Weird Music Associations

This is probably just me, but for whatever reason I sometimes make weird associations with songs and video games.  The fundamental cause is always the same; I happened to be listening to a particular song a lot while also playing a particular video game around the same time.  Even so, the game and the song don't really have much in common...and yet my brain will act as if the two are somehow interconnected.  Here are three such examples.

IXION is a space sci-fi themed survival city-builder along the lines of Frostpunk or Outpost.  It has an interesting visual aesthetic and moody soundtrack to go along with it.  The story is compelling, but the gameplay leans really hard on micromanagement.  So, take that as a plus or minus based on your own gaming preferences.  The song that I somehow got stuck in my head while playing IXION is "Edge of the Universe" - a retro synth tune done up like something you'd hear in an early Madonna album.  I guess one could argue that the song does have some association with the game since they both use outer space as a core theme, but if you watch the music video that goes with the song then you'll realize very quickly that these are very different pieces of media.    

If you have ever played Factorio then you know that Satisfactory is basically a 3D version of that game minus the swarming bugs.  To give a slightly longer explanation though, Satisfactory is a logistics and manufacturing game that is designed to teach you so much about factory production that you might almost be ready to try the real thing after mastering the game.  Sadly, it seems to be stuck in early access hell.  Hence, I haven't booted up the game in a long time despite never uninstalling it from my hard drive.  When I was playing it regularly though, I often listened to an odd (alternative rock?) song while driving in the car entitled "Ghosts (Silent Gloves Remix)".  The lyrics are downright bizarre, but the song itself has a nice vibe that, in my mind, melds well with the vaguely jaunty mood of Satisfactory.  

This final example has got to be the strangest of all.  I used to be big into the Wing Commander series, and at one point was obsessively playing Wing Commander III after finally upgrading my PC hardware to the point that the game was actually playable.  It so happened that around the same time the movie "Batman Forever" came out.  I had no interest in the film...although, that new 2022 "The Batman" movie isn't half bad...anyway...I digress.  The hot song that went with that summer blockbuster was "Kissed by a Rose" which came up on the radio a lot.  This song has absolutely nothing to do with Wing Commander or military sci-fi, and yet I have inexorably tied it to a WW2-in-space combat flight-sim featuring humanity's war against an alien race of anthropomorphic felines.  Yeah...I think it is weird, and I beat anyone reading this thinks likewise.

On a final note, I just want to address the absence of regular posts on this blog.  It began with nothing being uploaded for the month of December (2023) and will likely continue to be irregular for the foreseeable future.  I've had a lot of things going on in my life that have dragged my attention away from video games and I don't know when (or if) I will refocus on the hobby.  Still, I will post here if I have anything I want to mention about them...so please don't assume this blog is dead...yet.