The Music of Metal Arms: Glitch in the System

[Bizargh]

The first & last title developed by Swingin' Ape Studios, Metal Arms: Glitch in the System is a third-person shooter with platforming elements that anyone desperate to apply a labelled comparison would probably describe as "Clank from Ratchet & Clank had a meeting with Bungie and was kindly given some design notes from Halo".

Released in 2003 on all 6th gen' console platforms, it unfortunately was not a commercial success, despite both receiving critical praise & lasting positive player approval. This has often been attributed to a sheer lack of marketing that arrived if not just before, on the game's release.

Swingin' Ape Studios would go on to be acquired by Blizzard Entertainment in 2005 to help develop StarCraft: Ghost, which was eventually declared cancelled in late 2014.

As for the planned trilogy of Metal Arms itself, the creators of the game attempted to buy it back from their publisher; Sierra Entertainment's parent-company, Vivendi Games, but were rejected. Activision would eventually acquire Vivendi Games in 2007 & close down Sierra Entertainment in 2008 (Before being reestablished in 2014). The Metal Arms IP is now believed to currently rest in Blizzard Entertainment's hands.

Despite the original creators showing a continued interest to return to developing on Metal Arms if given the legal ability to do so and it still remaining available on the Xbox 360 Marketplace as an Xbox Classic, the game currently remains an obscure classic with an unfortunate tale of an IP with potential stopped in it's tracks & an example of video game licenses being buried in stockpiles of other unused licenses by big name publishers.

A Destructoid interview by Jim Sterling with Steve Ranck, a founding member of Swingin' Ape Studios as well as a Programmer & the Executive Producer of Metal Arms: Glitch in the System that recounts the story of the game's unfortunate events (Which is often used as an example regarding issues with copyright or publisher license ownership in the Jimquisition show): https://www.destructoid.com/the-story-of-metal-arms-glitch-in-the-system

Anyway, enough story time, and now onto the gist. After months of searching, I managed to locate the Official Soundtrack composed by Keith Arem, which was released for free, but presumably after the developers were acquired by Blizzard Entertainment, the official link has long been dead (Or redirects to Activision's homepage). It is perhaps the most unique video game soundtrack album I've ever encountered, being made as a seamlessly transitioning whole with an abundant amount of dialogue either both from in-game or recorded for the album (Even a whole track dedicated to a humourous encounter with three of it's characters), and the music in general is just generally badass!

Even better, a chap over on Final Fantasy Shrine ever so kindly got me the in-game music converted to FLAC from the Nintendo GameCube files, which gave me the music without dialogue and a substantial amount of music not officially released. After massive amounts of time doing a clean-up job, I got myself a convenient release collection for it to be enjoyed once more.

Here are the download links:

• Official Soundtrack:
  https://www[DOT]mediafire[DOT]com/file/iafo75358u45st4/MA_-_GitS_OST.zip
  
  
• In-Game Music:
  https://www[DOT]mediafire[DOT]com/file/2h9n430vl1m55sd/MA_GitS_In-Game_Music_[FLAC].zip
  
  
• Images (In case you want to create a custom album from the In-Game Music):
  https://www[DOT]mediafire[DOT]com/file/cph7jzrddugr1zy/MA_GitS_Images.zip
  
  
• And here's two of my personal favourites that I'll recommend to you (I'd have used official art/press material, but it's very lacking, especially in modern resolutions):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6mejIoCLV8
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPLmooybpyE

The best part is, this stuff has never been sold, and although I did get a content match with one of them due to it containing a stock audio asset, I'd dare say you've pretty much got green-light on content making with this music.
If you wanted to monetise any content using this... well... for a game whose license remains held by Blizzard Entertainment and/or Activision, I certainly can't guarantee the consequences of doing so will never arrive, especially since Blizzard renewed the Metal Arms trademark in late 2014 (Whether it was for any good reason remains to be seen), so I'm not going to recommend you try.