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The Blending of Music and Games
Posted by
Soulskill
on Tue Oct 07, 2008 06:07 PM
from the i-just-five-starred-halo dept.
from the i-just-five-starred-halo dept.
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.
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Game music (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Game music (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Game music (Score:5, Interesting)
Games like that have their music as their representative icon. Not many games have that.
Parent
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That game drives me nuts. I liked it at first, but after awhile the camera (a downfall of many games) became frustrating. I eventually sold the game since I was sick of fighting the camera.
As for music:
A lot of the modern music tends to be "elevator" in quality. It serves as noise to fill the silence, rather than being a short "ditty" as appeared in the old cartridge-based games (N64, Genesis, NES, Atari, Coleco). Due to memory limitations, cartridge games had to use relatively-short pieces.
I think the
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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.
*shrugs* I'm not a big gamer, so might not mean anything but yeah, I never cared about the music. Even when I like it, I've gotten annoyed after a while and tend to mute it and throw an mp3 instead (if I'm not at home and have something in the background.) I also do a lot of my gaming on my psp during a car ride, where I have to listen to other people talking. It wouldn't phase me if a lot of kids playing on gameboys/dses/psps are in the same boat.
Genre also matters. I like a lot of fighting and racing game
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Re:Game music (Score:4, Interesting)
The latest game that I remember with great music was Doom. Those tracks rocked. (Mainly because they were based on classic heavy metal tracks. ) But then when I eventually moved onto newer games (Tomb Raider, Deus Ex) the soundtrack was just a bit of a yawn. I can't even remember if Doom 3 had any music and what it was like.
As any experienced gamer can tell you, great music can make a really big difference to a game. But generally it's regarded as something to slot into the game at the last minute. There are notable exceptions of course - a new Wii game called De Blob [thq.com] was designed ground up with the music in mind. It'll make a big difference.
BTW - if you really want some good rockin' music for your game, get in contact with me
Parent
Re:Game music (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
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Well, I think the Guitar Hero and Rock Star games are showcasing some fantastic music.
Of course..those tunes are from Aerosmith, AC/DC...Foghat....etc.
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i think you have Doom confused with Quake, which had industrial metal type music by trent reznor on it. not many noticed but the game could be put into your cd player, audio starts at track 2 so dont try to play track 1... go try it and thank me later.
other than that I look to square.. first game i ever downloaded the music from? secret of mana. second was chrono trigger. xenosaga started strong but faded more into jpop as the series went on (for music).
music totally can make a game tho esp if its varie
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i think you have Doom confused with Quake, which had industrial metal type music by trent reznor on it. not many noticed but the game could be put into your cd player, audio starts at track 2 so dont try to play track 1... go try it and thank me later.
Worked too for "The 7th guest". Also a great soundtrack.
Castlevania (Score:4, Interesting)
For me, the Castlevania games (especially Symphony of the Night) are excellent at combining background art, character design and background music.
Example: SOTN library stage [youtube.com]. Here's a fan playing "Dance of Pales" on his synth [youtube.com].
What can I say? With Castlevania, the music becomes part of the game and contributes to the suspension of disbelief.
Parent
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Yeah, there's definitely some good game music out there already.
As to OP's suggestion of "cooperative fun" games; Little Big Planet [youtube.com] looks pretty cool.
I dig the soundtrack on the demo too.
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Well as a counter example Civ 4 and it's brethern have great music from all periods of the civilization which more or less matches the period your civilization is at.
It also has music from the country whenever a countries leader talks to you. (I especially like Portugal's).
I've actually found myself playing more just to hear the music at times.
A new kind of problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, it is not often that "gorgeous orchestral soundtracks" are thought of as a problem. Imagine how difficult some of the legal battles could be if one used popular music in a game -- unless it is a band like Radiohead
Nothing wrong with orchestral (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Final Fantasy game has had a few tracks worthy of real notice. FF6's Overworld theme, FF7's Cosmo Canyon theme
FF6's World of Ruin overworld theme had a fast, urgent beat but perfectly set the mood of that point of the story. The World of balance overworld song was just corny, kinda like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly sphagetti-western theme.
And Cosmo Canyon?! That's another kitschy spaghetti-western rendering of Native-American tribal music.
But, one usually can't go wrong with FF2 and FF6(American)!
Other examples (Score:2)
Braid: Simple, pleasant music-box style music, which would change in tempo and direction as you move back and forth in time. Really awesome.
Super Mario RPG: Huge variety, I liked how some characters tend to have their own theme. Some music related puzzles, and they do a good job of pronouncing perfect silence during some of the more intensive puzzles (omitting music is sometimes the best way to use it).
Music Catch [newgrounds.com]: A great game with a nice melody, the gameplay forces you to actively listen to the music,
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I was hoping someone would mention braid. Brilliant cello music.. and very trippy when you were going backwards in time, the music was playing backwards.
Re:Nothing wrong with orchestral (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
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Here here.
Another great recent example is Guild Wars.
Whenever I hear the soundtrack I immediately get sucked into the world.
Every great game I've ever played is rooted in my brain through its sound track.
My ring tone is the title song from Warcraft III
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Dynamic Audio (Score:3, Interesting)
I haven't read the article yet, however I agree that video game music could be more interesting. A classic example is Super Mario 64, where the music changed dynamically with one's environment.
Redbook audio is nice, but some of my all-time favorite video game music came from cartridge-based games: ... Just a thought.
Mega Man 2, Super Castlevania IV, Crystalis, Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
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Well then you should read the article because it's more about "music games" like Guitar Hero instead of music IN games.
Music in games has always been good or bad, and I think the same is true now. Not all Nintendo or c64 games had great music, just as not all new games do.
I think this is an example of "nostalgia" more than actual truth.
Simple reason (Score:3, Insightful)
Chicks always get bored when I score high on expert at Guitar Heroes III and leave before I finish a song.
But whenever I clumsily play what looks like a love ballad dedicated to them while being drunk on my cheap guitar with rusty chords, they always stay for the end :)
Warcraft II had the BEST music ever for video game (Score:2)
The Warcraft II (Tides of Darkness) music from 1995 was the best music ever written for any video game. When the new Warcraft versions came out, I was really disappointed that the music did not have the depth and melody and uplifting of that version.
I looked at Youtube a few months ago, and there are A LOT of people who have the exact same opinion as well. I really wish someone could license that music and create a proper classical album out of it (the original was lower-quality electronically-created audio
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Bah. The Ultima series had excellent music (And Ultima 9, while the game could have been better, the music was incredible) and StarCraft was among my favorite music of any games.
This article is about music games, not music IN games, however. Meaning - the game is about the music (eg. Guitar Hero.)
A mixed bag, as ever (Score:2)
However, it had utter dross too. Complete, total and redemptionless trash. Then, of course, was the stuff in-between - the average, take it or leave stuff which wa
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Aww come on, if you're going to mentio Rob Hubbard and company, you can't omit The Fat Man.
This article was about music games, not music IN games.
Re: C64, etc. (Score:2)
I discovered Overclock Remix, the site for people doing modern interpretations of older tunes. It's my number one source for work music.
Yes, It Blends! (Score:2)
http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=unsafe&video=gta4 [willitblend.com]
planescape: torment (Score:2)
it's an old game from around 2000. the score was excellent, music mood and game setting were complementary. but most memorably, whenever you encountered an enemy or engaged in combat, the score would effortlessly change theme to something more edgy and dramatic, and then effortlessly change theme back again when aggressions subsided. it was as if you were scoring the music for an action movie in real time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape:_Torment [wikipedia.org]
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Jedi Knight 2 did the same thing (change when fighting, but oh so subtle).
I've had several people ask me if I was watching a Star Wars movie when I was actually just playing JK2.
The old stuff was better (Score:4, Insightful)
The music needs to fit the scene for which it is being played, and outside of games specifically designed as "music games" i think that's all the interaction that's necessary. The music needs to be relatively simple and somewhat repetitive. Once you've gone beyond a certain level of complexity either you're not noticing the added complexity anymore, or you're paying more attention to the music than you are to the game.
Of course a certain level of complexity is good. I don't really look back on the "music" from the Atari 2600 with great fondness. However as the ability to play more complex music in games has increased there was a point where my interest peaked and then began a general decline. I think the peak for me was around the days of Final Fantasy 6. After that the music of games in general made less and less of an impression on me. I very much enjoyed Final Fantasy 10, and the music for it was well done and pleasant to listen to, but very rarely do i get a desire to go back and listen to it again, and in fact unlike a lot of previous games i have difficulty "replaying" most of the music in my head. On the other hand more recent music from the Advance Wars music has stuck with me much more because it was constrained by the format to be simpler and more repetitive.
Of course one could argue that being complex and varied enough that the songs don't etch themselves into your brain is a good thing, but from my perspective i'm going to get more enjoyment out of the music if i remember it fondly later, especially if it's paired with memories of a particularly fun game.
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One game that always stuck with me for excellent music was a kid's game on Atari 8-bit called Tonk in the Land of the Buddy Bots. The general gameplay was similar to Zelda - top down view moving around, though minus swords. The general layout was an approx 15x10 grid with a mountain in the far north, the Big Bad's castle in the far south, and a river through the middle. When your guy was at the peak of the mountain, all that played was a simple two-part motif. A couple screens down, a bass line is added in
Wing Commander, the original (Score:2)
That had a decent sound-track that could exploit devices like the Roland LAPC-1. X-Wing could use the LAPC-1 for the music and a Soundblaster for the sound effects, which was even more impressive. But, yes, those did use sound in a very basic way.
Frontier: First Encounters was a bit more sophisticated - the music was selected by type of scenario (so if you suddenly got into a fight, the music would change accordingly, likewise with docking at a space-station, and so on). In fact, First Encounters (although
Sorry but he's wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've gone from watching games evolve from now recognised as awful but revolutionary at the time synthesized junk on tiny laughable speakers to incredibly epic wonderful scene setting thematic music that adds to the atmosphere of the game. I like to imagine what Captain Goodnight and the Islands of Fear or Karateka would sound like if the score was created with today's equipment.
I remember marvelling at my first sound blaster (plus 1 speed CD-ROM which I got criticized for buying by a friend because it was extravagant). I remember trying it out against an AWE32 years later and thinking "How could I have liked that". I remember trying my SBLive with surround sound speakers for the first time and loving it because it left the AWE32 in the dust. I remember my first taste of my latest sound card and Logitech X-530 speakers for $68 and thinking "sure I could do better than this, but why would I spend thousands for such a small game when this is so awesome". If one thing has gotten better in computing, it's music. Whining about it is about the silliest thing I can think of.
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Too bad we had almost a decade when basically nothing was improving (and there was even some setback for a few years, before X-Fi showed up)...right after Creative killed Aureal... :/
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"Best of both worlds" worked great in Homeworld - custom music score, depending on the situation, surely made by people within the team...but at the same time they used Adagio for Strings...which was simply perfect.
I'm not sure I understand the complaint. (Score:4, Insightful)
Is the problem that the music sounds like a film score? I don't see the point of complaining about this, if you prefer beeps and boops instead of violins and pianos, that's legitimate, but it seems to have little to do with the fact that it's a game... those beeps and boops weren't about it being a game, they were about the limitations in the hardware. Different games have different music, just as different films have different music.
Is the problem that the music doesn't react to the actions in the game? But it does! Characters have themes, and the background music tends to reflect the most important character, it changes as you progress in the game, it changes as you enter different modes and areas.
Is the problem that the music isn't controlled somehow by the player? OK, I can see things that could be done. you select a theme for your character, and have the game generate some kind of algorithmic background music depending on the characters themes. You could have the player use musical cues to make actions happen (I had hoped that Ocarina of Time would do this, rather than have the music simply be a gimmick that you didn't actually have to learn). But you can do all these things without losing the lush orchestral scores.
So what exactly is the complaint?
Orchestra Hero (Score:2, Funny)
Who needs Rock Band when can have Orchestra Hero. And if you thought the price of collecting all the band instruments before was high, it's going to take on a whole new level of expense with this one.
I'm excited, how about you?
AudioSurf! (Score:2, Interesting)
I saw this game at PAX this year. It makes a game out of an audio visualization of any song in your collection.
It's a Steam game and it works (mostly) in Wine, too.
Forget music for games, get a game for your music!
OCReMix (Score:3, Informative)
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Some of the stuff in that collection is simply fantastic. The Bubble Bobble Hillbilly Rodeo ReMix is simply hillarious! And from many who spent way too much time playing tetris, the Tetris Slavic Roots OC Remix song is loaded with hours of memories.
Incoherent (Score:3, Insightful)
When I read this interview last month, I put it down and said to myself, "Wow, I think I just experienced a cultural/translation divide with the Japanese. That was really incoherent."
The whole critique of "competitive fun as opposed to cooperative fun", etc., seemed really unproductive. There's a bunch of new made-up words in the article -- that's always a red flag for me.
One word... (Score:2)
Rez
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Mod this up, Rez was awesome, and was exactly the sort of thing this post is talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rez [wikipedia.org]
Music has had a role in games for a long time (Score:2)
This isn't different now and it'll always be the same, some games have music absolutely intended for incidental ambience. Others have true "song" structure and often have legions of fans reminiscing, hearing them.
All of us feel emotionally hooked to this enough to be rabidly typing away our favourites in comments right now.
There were a lot of great games for music (faxanadu etc) in the
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