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

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: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: 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.