Game Music Benefits From Interactivity, Budgets

Thanks to the New York Times for their article discussing the rising reputation of game music in the mainstream media (free reg. req.) Bigger budgets are discussed ("the game industry's success has made developers willing to pay for live orchestra recordings"), as well as interactive music ("...akin to writing music for a Broadway show in which audience members could determine the order of the scenes... Game-music composers don't know which path a player will choose or when, so they must be prepared for unpredictability.") Elsewhere, veteran former LucasArts composer Clint Bajakian tries to describe steps to interactive musical bridging: "You conceive of the elbow joints you're going to need", but Richard Kessler of the American Music Center is still skeptical of game soundtracks in general, saying: "On an artistic level, it's not in the film music league."

Comments

Re:Artistic Quality

[FueledByRamen]

I'll second that - Final Fantasy games (that I've played, at least) have had consistently awesome soundtracks. Especially FF6 / FF3 (same game).

On that note, I'll chip in for Halo, too. The game kicks ass, and its music amplifies its ass-kicking awesomeness by an obscenely large factor. It just wouldn't be the same without the music.

Best score is *my* score ...

[makisupa]

It's great hardware, has the 'big brother' factor for being made by MS, doesn't have much in the way of titles (so far)...

But one thing that XBox games can do is let you listen to your own music.

I have become addicted to the freestyle snowboarding game Amped in the last year (while taking a few co-workers with me ;-). It's a great game that I'd probably play for a couple weeks under normal circumstances.

But because I can listen to a customizable soundtrack of either Amped-supplied music or my very own cd's (ripped to the hard drive under the XBox os-interface), the game has far outlived its normal lifespan.

Letting me listen to my own selection of music has upgraded this game from passing obsession to daily dose of relaxation.