Half-Life 2 is just one of those games that I can never give up. I don't even know what it is about this game that I like so much, perhaps it the smooth and fluent controls, or the intense yet balanced gameplay, the amazing level designed, the story, the voice acting or maybe it's the incredible music by Kelly Bailey, which always seems to pull me closer into the game and intensify whatever is happening in the game. Half-Life 2 seems to be one of those games that I will never stop playing, every time I play it I discover something new. Like just this week when I was playing it, just before Highway 17 starts if you go up to the map of the coastline, there's a few line of dialogue about how the map is outdated and how they're finding it hard to keep in contact with the other station, I had never heard those lines before, and it took me a little bit by surprise.
This is a cover that I started working on in July 2016, and by that I mean I started working on this for a about a week then get got bored and abandoned it and then revised the project about two weeks ago. So even they I worked on this for about as much as any other project, it still feels SOOOOO good to finally have it finished and finally be releasing it.
Arranging this one was tricky, mostly because the original was only about 45 seconds, and my arrangement style is suited for a 5 minute song. So it was interesting reworking the melody into a variety of different styles and arrangements. I didn't want this cover to get to repetitive though, to I added a couple of original part. Those being the opening with the acoustic guitar, and the section at around 4:20. Honesty this part was my favourite thing to do in the whole song because I don't think I've done anything quite like it. By that I mean, something that is focused on harmony and texture rather than melody.
Perhaps its because I starting on this project so long ago, but I had a real perfectionist attitude when working on this. I re-filmed a lot and the parts for this and after filming everything, I decide I didn't like how the acoustic parts sounded, so I completely re-recorded all of those parts from scratch. However at this point, I do believe that I am 99% happy with this, (99% because I know it's not perfect but I just don't want to be working on it any longer.
I hope this cover was worth the wait! I am looking forward to reading your thoughts in the comments below; have fun!
