Modern game music

[shadobeni]

I can't give informed comments on the current generation of consoles since I've only played them at friends' houses periodically and don't own any of them. My general impression of say the popular FPS games is that their music sounds like music you'd hear in a movie that shares a similar theme. I never played it but bits and pieces of Bayonetta's music sounded pretty good to me. I liked Braid's music very much (although 2008 feels long ago). Going back a bit farther, I liked the catchiness of Outrun 2006's music.

Lately, I have begun to really appreciate music in older video games now as an adult than when I was actually playing them in my younger years. Then again you have lot of sound effects and game playing taking your focus off the music. As a child the only music I actually remember humming to myself was music from Sonic 1, Legend of Kyrandia (http://youtu.be/7hFs4R6dHs4) and Earthworm Jim (http://youtu.be/kTQvP7YK7uE). In high school I heard some music from I think Xenogears on PS1 while at someone's house who was playing the game. It was probably the first time I said out loud that music from a video game was really good. Ironically I don't remember the music at all. Games like FFVII, FFIX, Chrono Cross and Okami made me want to buy their video game soundtrack (but alas ridiculously high prices on imports have prevented this).

I don't doubt that some video game music might be composed a bit differently than music composed for other forms like films. I don't think this affects my appreciation of the music. I don't think modern games need to necessarily have "video game" like music for them to be more memorable. If anything particular really old video games the music is just a several bars looped over and over which is fine as background music but becomes really tedious if you listen to it on its own.

at least from this informal vote http://hardcoregaming101.net/vgm/bestvgm2011.htm there is a lot of music from older games that people like.

[Menegrothx]

What I find intresting is why early CD based consoles had games with music that still had a video game music feel to it or if nothing else, sounded unique. My guess would be that they were still made on computers with trackers and other similiar programs, while nowadays programs meant for composing electronic music have developed alot alongside with the samples they have. 1990s techno, house and trance all sound very different than 2010s techno, house and trance. So today the actual electronic soundtrack is more like background music as some already suggested in this thread, and the more prominent songs are done by actual real life bands, singers and orchestras.

[Xeogred]

What I find intresting is why early CD based consoles had games with music that still had a video game music feel to it or if nothing else, sounded unique. My guess would be that they were still made on computers with trackers and other similiar programs, while nowadays programs meant for composing electronic music have developed alot alongside with the samples they have. 1990s techno, house and trance all sound very different than 2010s techno, house and trance. So today the actual electronic soundtrack is more like background music as some already suggested in this thread, and the more prominent songs are done by actual real life bands, singers and orchestras.

Yeah, trackers were awesome. I wish the MOD format lasted a lot longer than it did before full orchestrations and whatever took over.

[Menegrothx]

Just saw an interview of the iconic Rob Hubbard. He talked about how you had only 3 sound channels and you had to make your music with Assembly language programming on the Commodore 64, so you had to be extra creative and also very tech savy in order to make a good video game soundtrack back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpsN14TFy90

[CaptainHarlock]

The big studios don't seem to have prominent themes in their music scores anymore, at least not very often. Kind of makes me sad too because I used to love the melodies in games made by Sega, Namco, and the like where they often had melodies that really stood out.

Trying to think of some modern day examples, and most of the games that are still like this come from indie / smaller developers. Games like Super Meat Boy, Senko no Ronde, Jamestown, and VVVVVV would be a few with very noticeable melodies in them. Drawing blanks for the most part with regard to bigger studios' games, though.

[isiolia]

The big studios don't seem to have prominent themes in their music scores anymore, at least not very often. Kind of makes me sad too because I used to love the melodies in games made by Sega, Namco, and the like where they often had melodies that really stood out.

Trying to think of some modern day examples, and most of the games that are still like this come from indie / smaller developers. Games like Super Meat Boy, Senko no Ronde, Jamestown, and VVVVVV would be a few with very noticeable melodies in them. Drawing blanks for the most part with regard to bigger studios' games, though.

I think it's a lot more a difference format.

Games you mentioned tend to be segmented into bite-sized chunks of gameplay. So are a lot of older games. They're complemented by relatively small pieces of music that get to the point. The style of play serves to drive them into your head via repeating the same levels over and over.

Modern games tend to follow more of a movie type of soundtrack. Sometimes at the forefront, sometimes fading to the background, and even a prominent theme may only come up a handful of times. It's not as often that you repeat a particular moment without replaying it. It's not that uncommon to see film composers contribute to games either (for example).

As already mentioned, there are folks like Jeremy Soule that do great work in general. You can listen to the last three Elder Scrolls titles and hear a common theme to them, which crops up in the games too. He's also done a great job on the Guild Wars games - I've had the Guild Wars 2 title music stuck in my head half the day

There are other strong overtures/main themes - Uncharted's title themes, Mass Effect's (first two anyway - speaking of which, free remix album by the composer), MGS series... most of the music in the games might be fairly forgettable, but there are parts that stand out, much like many films.

That said, there are halfway points too, like fighting game music - Capcom's experiments with soft jazz aside, plenty of them belt out bold, memorable tunes. Guilty Gear n' Blazblue have more memorable music than a lot of older fighters save Street Fighter 2. The only music I really remember from Mark of the Wolves was the Robert Miles ripoff/tribute >_>

[FerretGamer]

I think Nintendo has done an excellent job with a lot of their bigger production titles. The orchestrated soundtracks that they have been going with for their games this generation have been awesome (Super Mario Galaxy 1/2 come to mind.)

Kirby Epic Yarn had a really nice soundtrack as well Xenoblade. I'm sure The Last Story (haven't played waiting for the US release) will have a memorable soundtrack given the talent (Nobuo Uematsu.)

The God of War games have pretty memorable music as I can actually hum the theme song of the series. There are some others I just need to really look at my collection and think about it.

[BoringSupreez]

But yeah, Western video game soundtracks have really taken a hit this past decade or so. I can still find Japanese games that sound great (I mentioned Radiant Historia above) but can't think of any notable recent Western soundtracks.

I can think of a few, but they are scarce. Call of Duty 4's soundtrack was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams, who always does a good job. Batman: Arkham City had a low, un-intrusive soundtrack, but I found it effective. Sounded a lot like the music from the movies, which helped the atmosphere.

[Blu]

I think there's still some noteworthy composers in the video-game industry. I'll echo a few that have been mentioned, and give a few examples.

Harry Gregson-Williams - Metal Gear Solid Series' Themes are amazing.

Koji Kondo - Good gracious, where should I start? Overworld Theme, Dark World Theme, The entire Wind Waker Soundtrack, (but specifically Dragon Roost and the Overworld while sailing) GERUDO VALLEY, and Ballad of the Goddess.

Nobuo Uematsu - Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and XI have amazing scores that stick with me. I know it's blasphemy but I never played the Nintendo versions, though I'm sure Uematasu's work is nothing but great. My favorites are Man With the Machine Gun, Eyes on Me, Force Your Way (The organ in this track really pumps you up going into the fight), and Balamb Garden. I know of all games from the series, I only mentioned examples from VIII.

Jesper Kyd - Ezio's Family. This is such a moving piece. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yCyysCmhlQ I just remember sitting atop a steeple as this song started pouring through and the introductory credits rolled. What an amazing song for the ambience. Venice Rooftops is a great one to listen to as well.

Fumitaka Shibata - Phantasy Star Online. I think this is one memorable soundtrack, and one that sounds very true to retro or classic game music. Fumitaka was the sound director for Jet Set Radio, Burning Rangers, Panzer Dragoon, and a lot of Sega's 1990's and 2000's games.

Kazumi Totaka - Animal Crossing.

Older games that reach levels of Nostalgia Overload for me:
Astro Warrior - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu2vh3QbntE
Wonderboy III - http://www.youtube.com/watch?src_vid=Ne ... lzPn29vgjE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation ... 2YbwIuhv0E
Zillion - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA3YIn3MuAQ

[Menegrothx]

Does Akira Yamaoka still make video game music? Just the fact alone that he made the soundtrack for Silent Hill 1 qualifies him as one of the most ingenious composers of video game music ever when it comes to making a something athmospheric, otherwordly and never seen (or rather, heard) before. The sounds and music in that game was just something unheard of back in 1999

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ_8WAHn7BE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brbKPSCB ... ure=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwTRoJ1mAX8

These three tracks just set the perfect tone for the game. First the ominous song while following Cheryl. It's hard to see very far in the snow/fog and she's just leading you further away from safety. Then you reach the alley and everything goes dark. Then you hear the sirens. Only thing you can do is keep on running on the dark alleyway while the pulsating sound gets stronger and stronger. Then the sound effect that kicks in at at 1 min 7 sec, you know that you are soon going to face something horrible. Then you see the body and get surrounded by clawfingers. You wake up at the diner while that third song plays, it sets a very trippy/surreal mood. Was it all just a dream? How did I get here? And the discussion with Cybil that just raises more questions as she neither has no idea what's going on. Isolation, horror and mystery, the three main elements of the game summed up into the first 5 minutes of the gameplay. Just brilliant. The bassline in the third song reminds me of the Twin Peaks intro song, listen to it and you'll hear it for sure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oDuGN6K3VQ