Game Music: Difference between revisions
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In terms of 'theme music', a game's 'main theme' is more elaborate than other pieces within the game. Theme music plays over the game's title screen, and is often [[Recurring Riff|remixed and recomposed at various points during the game to suit a particular mood]].
'Incidental music' can be anything from a brief musical 'sting' to a fully-scored piece intended to establish the 'mood' of a given scene. [[
In early video game history, Game Music was very basic, rarely straying from a simple two- or three-note tune composed of electronic 'beeps and whistles' of various pitch and duration. With the rise of the soundcard, however, music has become more elaborate and memorable; Hollywood veterans such as Jeremy Soule and Harry Gregson-Williams are providing scores for many of today's top-selling games. Much like music fans, fans of games given to paying attention to soundtracks can tell when their favorite composers have written something (compare the soundtracks of ''[[Fallout]]'' and ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'').
The Commodore 64 had an advanced (for the time) sound chip called SID, capable of playing three voices at once. Music programmers for the machine were capable of getting extra-ordinary results out of it. Music for the SID is being created ''today'', and hardware to allow the chip to be accessed through current generation sound equipment is available. SID music programmers, whose output ended up in many popular games, were and still are held in extremely high regard.
'''Please do not gush about video game music here. That's what [[Video Games/Awesome Music]] is for.'''
{{examples
* The ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' soundtracks have provoked remixes by Dean Kopri, Marcus Trogen and Michael Plichta.
* The ''[[Command
** Two of its most famous tracks are "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RJQPlPE2yQ&feature=related Act on Instinct]", the first track usually heard in the original game, and "Hellmarch" ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U3a9ZVjF8M Original]) ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fSl7shRzsk Hellmarch 2]), which is effectively the theme to the ''Red Alert'' series as a whole.
*** Hell, Act on Instinct was what hooked me during the C&C demo, and from there the RTS genre as a whole.
** You can hear these, [[But Wait! There's More!|and other]] [[Gushing About Shows You Like|awestruck testimonials]], at [[Command
* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' is well known for both its classic 16-bit songs from the various zones [levels] and the later vocal tracks from the 3D games and the various [[Animated Series]].
** From Sonic 1: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-78CMKME4o Green Hill Zone] (Same one the [[Green Hill Zone|trope]] comes from), [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mqmN6mw4R8 Star Light Zone].
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** From Sonic 3: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K1rV9kFs6I Hydrocity Zone Act 1], [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPYzgCI6Q1I&feature=related Hydrocity Zone Act 2], [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYxlqTpZ-24 Ice Cap Zone Act 1].
*** Also of note is the entire Sonic CD soundtrack, which had two distinct but equally amazing soundtracks depending on which region the game was released in.
* ''[[
* ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' has a [[One
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZi0RRVD5S4 Battle on the Big Bridge] (''[[Final Fantasy V]]'') by the Black Mages, a band formed by Nobuo Uematsu, who composed most of ''[[Final Fantasy]]'''s music.
** ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' in general has released as many if not more remix albums than actual soundtracks, including piano albums, hard rock albums, vocal albums, orchestral albums, and trance albums. There have been live concerts, as well, including ''20020202: Music From Final Fantasy'' and the ''Dear Friends'' concert series (named after a track from ''[[Final Fantasy V]]''.
** And there's of course the original Epic Final Boss Fight Theme, the magnificent Dancing Mad, of resident nutjob Kefka. It's 16 minutes of pure awesomeness.
** ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'''s theme, Theme of Love, was even incorporated into the Japanese music education curriculum.
* Yasunori Mitsuda's music has often been almost a selling point for the various video games he has worked on, which include the ''Chrono'' series, the ''Xenosaga''/''Xenogears'' games and others.
** ''Xenogears'' would probably not had been the same if not for its greatly mood enhancing music.
* Even non-gamers will recognize the tunes of ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' or ''[[
** Unless you live in Japan, where it's on similar footing as [[Anime Theme Song|anime soundtracks]].
** Or the UK, where the music from ''Tetris'' and ''[[
* More recently, the ''[[Guitar Hero]]'' and ''[[Rock Band]]'' games have progressed the idea of music in a game, with over a million copies of both games sold in the United States.
* And the more recent examples of the ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' series of course pioneered the use of popular music in video games courtesy of radios in vehicles which even included DJ banter and commercials. Players could even add their own MP3s and have them played, to extend the shelf life somewhat. In the case of ''Vice City'' especially, the choice of soundtrack helped set the mood for the setting (i.e., 1986).
* The soundtracks for the various ''[[Mega Man (
* [[
* Several bands, such as [http://minibosses.com The Minibosses] and [http://www.megadriver.com.br Megadriver], have formed specifically to play rock versions of video game music.
** The band [http://www.pressplayontape.com PressPlayOnTape] specialises in covering Commodore 64 tunes, although a few Amiga tunes have crept into their repetoire.
* And then there's [https://web.archive.org/web/20161230032438/http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=home Video Games Live], a traveling concert that features fully-orchestrated versions of game music.
* ''[[The King of Fighters]]'' series has an arranged soundtrack for damn near every game it has, with real instrumentation replacing the [[Neo Geo]] sound. There's also usually an [[Image Song]] on each soundtrack as well.
* The ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' series may have been the first ones to use heavy rock pieces in the soundtrack, but surely the [[Trope Codifier
* ''[[Castlevania]]'' has absurdly good music, dating all the way back to the original NES game. The high point is undoubtedly ''Symphony of the Night'''s OST, composed by Michiru Yamane.
** Though North America missed out on it, ''Castlevania III'' in its Japanese incarnation has ridiculously good music. Konami added a special audio microprocessor chip to the cartridge, [
* The ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' games (especially ''Brawl'') are packed with music from other Nintendo games.
** Brawl especially is also filled with all kinds of remixes and even obscure tunes.
* Back when copyright prevention in games was especially brutal, the warez scene exploded in popularity as a way to remove oppressive lockout systems. Many of the people that “cracked” these games to remove such code would insert their name into the title screen or loader for posterity, and as these credits became more and more elaborate in one-upsmanship, they became an artform in and of themselves. Called “cracktros,” they eventually split entirely from warez to become the demo, spectacular feats of audiovisual wizardry packed into astoundingly tiny amounts of code to create effects far beyond the commercial game industry's capabilities in sophistication, and rapidly developed a peculiar genre of music all their own.
** Some of the scenery crews involved in this ultimately ended up working in the games industry. An early example of this was ''[[Star Control]] 2'''s soundtrack. The developers announced a contest online for people to send in sound tracker modules based on descriptions of the game's thematic content, the result was one of the best soundtracks in the history of gaming.
* The ''[[Crusader:
* ''[[
** This was a feature of the [[Game Engine|Unreal Engine]] that didn't get much use in ''[[Unreal]]'' games, but a few mods took advantage of them. But the themes of ''[[
** ''Banjo-Kazooie'' does this as well, the main overworld theme [[Variable Mix|switching]] from normal to jingle-bells-ey (outside the winter level) to piratey (outside the beach level). There was a variation for each level entrance area, and they seamlessly faded in and out to each other depending on the player movement.
* The ''Infinity Engine'' games all had a soundtrack that was very well-liked by its players, though it was probably ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' that was the most admired for setting the mood.
* The first three ''Spyro the Dragon'' games on the Playstation had an amazing soundtrack. The songs were composed by Stewart Copeland, who was in The Police. The game's music is what makes these games held in high regard.
* ''[[Metal Gear]]'' from Solid onwards has had the theme music composed by Harry Gregson-Williams.
* The ''[[Wild
* ''[[
* Part and parcel of ''[[Emulation]]'' is the emulated sound scene. You can find music ripped directly from game code for most console generations right up to the [[
* Insomniac Games has historically had very good BGM, in ''[[Spyro the Dragon]]'' by Stewart Copeland and in ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' by David Bergeaud. As of late, though, the music has been completely forgettable (though still composed by David Bergeaud).
* The music for the ''[[Jet Set Radio]]'' is held in high regard for it's catchy and rhythmic music.
* Hidenori Shoji, one of the music developers for Amusement Vision is well known for his work for ''[[Yakuza]]'' ''[[F
* The ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' series is popular enough in Japan that they get entire orchestras to play arrangements of the music.
* ''[[Tekken]]'' and ''[[Street Fighter]]'' both get large amounts of acclaim for their soundtracks, especially the heavily electronic ''Tekken 4'' and the hip-hop influenced ''Street Fighter 3 Third Strike''.
* ''[[Civilization]] IV'' bizarrely averts this trope by having mostly a [[Classical Music]] soundtrack for the Medieval, Renaissance, Industrial, and Modern eras, featuring everything from Gregorian chant and polyphony to Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven. The Modern era soundtrack is composed entirely of the strange, hypnotic Minimalist music of contemporary American composer John Adams (like [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYy5pmpIM-U this]). On the other hand, other parts of the game do have original music, and the main-menu music--"[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmut6FBx4xk Baba Yetu]," a setting of the Lord's Prayer by Christopher
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[[Category:Videogame Culture]]
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