Music to my ears
Jon Shute | Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 3:26PM When I play games one of the things that I really notice is the music. It’s one of the reasons that we do a music show every so often, a large percentage of atmosphere in a game is the music for me.
Halo 3 is a great example of what I mean, the music builds with the situation and as the fights get closer to a climax the music pulls me through and builds up the mood. The music helps the action, which helps the music and before you know it I’m caught up in the moment. Contrast that with Fallout 3. When the radio is on there’s a selection of various music types, when it’s off there’s ambient background music that really screams (as far as ambient can) wasteland.
I suspect that for the rest of my life when I listen to The Ink Spots – I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire I’ll think of Fallout 3 fondly, or more accurately my memories of roaming the DC wastelands in the same way that hearing The Blue Danube reminds me of playing Elite (but not watching 2001 interestingly).
It’s not just the music of course, the ambient sounds matter as well. Mirror’s Edge had great ambience that really sold the idea of a hot city skyline. The music it added over the top, like Solar Fields – Edge & Flight, came to add an extra level onto the levels and provide a measure of urgency in places where the relaxing rooftop runs might just be a leisurely exercise in parkour. Only with the odd security guard having guns.
I couldn’t begin to describe the music in Modern Warfare 2. I just didn’t notice it. I know it’s not because the music is bad as it was written by Hans Zimmer and he’s one of the best of the current film soundtrack people at the moment. Maybe that’s it, he’s written the music for some of the biggest films of recent years and so really knows his job. I’m actually going to have to play the game again and not get caught up in the experience just to listen to it. I’m sure there was music there somewhere, but since I can’t remember it I can only conclude that it’s the best soundtrack ever made.
The reason I’m thinking about music so much is that I’m looking at doing another music show for the end of the year to run as well as our normal shows (yes, I am aware that at some point you all ran out of enough spare hours in the day to listen to us). For that reason, and the fact that I know not everybody likes the music show it’ll be nice and separate.
The theme I have set myself for the next music show is the music of the games that I’ve played this year, but that’s only a loose theme that may not make it as far as the final cut. So, I’m open to suggestions of great game music that I should include. If I haven’t played the game this year then I’ll have a quick play first, thus making a mockery of the whole format. Now if you’ll excuse me I ripped a hideous amount of music out of LOTRO and I have to pick the track that best sums up the game for me…
Jon 
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Reader Comments (8)
Two of my favourites - neither particularly recent - are:
- Deus Ex: electronic sounding, which suited its cyberpunk setting well. The music for the Hong Kong level was particularly good.
- Evil Genius: wouldn't have sounded out of place in a James Bond film, if Bond films were comedies. :-)
If you want to go back even further, I also liked the themes from Xenon 2 and Cadaver.
My current favourite is the "Robin of Sherwood-esque" Dragon Age : Origins music.
Is The Beatles: Rock Band cheating?
I have to agree with The Toerag here; DA:O Soundtrack is a real nice listen and reasonably short at ~30mins for all tracks. It's blended really well to support the events in the game and stands it's ground when played out of game too :)
I used to love an overblown Jeremy Soule High Fantasy Symphony as much as the next dispossessed illigitimate secret son of the dying king, but nowadays I quite like unexpected or unusual music choices in games; things you wouldn't expect to fit but somehow do.
Particular standouts;
Burnout Paradise which manages to veer wildly between Debussy's Clair De Lune, Stand And Deliver, Cities In Dust although has a bit too much of this for my liking.
Also Ain't no Rest For The Wicked and No Heaven form Borderlands, the excellent "Subject Name Here" and "Self Esteem Fund" etc from Portal, and Faces Of A Fashion and others from Darwinia.
Theres still a place for the traditional though, and the Jade Empire soundtrack does a huge amount to build the world around the player.
I don't think the importance of music in games can be overstated.
Your last music show was excellent. I'm looking forward to the next one.
Especially now that I have got to that age when searching out decent new music is just too much work: it was nice to have some good tunes on my ipod instead of hours of podcasts.
I listened to the couple of tracks you had from Mass Effect so much that it actually convinced me to buy it. I know the game looked like something I would play, and after hearing the music I knew that the whole experience would be something I could get absorbed in.
Absolutely fantastic.
The Crysis soundtrack has some much-overlooked martial themes in there that are quite interesting, as well as a few from the *spoiler* alien sections that are very intriguing. A few other great game soundtracks I can think of off the top of my head are the old Freelancer Kusari theme, Age of Mythology, Dawn of War, and everything from a little gem called Aquaria. The Prince of Persia soundtracks are all really good too (Warrior Within didn't happen).
After listening to Van Hemlock talking about Just Cause, I played that game again and was reminded of how much I like the flamengo/rock intro. Good stuff, sets the mood and acts as a sound motif for the main character.