Steve Burke (composer)

Last updated

Steven Burke
Genres Orchestral music
Occupation(s)Musician, composer, sound designer
Years active1995–present
Labels Sumthing Else Works, Materia Collective
Website SteveBurkeMusic.com

Steve Burke is a British video game composer, sound designer and voice actor. He is mostly known for his work at the British video game developer Rare.

Contents

Background and career

Burke was involved with music from early age. At home his family had a piano, which Burke played nearly every day. He also was playing the clarinet at Manx Youth Orchestra. Aged 20, Burke moved to London and studied at music branch of King's College London. Then, he graduated from Royal College of Music with a master's degree. At college, Burke often went to film recording sessions where he met such the masters of orchestra such as John Williams and Michael Kamen.[ citation needed ]

After college he was composing for films about a year before he was recruited by video game giant Rare in early 2001. He firstly provided additional music for Star Fox Adventures , but his first major and most successful work at the studio was the soundtrack for 2005 game Kameo: Elements of Power . The soundtrack was scored with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. [1] The game's music was well received and was nominated for several awards. He also scored Viva Piñata (with Grant Kirkhope), Jetpac Refuelled , Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise (with David Wise) and Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise (again with Kirkhope). Aside from soundtracks, Burke also made sound effects for Perfect Dark Zero , Conker: Live and Reloaded and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts . He also had done additional voice acting for all games above.[ citation needed ]

In August 2009, Burke left Rare. [2] In November 2010, Burke created all sound and music for Xbox Live Avatars. The work was done as a part of his former relationship with Rare, who were bought out by Microsoft in 2002. [3] [4] Most recently Burke co-composed music for ex-Rare developers Playtonic Games in Yooka-Laylee , along with David Wise and Grant Kirkhope.

Works

TitleYearNotes
EverQuest: The Scars of Velious 2000Additional game designers
EverQuest: The Shadows of Luclin 2001Game designers
Starfox Adventures 2002Performed various instruments.
No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way Special thanks
Kameo: Elements of Power 2005
Conker: Live & Reloaded Sound design.
Perfect Dark Zero Field recording
Viva Pinata 2006Sound design and additional music, with Grant Kirkhope.
Jetpac Refuelled 2007
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts 2008Sound design ("Clanging And Banging").
Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise Sound design and additional music, with Kirkhope.
Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise Viva Pinata Team
Fusion Genesis2011
Fusion: Sentient
Fable Heroes 2012Additional music, with Robin Beanland.
Rare Replay 2015Special thanks
Goldilocks and Little Bear
How We Soar2016
Yooka-Laylee 2017With Kirkhope and David Wise.
Raging Justice2018
Voice acting
TitleRole(s)
Conker: Live and ReloadedAdditional voices
Perfect Dark Zero
Kameo: Elements of Power
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and BoltsMumbo Jumbo, Lord of Games, Bottles
Viva Pinata: Trouble in ParadiseSarsgorilla

Related Research Articles

<i>Donkey Kong 64</i> 1999 video game

Donkey Kong 64 is a 1999 platform game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It is the only Donkey Kong game to feature 3D gameplay. As the gorilla Donkey Kong, the player explores themed levels to collect items and rescue his kidnapped family members from King K. Rool. The player completes minigames and puzzles as five playable Kong characters—each with their own special abilities—to receive bananas and other collectibles. In multiplayer modes, up to four players can compete in deathmatch and last man standing games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rare (company)</span> British video game developer

Rare Limited is a British video game developer and a studio of Xbox Game Studios based in Twycross, Leicestershire. Rare's games span the platform, first-person shooter, action-adventure, fighting, and racing genres. Its most popular games include the Battletoads, Donkey Kong, and Banjo-Kazooie series, as well as games like GoldenEye 007 (1997), Perfect Dark (2000), Conker's Bad Fur Day (2001), Viva Piñata (2006), and Sea of Thieves (2018).

Video game music is the soundtrack that accompanies video games. Early video game music was once limited to sounds of early sound chips, such as programmable sound generators (PSG) or FM synthesis chips. These limitations have led to the style of music known as chiptune, which became the sound of the first video games.

Timothy John Follin is an English video game music composer, cinematographer, visual effects artist and game developer, who has written tracks for a variety of titles and home gaming systems, including the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, Nintendo Entertainment System, Mega Drive, Super NES, Game Boy, Dreamcast, and PlayStation.

David Wise is a British video game music composer and musician. He was a composer at Rare from 1985 to 2009, and was the company's sole musician up until 1994. He has gained a following for his work on various games, particularly Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country series. Wise is known for his atmospheric style of music, mixing natural environmental sounds with prominent melodic and percussive accompaniment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grant Kirkhope</span> British composer

Grant Kirkhope is a Scottish composer and voice actor for video games and film. Some of his notable works include GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, and Perfect Dark, among many others. He has been nominated for various BAFTA, ASCAP, and IFMCA awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin O'Donnell</span> American video game composer

Martin O'Donnell is an American composer, audio director, and sound designer known for his work on video game developer Bungie's series, such as Myth, Oni, Halo, and Destiny. O'Donnell collaborated with his musical colleague Michael Salvatori for many of the scores; he has also directed voice talent and sound design for the Halo trilogy. O'Donnell was Bungie's audio lead until April 11, 2014.

The "DK Rap" is the introduction theme to the 1999 Nintendo 64 video game Donkey Kong 64. Originally conceived by Rare designer George Andreas and composed by Grant Kirkhope, Andreas co-wrote and performed the lyrics, with Rare staffers joining in the chorus. Its lyrics describe the five playable characters in the video game, with Kirkhope's goal to juxtapose the previous iteration of Donkey Kong against the new one from Donkey Kong Country.

<i>Viva Piñata</i> (video game) 2006 video game

Viva Piñata is a 2006 life simulation game developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. The game revolves around the player tending to a neglected garden in Piñata Island, in which different variations of piñatas based on animals must be bred whilst fending off disruptive interlopers. The project was headed by Gregg Mayles and the team behind the Banjo-Kazooie series, based on an idea from Rare co-founder Tim Stamper. Microsoft wanted the game to become a key franchise for the platform, and developed a tie-in television show to accompany the series.

<i>Viva Piñata</i> (TV series) Television series

Viva Piñata is a Canadian computer-animated children’s television series produced by 4Kids Productions and Bardel Entertainment in collaboration with Microsoft, and it is based on the Xbox 360 video game of the same name by Xbox Game Studios and Rare, which was released alongside the TV series. Lloyd Goldfine and Paul Griffin served as executive producers, with Mike deSeve acting as story editor and Anne Bernstein and David Steven Cohen among the series' writers.

<i>Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts</i> 2008 video game

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a 2008 platform game developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. Set eight years after Banjo-Tooie (2000), Nuts & Bolts follows the bear-and-bird duo Banjo and Kazooie as they compete with the witch Gruntilda for ownership of their home. Although Nuts & Bolts retains the structure of previous Banjo-Kazooie games—collecting jigsaw puzzle pieces to progress—it shifts the focus from exploration to vehicle construction. The player designs vehicles, including automobiles, boats, and aeroplanes, and uses them to complete challenges across various worlds. In multiplayer modes, players can compete or share their vehicles over Xbox Live.

Eveline Novakovic is a British video game music composer who composed some of the music for Donkey Kong Country, most of the tracks for Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, and did voice acting and sound effects for a number of other Rare games including the voice of the main heroine, Joanna Dark, in the Nintendo 64 game Perfect Dark. She left the company after doing voice work for Kameo.

<i>Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise</i> 2008 video game

Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise is a life simulation game developed by Rare, for the Nintendo DS video game console and based on Viva Piñata. Released days after Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise for the Xbox 360 in the fall of 2008, Pocket Paradise was developed by Rare's handheld team, as opposed to Viva Piñata: Party Animals and the PC version of the original game, which were developed by separate third-party developers. It was the final game Rare ever developed for a Nintendo system, as well as currently the final game in the series.

Gregg Mayles is a British video game designer currently working for video game company Rare as creative director. He is one of the longest-serving members of the company, having worked there since 1989.

<i>Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise</i> 2008 video game

Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise is a 2008 simulation video game in the Viva Piñata series for the Xbox 360. Developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Studios, the game builds atop its predecessor, in which the player tends a garden and the piñata creatures that come to live there. New features to the series include a cooperative multiplayer mode, a new plot, additional types of piñata creatures, Xbox Live Vision Camera support, and two new areas for capturing piñatas.

<i>Project Dream</i> Cancelled role-playing video game

Project Dream was the codename of a role-playing video game (RPG), Dream: Land of Giants, that served as the basis for the 1998 game Banjo-Kazooie. Developed by Rare, it was aimed for release on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), and later the Nintendo 64 (N64). The plot followed a young boy, Edson, who caused trouble with pirates. The SNES version of Dream used an isometric perspective and had a fairy tale theme. After transitioning to the N64, the project became a more complex 3D RPG that had a greater emphasis on the pirate theme. Eventually, Dream was scaled back to a linear platform game in the vein of Donkey Kong Country (1994) that starred Banjo the bear, who became the protagonist of Banjo-Kazooie.

<i>Yooka-Laylee</i> 2017 video game

Yooka-Laylee is a platform game published by Team17 in 2017 for Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, followed by a version for Amazon Luna in October 2020. Developed by Playtonic Games, a group of former key personnel from Rare, Yooka-Laylee is a spiritual successor to the Banjo-Kazooie series released for the Nintendo 64 nearly 20 years prior. After years of planning to develop a new game, Playtonic Games initiated a Kickstarter campaign that attracted significant media coverage and raised a record-breaking sum of over £2 million. The game follows chameleon Yooka and bat Laylee on their quest to retrieve a magical book from an evil corporation.

<i>Kameo</i> 2005 action-adventure video game for Xbox 360

Kameo: Elements of Power is a 2005 action-adventure video game developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The player controls Kameo, a 16-year-old elf, who must travel across the land, rescuing her family while collecting Elemental Sprites and Warriors in a Beat 'Em Up style combat against the trolls that stand in her way. Kameo's ten elemental powers let her transform into creatures and use their varied abilities to solve combat-oriented puzzles and progress through the game's levels.

<i>Viva Piñata</i> Video game franchise

Viva Piñata is a video game franchise created and produced by Xbox Game Studios and Rare. The series' first game, Viva Piñata (2006), was conceived as a mobile gardening game before Rare was acquired by Microsoft. It was released on Xbox 360. It launched alongside an animated series produced by 4Kids. The game received two console sequels: Viva Piñata: Party Animals (2007) and Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise (2008), as well as a handheld release, Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise (2008), for the Nintendo DS.

References

  1. "Kameo: Elements of Power (Video Game 2005) - IMDb". IMDb.com. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  2. "Rare LTD. On Twitter: "Farewell drinks with Mr. Burke last night. His parting gift: An elderly hamster called Mr. Sniffles who died four days later. Thanks Steve!"". Archived from the original on 22 April 2016. Retrieved 30 October 2017.
  3. "Game Music :: Interview with Steve Burke (September 2010)". Squareenixmusic.com. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  4. "Burke's blog". Myspace.com. Retrieved 11 August 2020.