For a festive release, Acclaim take some of their better known games and remix various tracks from them to give a Christmas vibe. The clue is in the title of the album “Acclaims Ravin’ X-mas” as to what the remixes turn out as!
“Intro” is actually a completely new track integrating piano, sleigh bells and keyboards to make a pleasant and catchy song that I was surprised to have myself put it on repeat! The breakdown of this song is particular beautiful.
That’s where most of the calmness ends however has the album descends into early 1990’s dance music. Think Snap, think Nightcrawlers, think 2 Unlimited. Nice for nostalgia but it has dated painfully!
“Fantastic Four Remix” is first up with some nice jazzy keyboard-piano work and the beat of the song stays very much in the background. As with most of the album, they get the Christmas push in my adding sleigh bells as percussion… very clever indeed Acclaim…
“Turok (Rakozor Remix)” is a little heavier, edging more towards a bass fused break beat number with very little in the way of tune. It seems that adding dinosaur sound clippings from the game is how you can roll out a new song! “Extreme-G (No-Limit Remix)” is another song that relies too much on a bass line and leaves out a tune. Sadly it all gets very repetitive if you cant really work out what songs from what game unless you pick out speech extracts from the songs.
“Turok (Technosaur Radio Edit)” thankfully has a tune to it at last. Its a bit like a paranoid tribal dance/club hybrid which works fairly well and finally gives some merit to the remixes at last! “Extreme-G (Sequence G)” ups the tempo with a high speed remix that will have you nodding your head for a little while too.
“Constructor (Remix)” is made by the great character sound clips of game being fused into what is a pretty standard dance tune that you’d hear all the time by bedroom DJ’s but “Extreme G (Highway 1999 Remix)” fails to really get going with a grizzly but repetitive bass line taking the stage and boring you after the first minute. “Alien Trilogy (Kai Tracid Remix)” is better however and actually have some musical merit to it during it 6 minute assault.
The next two songs are from Turok again. “Tryanosaur Edit” is uninspired despite a nice beginning with some congas and sound effects while “Deep Jungle Mix” is unsurprisingly jungle music that fails to catch you although at least the drum loops change at regular intervals…
Fantastic Four (Fantastic Flares)” is much like the previous Fantastic Four remix which thankfully scrapes respectability but daring to have more than a bass and drum line but is sadly over after two and a half minutes before the final song “Alien Trilogy Mindbomb Remix” which shocks everyone by having decent vocal singing and being refreshingly different showing that after all Acclaim really could have made a half decent album but chose awful and monotonous remixes instead.
In the final song, if you ever get that far, it asks “Why do you run away so fast?” Maybe its because putting sleigh bells on a couple of remixes of dull bass lines and quickly shoving in sound effects from various games does not make nice music for the ears. I’d be pushing myself to say that more than four of these songs are worth repeated listens and I think that says it all.