MandelArtPlains and Digital Spray Studios - You Are Empty (2006)

 

Developer: MandelArtPlains and Digital Spray Studios
Console: Middle PC
Game Release Date: 2006-10-27

Here's another one of those 'non-soundtracked' games, wherein I just provided my own music. This game has a soundtrack but for one reason or another it was barely present in my run. I played a bit of it at the start but there was just no music aside from a few scenes. It could have also been an issue caused by trying to run a game from 2006 on a modern Windows machine but I don't know for sure. All other sound and cutscenes worked fine.

 
I've actually had this game for a long time after picking it up at a fair during one summer. I just never got around to playing it and the first time I tried playing it on my old computer I could not get it to run properly. 

Cut to early 2020 when I was just in the mood for playing those mid and early 2000s FPS. I beat Vivisector  around February, tried Precursors (and promptly returned it) and then decided, well it's time to give this a shot. 

You Are Empty is a psychological horror FPS game by Ukrainian develops Mandel ArtPlains and Digital Spray Studios. The story follows the protagonist, a Soviet military officer who gets injured at work and ends up in a coma. He awakes an unknown amount of time later in a hospital. Something happened during his comatose that destroyed the surrounding city causing people to go crazy. Due to you being in comatose when the event happened you are the only sane one. From the hospital you need to make your way throughout the city to stop this craziness and bring the world back to normal. 

The game is only scary at the start when you are defenseless. Once you find a gun it becomes much more epic and engaging. The game is not for everyone but it scratched my mid-2000s FPS itch I have been on. It's nowhere near as intense as Vivisector but it features a lot of similar quirks from wonky enemy AI to bizarre and unusual writing. I took my time and enjoyed it. Now it's not GOTY-tier but I'd play it again in the future. 

The plot was a bit goofy and those cutscenes were a bit cheesy. It seemed like it tried to paint the antagonist in a good light but he was always kind of deranged. He's more of a born in the wrong time kind of guy. Spoilers here but the ending with the officer randomly shooting who would end up being the antagonist was very satisfying. 

As I stated before the music in the game was almost non-existent for some reason so I played some albums during my game time. These records have come to be my own soundtrack from You Are Empty. When I hear these songs I am instantly reminded of the game.

Dead Rabbits - Legion (2015)

Link: https://audiomack.com/dj-tmb/album/legion

Dead Rabbits is a crew I have known about for a while but I had trouble finding anything about them. I knew Father Focus Confucius was a member but whenever I looked up I got articles about the gang or some other groups with the same name. I don't know why I wanted to search them up again but I did. I think I may have seen Jakprogresso shout them out and wanted to know more. Up until then I had just thought they were a crew with no releases. Then I found out about this mixtape released back in 2015. 
This has to be one of the most intense boom bap / hardcore hip hop / battle rap releases I have ever heard. At 50 tracks and almost 3 hours it is nonstop bars and loud battle ready beats. Think that war rap, classical influenced sound that Snowgoons and other late 2000s backpackers used. Just bar after bar of violence, horrorcore and more. It's not for everyone and their use of swears and slurs may turn people off. The actual slower songs and more chill ones were far and few in between. Their use of the f-slur was a little much too. When I was running through the subway levels it fit perfectly. It's also perfect music for workouts. They released another album in 2019 but I am not ready to hear those yet. This is one of the most lyrically dense albums I have ever heard. 

Tech N9ne - Celsius (2002)

Link: https://ca.7digital.com/artist/tech-n9ne/release/celsius

I don't know the full deal with this album. It may not be 100% legitimate and authorized by Tech. Either way it's a dope collection of tracks Tech made when he was with MidWestSide. It lacks the horrorcore and cult aesthetic Tech is known for. It's mostly a bunch of gangster and Midwest hip hop tracks with some like Be Warned featuring Tech's signature chopper style. The best track is by far the title track with Tech's methodical flow and epic chorus. There is also some g-funk influence here. I played this album near the end of the game when you enter that Sci-Fi-looking facility. It may not be his best but it was enjoyable for me.

B.A. Badd - Everybody Eats (1st Plate) (2019)

Link: https://babadd.bandcamp.com/album/everybody-eats-1st-plate

B.A. Badd is a rapper out of Syracuse. I only found this record when I was looking for songs that had the same sample as Doap Nixon' 2020 diss Leg Shot. Beef aside, both Mafiosa and Badd killed their verses and put together an amazing track. It's a part of that New Wave of Boom Bap and features heavyweights like Rome Streetz and Conway the Machine. 29 minutes of grimy NY boom bap featuring lots of gangster and violent lyrics. I listened to this a lot when doing the level just before the subway wherein you have to travel the city. Around the part where you get the sniper rifle for the first time. 

Labal-S - Blvkmvgic (2018) was another album that really defined my run. I'd put it up here but I already covered it in an earlier post. Also in the theater level I listened to Dapper Scumbags: - Reality Check Cashing (2020) but don't want to cover too many different albums in these posts. Maybe I’ll do an addendum post at some point.