Xorcist - Bad Mojo (1996)
Composer: Xorcist
Console: Windows 99 and above, Macintosh
Game Release Date: 1996-02-29
Soundtrack Release Date: 2017-05-07
Runtime: 1:46:56, 47 Tracks, 2 Discs
When I started this I did say that I would also occasionally share where to get some more official soundtracks. Here's the first one. The soundtrack in 2 volumes was officially made available in 2017. The first disc contains the tracks from the game and the second contains music used in cutscenes, trailers, unused tracks and some tracks from Space Bunnies Must Die.
I have never played Bad Mojo but I have watched a full playthrough of it. It's a FMV game where you take control of Roger, a cockroach researcher who is planning to take stolen loan money and flee to Mexico to life a new life. After an argument with his landlord, Eddie he opens up his late mothers old locket and it activates. His mind is extracted and placed into a cockroach. Being guided by the ghost of his mother he navigates throughout the complex and the player learns about Eddie and Roger's pasts. It's a weird game and definitely not for everyone.
You control cockroach Roger and navigate throughout the apartment complex and bar from a top-down perspective. In great detail you get to maneuver around old glue traps, sinks that haven't been cleaned in years, undersides of bar ovens, rats caught in traps, rats currently dying and more disturbing and ghastly imagery. Don't eat anything while you play this. You will quickly lose your appetite. You have to solve puzzles by moving things around and setting things up so a reaction can happen. For one puzzle you need to make yourself a conductor to turn on a radio to wake Eddie up to have him move so you can access the bed. (there's a small chance I may be mis-remembering that)
Being a FMV game from the 90s you're bound to get some cheesy acting. Roger's actor get an applause for me. His is extremely expressive and very animated. Very reminiscent of Jim Carey. Eddie and Angelina (the mother)'s actors do a good job as well but Roger knocks it out of the park. Although he's a cockroach for the entire game the cutscenes he is in really sell it.
So what of the music?
Xorcist is an electronic, industrial, metal and general weirdo dark 90s music. He most notably the composition for the hit MTV show Aeon Flux. I've never personally watched it so I only know of him through this game. He perfectly captures that dark-grungey, sometimes cyberpunk atmosphere of the late 90s. The cover art is also really reflective of it too.
I don't know a lot about industrial music. The whole Skinny Puppy, Nine Inch Nails, late 90s electro-industrial-metal fusion movement is not my forte. Just don't get mad at me if I don't use the right genres.
The music is very 90s industrial with lots of synthesizer use and dark ambient. It's very similar to that kind of music but much slower and more haunting. The soundtrack has a very specific sound it captures. Some tracks like, 'Sad Bar Memories Slushed' is very sequencer & MIDI sounding.
The musics atmosphere was "made possible by the excellent remixing and augmentation skills of Will Psoma who by the time of Bad Mojo’s writing, was my liaison to the game publisher as I was still playing the role of composer and not full time employee. Will took my ambient pieces and looped, overdubbed and remixed them into masterpieces. By the time I heard his take on the whole Den Of Madness loops I sent them, my jaw hit the floor". ~ Xorcist on Bandcamp
Just from a brief google search it doesn't seem like Will Psoma has done much other than this game. I imagine he's still working on games to this day.
Disc 1 is for the most part that syrupy, almost cartoon-ish industrial music that only seems to exist in the 90s. Disc 2 is a lot more raw and much more ambient and electronic. It's the original loops before Will Psoma made it into the dreary sounds that appear in game. It's not essential to the soundtrack but still really good.
All said and done, Bad Mojo is not a game for everyone but if you're looking for a gross game with a wonderful story and you think you can stomach it then give it a try. Otherwise, maybe just stick to the soundtrack and read a Wikipedia summary?
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