type of music for a game of this nature surley ?  What this music actually is,
is  a  little  play  on  words.   It's  not  green, it's yellow, or to be more
precise,  Yello.   All  the  traditional Yello instruments are hear, the brass
stabs,  the  rythum guitar strumming, and the lovely fat bass sounds.  There's
also  a  vocal  "Oussh" sample that sounds as if it's been lifted straight off
"Rubber band Man".  It's a great song to listen too, better than the Rave song
infact, but it doesn't suit the game play as well.

Oh  dear,  I  didn't like the 'Funk' setting at all, it's a very weak piece of
music.   The  tune  is based around a slap-bass riff, and has breaks for small
bass  solos.   So  why did the slap-bass sample lack any power whatsoever ?  I
had  to  listen  very  carefully  to  check if it was there at all !  At other
points  in  the  tune,  it decided it wasn't going to be funk any more, and so
became jazz for a bit, then went back to funk when it became apparant that the
jazz  wasn't working either.  There were some very inappropriate samples stuck
in  there  as well, at several points in the tune, the melody was carried by a
chime-bell,  which didn't go at all.  I disliked the music so much that I just
couldn't  play the game with it on.  No doubt that there are rebel factions of
die-hard funk fans that disagree with me though.

The  Rock  setting  is  much  better, the tune starts with the obligitary long
distorted power chord, while a nice muted guitar riff plays in the background.
The  lead  instument is yet another guitar, and also goes into a couple a fast
solos.  The same problem occurs here whenever the Amiga tries to play a guitar
solo,  it  can't.   The  guitar  is too much of an expressive instrument to be
captured  within a few samples.  However, if you can handle the limitations of
the  guitar  samples,  then  you'll  find  if  a reasonably good rocking tune,
although  if  memory serves me right, it's just a bit too similar to the theme
from  'LED  Storm'  for  its  own good.  The main point is that the game plays
quite  well  with  this  music  in  the  background,  I'll take a guess at the
majority of people choosing either Rock, or Rave to play the game to.

If  you finish the game, the rock tune starts playing, it would have been nice
to  have  a  seperate  piece  of music for finishing the game, but perhaps the
programmers ran out of space.

The   samples   throughout   Zool  are  pretty  good,  but  certainly  nothing
outstanding.  On the plus side, with a choice of four tunes, or sound fx, most
people should find something they like.

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