The Blending of Music and Games

Gamasutra has an opinion piece by the 'father of music games,' Masaya Matsuura, who questions the evolution of video game music (or the lack thereof) as the industry's technological advancements give rise to the capability for greater complexity. "Most games these days seem to use gorgeous orchestral soundtracks. While these large-scale soundtracks may generally be lovely to listen to, if we really think about it, isn't it all a bit lacking in imagination? Thinking about it from a simplistic visual perspective, while films are basically just watched, games are interactive." He also discusses the predilection for games to encourage "competitive fun," as opposed to "cooperative fun." GameSetWatch has a related article which talks about how excellent musical scores can help to create an emotionally charged experience, rather than simply occupying one's mind for a time.

Comments

Game music

[Ethanol-fueled]

Having the sprawling orchestral arrangements is nice, but as a video game music fetishist since the NES days I know that the songs big and small rely on catchy motifs to motivate the gamer and stick inside their head. You think the Minibosses gathered crowds by playing orchestra?

Many classic NES games have captivating, moody music - Wizards and Warriors' soundtrack is +1 underrated. Long-running series such as Final Fantasy and Castlevania have used some of the same titles and motifs throughout their entire series.

Re:Game music

[FornaxChemica]

Being an enthusiast myself and listening right now to some chiptune music (NES, Castlevania, 3rd level) I couldn't agree more. Elaborate music, orchestral or not, is what obviously suits modern 3D games but this is hardly the best we've heard. Almost all the most famous catchy tunes come from the 8-bit era! Is there any contemporary game's music track as well-known as Mario or Zelda themes? I wouldn't think so.

Re:Game music

[BorgAssimilator]

Zelda definitely takes the cake. Being a big music enthusiast, I loved Ocarina of Time, and how the game was pretty much centered on the music played from this instrument. That Zelda game alone had wonderful music, in addition to the earlier releases. Final Fantasy also had a very good score.

However, that being said, even the newer releases of these games haven't lived up to the role that their predecessors have. We've (and by "we" I mean the game companies) obviously shifted importance away from this component. Apparently the grand majority of people don't care (or at least the game companies don't think they care) about the music in a game as much as the other content. I must be in the minority when I say music incorporation is just as important as, say, the graphical implementation.

Re:Game music

[Alexandra Erenhart]

Heheh Zelda music has really evolved through all their games, but it always have the same catchy tune you hear in Legend of Zelda 1. You play that music anywhere and you'll see all the Zelda fans jump. Everybody recognize it. In Twilight Princess you can also hear it too, but way more elaborated. I miss it everytime they don't add it to the games. I missed it in ocarina of time, even though it had great music.

Games like that have their music as their representative icon. Not many games have that.

Re:Game music

[Kell Bengal]

I dispute that the original Deus Ex lacked a good sound track. The music was created for the game and well reflects the mood the game designers were trying to convey. Also, if you look inside some of the track data there are some subversive narky comments from the composer.

Nothing wrong with orchestral

[RogueyWon]

Hmm... the Gamasutra article struck me as a little pretentious, but maybe that's just because I actually like big orchestral scores for games. Some of my favorites include:

Wing Commander: Yeah, it was low quality midis, but at the time, it was jaw-dropping. It felt like you were playing a Star Wars movie on your PC and the soundtrack was a huge part of that. From the intro sequence, with the theme that was more than a little reminiscent of the ST:TNG theme, through to the battle music and the Kilrathi theme (also used for fun in Ultima 7), the music in the first 2 games was awesome. Who can forget the cheesy-but-classic "scramble" music that played before every mission?

Star Control 2: Each of the many alien races in the game had its own music and this played a huge part in setting the atmosphere for every encounter. The Ur-Quan and Yehat music, in particular, have stayed in my mind to this day as examples of great videogame music.

X-Wing: The Lucasarts I-Muse system which changed the soundtrack to reflect the progress of the battle was revolutionary. The audio cues from the music would directly influence your battle tactics. You knew that a few bars of the Imperial March meant that trouble was headed your way.

Pretty much anything Final Fantasy: Ok, perhaps the soundtracks haven't been universally stellar, but pretty much every Final Fantasy game has had a few tracks worthy of real notice. FF6's Overworld theme, FF7's Cosmo Canyon theme (and, of course, One Winged Angel), FF10's "To Zanarkand" and FF11's Memoria de la Stono all stand out as some of the best pieces of video game music ever.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl: The fantastic main theme, which is used appropriately throughout the story-campaign, does a great job in adding a touch of gravitas to what could otherwise be a rather lightweight story.

Re:Nothing wrong with orchestral

[DittoBox]

I agree whole-heatedly. A few others that are a bit more modern than the one's you've listed are great too. The Elder Scrolls series, particularly Morrowind and Oblivion both have incredible scores. Assassin's Creed was great too, in that the music and visual appearance of a given city reflected the culture and mood of that city.

An interesting note about the Call of Duty series of games was made by one of the composers. He stated that the feel of COD4 (set in modern times) was quite different from the sweeping scores of the previous games in that COD4 contained more electronic elements and used electric guitars. The effect he said was to remove or lessen the feeling that this was the ultimate fight between good and evil and replace it with a more vague feeling of relativity. He compared the music to Black Hawk Down or the Bourne series of films that depicted a slightly less "pure" war.