Music Week: Someone should make a game about: Frank Ocean's Channel Orange Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Music Week: Someone should make a game about: Frank Ocean's Channel Orange Beep. Feature by Stacey Henley Contributor Updated on 15 Mar 2021 3 comments Hello! Welcome to a Someone Should... with a Music Week twist. A classic album tangled with a classic piece of hardware. We all have a sound which reminds us of our gaming childhood. For me, it's the Artisans theme in Spyro The Dragon. For Frank Ocean, evidently, it's the Street Fighter 2 opening beep. It's this sound which opens his debut album Channel Orange, a narrative album about a conflicted adolescence whose only constant was video games. This beep follows the distinctive start up sound of the original PlayStation, before Ocean takes us on a journey of unrequited love, drug addiction, coming out, religion, Hurricane Katrina, and existential dread. We might associate the PS1 with Final Fantasy 7, Tekken 3, and Crash Bandicoot, but the truth is we all associate the console with something deeper. The sounds, the look, and the feel of the machine reminds us of the time we were enthralled by the PS1. Channel Orange, bookended by the PS1 start up and the fuzz of a CRT TV switching off, wraps up Ocean's songs in the era and the memories of the PS1. It feels like a love letter to video games - not to Street Fighter 2, nor to any specific game - but to the pure escapism video games can offer. And it's full of such rich, engaging stories that inverting it, turning the whole thing into a video game, is the best tribute I can think of for one of my favourite albums of all time. There are a lot of albums that I could listen to from start to finish. Very few of them would make good video games, but Channel Orange is the exception. I'm not suggesting a Sweet Life shooter or Monks As A Service. But with the flowing, interwoven stories of Channel Orange, held together by the sounds of a PlayStation, there's potential for a slow burn narrative. Something along the lines of Life Is Strange or Firewatch. Something like Gone Home or What Remains Of Edith Finch, only instead of exploring a house, we explore the album itself, and all the different tales within it. Take Forrest Gump, for example. Ostensibly a retelling of the film from Jenny's perspective, it's actually about unrequited love and Ocean coming to terms with his sexuality, told via the idea of running. Not only is running a core part of the Forrest Gump movie, it's a basic building block of many games, and Channel Orange offers a way for this running to be used narratively, a la Sayonara Wild Hearts and racing. Watch on YouTube Or Super Rich Kids, a song of Gatsby-esque empty wealth that ends in Gatsby-esque tragedy. Super Rich Kids even references stories within stories, and intertwines with other Channel Orange tracks Sweet Life and Lost. It folds into itself and branches out into different paths, different choices, as the best narrative games do. I've always thought of Channel Orange to be an album about the PlayStation. One day, I'd love to be able to play it on one, and not just through Spotify. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More Features Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Feature What games get wrong about horses And what they could do about it. 28 Feature Shout out to all the Overwatch supports - where would we be without you? Merci. 55 Latest Articles Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks less than a fortnight after Stadia shutdown GeForce Now preinstalled. 3 Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Genshin Impact Path of Gleaming Jade dates, login event rewards Including other anniversary rewards and how to claim them. Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store