Wrestlevania

Þe Olde Videogame Muzak

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After Thumbcast 2.0 episode 4, I've been feeling very nostalgic about Video game music of yore--particularly Lucasarts' efforts. Games like Monkey Island, TIE Fighter and - though not 'interactive' - Outlaws.

Why is contemporary Video game music so forgettable by comparison? And Halo doesn't count; being bludgeoned over the head with something horribly clichéd certainly doesn't merit it "memorable" status.

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Rez Area 5 says hello.

Stealth edit: Unless you don't consider that contemporary.

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I feel I have to defend Halo's piano theme in the third iteration, as I thought that was quite nice. The rest was pretty blah.

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Rez Area 5 says hello.

Stealth edit: Unless you don't consider that contemporary.

Well, at 8-9 years old it's not exactly contemporary I'd say. Not given how few years (relatively) I'm reaching back for Lucasarts' classics. Granted, it is fucking cool though. :getmecoat

But I wasn't intending to say "ALL modern game soundtracks are COMPLETE AND UTTER FILTH" either. Just that there are so few landmarks at the moment I'm struggling to recall any in recent times.

I can't think of anything on the 360 I'd count as having a classic soundtrack, for example. I don't recall ever catching myself whistling a modern game's main theme while washing up.

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uhm.. yeah...

Mass Effect had great music though.

Good call, I loved that soundtrack.

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Honestly, I still find myself whistling the Metal Gear theme from time to time. I know it's not really a memorable game song, but it just fits so perfectly with the series. While still on that page, that bit in Snake Eater where you climb the ladder and the bond-ish song plays is still one of my favorite moments in gaming. So yeah, my basic point is that Metal Gear does music right.

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that bit in Snake Eater where you climb the ladder and the bond-ish song plays is still one of my favorite moments in gaming

That's got to be my favorite Metal Gear moment for sure, by a long shot.

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The Hitman series. I particularly like the music from the first game because it's not orchestral.

From ye olden times, nothing gives me a stronger rush of nostalgia than the music from the first Gabriel Knight game.

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Psychonauts had an awesome soundtrack.

World of Goo was fantastic also; if it were a longer game (and thus more music) it would have even been worth releasing.

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Metal Gear Solid has memorable music all around, at least for me - and nowhere is that more palpable than in MGS4 when it tugs at your nostalgia strings.

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(To me "Ye Olde" means <= 16-bit... *shrugs*)

To be honest I still have old music from games floating around in my head :) Prince of Persia, Monkey Island 1&2, Another World, Silkworm, Speedball II, Gods, Chaos Engine... *sigh* I could easily go on and on. (What a waste of brain space.)

For me though, KOTOR had *amazing* music, as did FF7. I could actually easily sit down and listen to these two scores without playing the game.

A bit of an old skool classic music (which I think has slipped through the cracks) is the opening music to RoboCop on the Spectrum...

Is it just me or is this an amazing opening theme tune? (Give a minute before you decide.)

(The Amstrad had the same music.)

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Some great use of the simple synth there with the wooshing sounds (reminds me of Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack), and a nice little motif, but doesn't really say 'RoboCop' to me... Especially when the actual RoboCop theme is phenomenal.

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No, it doesn't really say anything about RoboCop, but it's a wicked track considering the limitations and what other computer songs from 1988 sounded like :tup:

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Sometimes I wonder if the reason we remember songs like the Zelda theme and others is because since they had less music we heard more of it, now that games have 50 tracks instead of 5 you only hear a track for shorter time, while back then you heard them for hours and hours....

Music doesn't seem important now that games have dialog, I just beat a game and I can remember the dialogs, but not a note of the music, while I played a bit of Banjo & Kazooie and I can still hear the music in my ears...

It might be that game music is an actual genre and that if you hire a guy to do background music it won't stand out as much as if you hire someone who makes "game music"?

I'm no expert but giving music a second place over dialogs and having more tracks than older games does seem actually a reasonable? We remember older game music because we could count the number of soundtracks with one hand and since they lacked dialog music was the main character for out little ears?:erm:

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Sometimes I wonder if the reason we remember songs like the Zelda theme and others is because since they had less music we heard more of it, now that games have 50 tracks instead of 5 you only hear a track for shorter time, while back then you heard them for hours and hours....

Music doesn't seem important now that games have dialog, I just beat a game and I can remember the dialogs, but not a note of the music, while I played a bit of Banjo & Kazooie and I can still hear the music in my ears...

It might be that game music is an actual genre and that if you hire a guy to do background music it won't stand out as much as if you hire someone who makes "game music"?

I'm no expert but giving music a second place over dialogs and having more tracks than older games does seem actually a reasonable? We remember older game music because we could count the number of soundtracks with one hand and since they lacked dialog music was the main character for out little ears?:erm:

Plus, with only a very few number of simultaneous music channels to work with, a lot of old video game music also by default kept the melody far more prominent than just about any mainstream modern music I can think of. Also, individual tracks tended to be quite short and loop continuously.

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Games seem to move towards more atmospheric music now instead if the usual prominent melody line. The Warcraft games are a good example of this with the second one having a lot of memorable tunes while the third one and WoW went more of the atmospheric stuff.

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doing X in the game while the game plays unfitting music

edit:

It's not really about prominent melodies, music in games (just like in movies) should support the atmosphere, it should not be obtrusive. Actually, if done right you would hardly notice the music unless you pay attention to it (well, in some cases that music is very noticeable and still ok). That's why the music from Mass Effect is really good, it blends in really well with the game. Or a movie example, this scene from the movie Labyrithn has great supportive music.

Edited by elmuerte

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Or a movie example, this scene from the movie Labyrithn has great supportive music.

I know the scene well and it's a good illustration. The whole film, in fact, has a superb soundtrack, making it all the more memorable for it I think.

Having pondered this thread over the weekend, maybe it's the use of "music as a narrative" that is the point we're all looking at. When we couldn't have full speech in games - or full text even, in earlier games - I think it's right to identify that music was used to heighten the player's investment in the game. (Monkey Island and TIE Fighter in particular both reinforce this for me, personally.)

Yeah, I think you're right; less dependence on "music as acting" is where we are with modern games. They're more subtle nowadays, typically, but still carefully crafted. I guess I miss big, anthemic productions in games now. I love music - especially electronic - but haven't heard anything really powerful and all-encompassing in gaming for a while.

I'm also somewhat disillusioned with the greater prevalence of "proper" music in Video game soundtracks today, too. I don't mind if it's genuinely interesting or appropriate music (GTA4 is a diamond), but then there are a lot of AAA titles that just have catalogues of licensed music thrown at them time and again. I hate to say it, but EA's "BIG" brand is one of the worst offenders. There's stuff on the Burnout Paradise soundtrack, for example, that's either a simple remix - if not exactly the same track - as appeared on things like SSX3 years ago.

NB: I get no audio playback on my iMac. What codec did you use? (I've got Xvid and DivX both up to date.)

Edited by Wrestlevania

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I still love the odd soundtrack for Beyond Good and Evil. I wish more games had that kind of variation in their music, without obviously clashing with eachother.

Mobygames says the guy who did the soundtrack hasn't done anything else though.

Edited by syntheticgerbil

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I've got mixed feeling about calling the GTA radios music for the game. The radio is really there in the virtual world, unlike the usual music.

the clip uses divx3 with mp3 audio, should be playable with xvid

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