History Of Video Game Music Explored

Thanks to GameSpot for its feature discussing the history of video game music as an artform, as they point out: "Once an afterthought in terms of game design and overall pop-culture consciousness, video game music is now a legitimate industry of its own." The feature goes on to chart game sound from 1972's Pong ("The sonar-blip sound that's generated as a digital ball is batted back and forth is the first true video game sound effect"), through the 1980s and Tetris ("...millions of glassy-eyed players endure endless loops of vaguely martial Russian Muzak playing in their heads"), right up to new titles such as Frequency ("notable in that it reduces visuals to a near-abstract level... and provides a gameplay experience that is primarily aural.")

Comments

Oldfield's "Maestro" music game

[AtariAmarok]

Don't forget video games that are initially inspired by music, such as Mike Oldfield's new "Maestro" exploration game.

Ignored earlier on?

[metroid composite]

Some of my favourite pieces of music are from NES games. Don't get me wrong, more tracks and more musical instruments offers higher potential, but the NES music that was good really hammered down a tune which I often couldn't get out of my head. And I will say outright (as I am playing both presently) that Final Fantasy 6 (III) has much better music than Metroid Prime (despite the fact that I do like Prime's music too...).

Re:Ignored earlier on?

[Kethinov]

All the Final Fantasies, and many other RPGs, have excellent music. I classify it as "RPG music" which in my view far surpasses regular video game music classification. Comparing FF6 to Tetris is like comparing Mozart to trendy-MTV-of-the-day imho.

Re:Ignored earlier on?

[Pxtl]

That's only because for a while, they were unique in attempting epic, classical soundtracks. Those days are long gone. Besides, the Megaman games have always easily had as good music as the Final Fantasy games. Ditto StarFox. Its just you notice it more in Final Fantasy because the game has so much quiet wandering time.

Then CD audio came and since then any game can have awesome music. IMHO, my award for best orchestral soundtrack goes not to the myriad ff games but to Total Annihilation.

Star Control II

[NanoGator]

Anybody who played SCII back in the DOS days instantly knows the contribution they brought to the table. The music was all done using '.mod', and it was pretty damn cool. Not bad given it came on what, 3 floppies?

I imagine Amiga users wouldn't be so enthralled by it, but .MOD was so much better than .MIDI.

Re:Star Control II

[Leffe]

The remixes in the new version are pretty nice too ,)

http://sc2.sourceforge.net/

Re:Star Control II

[Deraj DeZine]

The MOD format is essentially the same idea as MIDI except that the samples are customizable and distributed along with the song. Other than that and a few miscellaneous features, there is no reason why MIDIs should not sound as good as MODs.

Of course, that's just theoretical. In real life, MIDI samples are hideous synthesizer-derived aural abominations. I blame Creative Labs.

Re:Star Control II

[NanoGator]

"Other than that and a few miscellaneous features, there is no reason why MIDIs should not sound as good as MODs."

Well you pretty much nailed the difference between them. .MODs carry along all they need to make the song sound right, .MIDIs are dependent on the playback hardware for how they're interpreted. Kinda like the difference between HTML and .PDF. Heh.

Re:Star Control II

[NanoGator]

"The remixes in the new version are pretty nice too ,)"

Ah yes, the 3DO music. When SC2 was ported to the 3DO, they redid the music using CD audio. Did an awesome job, if you ask me. They also added CG rendered full-motion video to the intro and ending. It was a pleasant upgrade from the Dos version. I was fortunate enough to be one of the 3 people that had a 3DO so I could play that game!

You know, to this day, I still can't get over how tasteful the 3DO port of that game was. It's not all that often a game is updated and good sense is used about which pieces to update and which to leave as it was.

Re:Star Control II

[Jerf]

You should hear Star Wars: Tie Fighter or X-Wing on a real synthesizor. I had a Korg X-5, which you'd know if you heard it (its bigger brother with the identical sound module was quite popular for a while).

Believe me, even the latest versions of timidity aren't even in the ballpark. Not even close. And I'm talking a now 10-year old synth.

It wasn't until Grandia 2 on the DreamCast that I heard video game music that was comparable that (AFAIK) wasn't streamed off of a CD. Even FFX's music isn't as good as Tie Fighter on a real synthesizor.

Of course, with different synths, YMMV. Like I said, that was a popular synth in its day and given how good it sounded, I wouldn't be surprised that the music was originally composed on a X-5 equivalent (the 05/W IIRC, but I probably don't).

Quite a few other games were quite enjoyable; I actually missed the MIDI option when it went away because it meant inferior music.

So you know, invest $1000 into a MIDI rig and MIDI can sound unbelievably awesome. You shouldn't be surprised that even a hundred dollar sound card can't come close to that.

I wouldn't be surprised that even a modern computer going full-blast with fully-opimized software wouldn't be able to keep up with my 10-year-old synth, feature for feature and cycle for cycle. Synths get some serious benefit from custom hardware.

Re:Star Control II

[sahonen]

One of my friends was one of the other two people who owned a 3DO. I was too young at the time to really comprehend anything, though. We mostly did the one-on-one skirmishes (forget what they're called. =P)

Now we just need to find the last person who owned a 3DO and see if they had the game too. =D

Music crucial to a game

[evil-osm]

I always found Ultima music to be top notch, mind you it required a decent midi enabled soundcard (Roland MT32), which was one of the best midi cards out there. Music has a huge potential to make or break the game, if the music is too repetative the player turns it off (if possible), same if it is too annoying. Turning off the sound is also not an option (you would them miss out on all the snd efx). A game without music that suits the setting can really ruin the experience as well.

Looking through the article, it reminds me how some of the games did such an amazing job on the music with the technology that it had at the time.

Good job folks

Re:Music crucial to a game

[leadfoot2004]

I couldn't agree with you more. To this day, I still refuse to turn off the music/sound when playing Super Mario Bros. It is also interesting how players react to certain musical queues. In games such as Super Mario Bros, Bubble Bobble, Puzzle Bobble (and probably thousands of other examples), when little time is left to complete a stage, the music increases in tempo, which causes the player to panic and subtly affects their gameplay.

Re:Music crucial to a game

[WWWWolf]

I always found Ultima music to be top notch, mind you it required a decent midi enabled soundcard (Roland MT32), which was one of the best midi cards out there.

Noticeably was. Ultima VII music through TiMidity (in Exult) sounds far better than the MT-32 version in my opinion. Even playing the MIDI files with the bundled crappy 8-meg GM soundfont on SoundBlaster Live sounds better. (And with a custom sound bank, the music sounds just plain mighty...)

MT-32 might have been great at the time (maybe, maybe not), but, well, there are better MIDI synths these days.

Obligatory Link

[Gothic_Walrus]

No discussion of video game music is complete without a link to OC Remix, a site that hosts thousands of remixes of video game songs.

See? Video game music is an art form!

Re:Obligatory Link

[Rallion]

Ah, but it doesn't compare to the Black Mages, redefining the music of Final Fantasy with the help of the FF musicman.

Re:Obligatory Link

[May Kasahara]

OCRemix is quite good, I agree :)

Another obligatory link: GamingFM, an excellent radio station featuring all game music all the time (including the occasional remixes and Minibosses tracks).

Quake and NIN was the best ever

[Nice2Cats]

If ever there were a marriage made in hell (and we mean that in a good way), it has to be Quake plus Nine Inch Nails.

That game with that music was so spooky, it made me want wet my pants. Nothing, not even Half Life has come close to that feeling of running around in a place where I shouldn't be with the ammo counter way down and monsters just around the next corner, for sure, and that music that you just couldn't get out of your head...

I could have been born in a different age, but then growing up with id Software has been a real kick.

Audio Games

[Nomihn0]

I'd have to say that the best videogame "music" is in the games for the blind. Music has served only an aesthetic purpose in game development up until fairly recently when it began to be used as the primary output device in games for the disabled.
One recent example is Terraformers, a game playable by both the sighted and the blind.
An archive of audio games can be found at thissite

No Minibosses?

[RustyTaco]

The article forgot to mention the Minibosses. Tisk tisk.

- RustyTaco

TJ&E

[CptKron]

Toejam and Earl Theme Song
Your two favorite funky space aliens sure got to jam with some fine funk in their video game. Video game music cannot be truly experienced without giving this game a play.

Chrono Cross

[Q-Mont]

I remember seeing a preview for Chrono Cross before it came out. It was playing the song "Scars of Time" with various cutscenes from the game. I thought that it was one of the better songs that I've heard for a video game. I went on to buy the game and subsequently the soundtrack. While the game sits on my shelf now, I still find myself listening to the soundtrack on a regular basis. It's definitely my favorite game soundtrack overall.

Re:Chrono Cross

[Bagels]

It's by a guy called Yasunori Mitsuda... he also did the music for much of Chrono Trigger (along with Nobuo Uematsu, who's already been mentioned), Xenogears, and Xenosaga. Awesome stuff - my favorites are "On the Banks of a Dream" from the Chrono Cross soundtrack, "Melkaba" from Xenogears, and pretty much any of the overworld themes from Chrono Trigger ("Memories of Green," "Enhasa").

Re:Chrono Cross

[May Kasahara]

The only other name I've heard for "Frog's Theme" is "Kaeru's Theme", Kaeru being the Japanese name of the character.

Regrettable omission: Commodore 64

[jvmatthe]

I skimmed the article yesterday, so maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything about the venerable Commodore 64. Any 30-something who was a Commodore user knows that that personal computer was often less of a productivity machine and more of a game playing machine. Along with those games came some GREAT music, including my favorite of all time, Capcom's Commando with music by Rob Hubbard. There were many more, including Skate or Die, California Games, and Ghosts 'n' Goblins.

With its advanced SID chip for making sounds and music, the Commodore 64 was an incredible machine for video game music. It's nearly criminal that it was left out.

Re: A game that IS music.

[Nefarious_Hat]

I'm dismayed by the omission of Rez from this list. It's understandable, considering the lack of publicity the game has gotten. If you want to learn more about it, here's Gamespy's review

• http://archive.gamespy.com/reviews/january02/rez ps2/

P.S. Please forgive not hyperlinking it, as I'm new to the whole HTML deal.

Re:Nobuo!

[May Kasahara]

There's also Nobuo Uematsu's official site, brought to you by Square-Enix and the man himself.

The Black Mages

[May Kasahara]

Ahh... I love that album, especially the arranges of "Dancing Mad" and "J.E.N.O.V.A.". Can't wait for the next one!

No discussion in game music should ignore Soule

[DarkFencer]

No discussion about game music should ignore the incredible composer Jeremy Soule. He doesn't get nearly as much attention as Nobuo Uematsu (sp?) of Final Fantasy fame, but is just as good IMHO.


Some of his credits include:
Icewind Dale (my favorite of his)
Morrowind (my second favorite of his)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Neverwinter Nights
Unreal II
Dungeon Siege
and many more.

If you haven't heard his work, check his website: www.jeremysoule.com

Final Fantasy Concert

[Q-Mont]

I Don't know how many have heard it (probably lots) but there was a concert put on by the Tokyo Philharmonic on 2/20/2002. They performed a wonderful mix of songs from the early Final Fantasy games all the way to songs from FFX. It is a fantastic concert. To hear your favorite songs from some great video games performed by a full orchestra is incredible.