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.

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.

OCReMix

[achenaar]

See OCReMix.org for what can be done with old game tunes. The results are effing fabulous. Some of the contributors are having their works put into the new street fighter game. Great stuff.

Re:One word...

[altek]

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]