Video Games With Dynamic Music

[Joewintergreen]

I believe Splinter Cell Chaos Theory did the music thing? Can't remember.

It did indeed. Different levels of intensity for whether you were sneakin' around all cool, or someone suspects you're around, or you've been seen and are having to run away, with little riffs blending each into the others. Plus, Amon Tobin.

[Brannigan]

left 4 dead

[dibs]

Braid had some great squeezing and stretching of its music going on.

[Sno]

Lumines, anybody?

Where scoring well advances you through otherwise looping bars of music, and the sound effects are designed for and meant to accompany each stage's song.

[Roderick]

Gotta say that my goodness that Rollercoaster of Death piece is brilliant.

[Ucantalas]

Curse also had the great A Pirate I Was Meant To Be song, which used some pretty cool techniques to make it seamless.

A pirate I was meant to be,

Trim the sails and roam the sea!

I still sometimes burst into that song for no reason.

[osmosisch]

In Rocksmith the music changes a lot depending on what I do.

[Twig]

I have always so desperately wanted a video game with dynamically-generated music that emulates Looney Tunes, etc. GODDAMN. Various video games have minor elements of that old style of music. Running up stairs with slowly-ascending notes (or at least making you think it, like tegan's example of Super Mario 64). There are a handful of games coming out every year that use music to generate levels. Why do people so rarely ever try to go in the opposite direction? Grrr.

 

An aside: Wowowow, typing out the words "Super Mario 64" suddenly made me want to play that game again. I have no idea why, but the physical act of typing it out just brought out all sorts of nostalgic feelings in me. I feel weird. I was literally just talking about it about a week ago, and deriding it for being Old and Not As Good as Sunshine/Galaxy, and yet here I sit, wanting nothing more than to play Super Mario 64. GODDAMN. The human brain is a bizarre creature.

[elmuerte]

The music Bit.Trip Runner depends on your health, well, sort of.

[SecretAsianMan]

A pirate I was meant to be,

Trim the sails and roam the sea!

I still sometimes burst into that song for no reason.

 

Er, door hinge?

 

I love that song.  I remember the first time I played Curse, I recognized the phrase that would end the song but I purposely picked it last to hear the rest of the lyrics.  Then I loaded my last save and listened to it again.

[Ucantalas]

Er, door hinge?

 

I love that song.  I remember the first time I played Curse, I recognized the phrase that would end the song but I purposely picked it last to hear the rest of the lyrics.  Then I loaded my last save and listened to it again.

No, no. Guess the song's over then.

Guess so, okay, back to work.

Well gee, I feel a little guilty now...

I listened to it way too often. I think it was the first game I had played that had a real song with lyrics in it, which seemed amazing to me. Add to that the fact that I was still kind of amazed about a game with voice acting, and just generally loving the game as a whole, it became something I listened to a LOT. Even as a kid I clearly had no life.

[Noyb]

Apparently the music in NiGHTS into Dreams varies based on how you treat the friendly NPCs in each level across all playthroughs. Never knew that before!