Video Game 'Tunes' - Where? - What's 'Working' for You?

[AlbertKatraz]

OK, I'll admit it. I play games so infrequently today compared to the height of my enthusiasm in the 1980s but from the key titles that I've had a bash on in recent years, I've found the lack of quality 'tunes' which support the experience somewhat baffling.

And by 'tunes' I'm not talking about massive all encompassing sound tapestries akin to blockbuster movies - I mean an immediately identifiable and memorable melodic-hooks supported by intelligent harmonies and imaginative but solid basslines?

With music composition and production, as with most creative endeavours that can now be undertaken end-to-end in the digital domain, it just seems to me that technology has been a bit of a double-edged sword. On one side, it's opened up the process to a far wider audience and on the other, it's created a vast ocean of mediocre talent from which those with the best networking/interpersonal/business skills emerge to produce the good that become the standard by which 'good' is then judged.

Or perhaps I'm just missing the point. Maybe, as I possibly suspect, all those elements *I* find stimulating in a piece of music are just 'uncool'. Maybe people are just happy with a repeating hook, one note basslines and cheap effects?

Tell me I'm wrong and link me up to the good shit.

[ThetaReactor]

Mass Effect had some evocative tunes:


Bastion is probably the most recent standout for me, though:


And while it certainly falls into the massive blockbuster style, Halo had one hell of a hook:

[F-ZeroOne]

Ah, please ignore - mispost.

[AlbertKatraz]

With respect man, they're pretty meandery with no real melody and there's a bunch of dissonance in that Bastion tune that shouldn't be there.

OK. I know, it's art. It's subjective as it all is. But where's the proper 'musical' talent in games these days?
I'm not talking about sound designers, yes, the world is full of people who can layer up a load of VSTs and make a big interesting noise, but it's not music.

OK, ignore the fact that the patches sound like shitty 2 operator FM - listen to the use melody, harmonic competency and key modulation in this one. The lady who wrote this is one of my all-time favourite Video Game Musicians.



Or:



This one just blew my mind at the time - probably the most gorgeously crafted tunes on the Megadrive - the change at around 1:00 and the return to the main theme at 1:24 are just awesome.



And where do you start with the C64? So many good 'tunes' I'd be hard to pick even a handful.

Not as many on the Amiga though............. the best tunes were demos really............

This is one of my all time favourites from 4mat, one of the few people who really knocked my socks off with his incredible ability to make decent tunes. Hard to believe this is 23 years old now.



It's got a theme that sticks in your head. It's infectious. It's brilliant.

etc..............

[galaxis]

Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but the FTL soundtrack (here on bandcamp) has some quite excellent tracks.

[Baggypants]

[rowan]

Firelink Shrine & Gwyn's theme from Dark Souls are currently high in my mind.
Partly it's their role in the rest of the whole immersive atmosphere of that game but they do add to it wonderfully.





Frankly this game has ruined gaming for me, it's the best thing I've played for about 10 years and everything I've touched since seems so bland.

[Baggypants]

[Truder]

I agree with ThetaReactor's, the Halo theme is certainly a piece that everyone or at least, a lot of people can easily recognise. Not sure about Mass Effect, while it does have it's distinctive theme it is very atmospheric in nature.

Still Alive.... (For both Portal and Mirror's Edge)


Metal Gear Solid left a fairly big impression on me (especially the Alert theme - Encounter and The Best is Yet to Come (but would that be classed as too old now?)


Chocobo themes in Final Fantasy.

I also enjoyed the music within The Last Remnant.

Battlefield theme? That's certainly recognisable although I thought the BF3 rendition kinda fizzled the impact of the pounding theme substantially with the distortion used for it.
2142 being my favourite.

[CharlieF]

I love the music in Shatter


Xenoblade Chronicles soundtrack is fantastic as well


Going back several years now but I have to include Metroid Prime...

[Istar]

I prefer the intro music from Metroid Prime - I still fire the GC up every now and then just to listen to that haunting choon through the big amp...

Video links to follow tomorrow when I'm on a PC and not iOS.

Metroid Prime (GameCube) - Intro

Command and Conquer (PC) - Drill

Thunderforce III (MegaDrive) - Game Complete Credits

Skate Tribe (Atari ST) - Intro

Defender of The Crown (Amiga) - Main Theme

[c64audio]

Super Mario Galaxy is still lovely.

[AlbertKatraz]

I love Bill Williams' stuff Istar and he was right there from the beginning with the Amiga so picking up little jobs like the orchestration for Defender of the Crown really allowed him to leave a little more of a legacy.

That guy was so talented it was unreal.

Some of his stuff wasn't completely to my taste but Mindwalker was amazing AND has some of the most spectacularly bizarre music ever written for a game. Also loved Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon for its total Lo-Fi gritty 'coder art' and that too has got some pretty impressive noises as well. Necromancer and Alley Cat on the Atari were likewise very cool.

Back on track - Yes, lots of nice supporting arrangements posted above but most of them you'd have trouble with if you were given them in the 'name that tune' segment of 'Buzzcocks.

[defsdoor]

I find the sparse tunes in Minecraft add such a depth of feeling to the entire experience.

[sdetoni]

I prefer the intro music from Metroid Prime - I still fire the GC up every now and then just to listen to that haunting choon through the big amp...

Video links to follow tomorrow when I'm on a PC and not iOS.

Metroid Prime (GameCube) - Intro

Command and Conquer (PC) - Drill

Thunderforce III (MegaDrive) - Game Complete Credits

Skate Tribe (Atari ST) - Intro

Defender of The Crown (Amiga) - Main Theme

oh well, if we are going back in time then.... actually there are so many good tunes its hard to list them all from c64, Amiga, to playstation.

But I agree that later games have lost that tune melody feel and gone with the full orchestra effect to make the game larger in feeling, but in doing so you hide the essential melody in a lot of background instruments and string effects. Back in the 8/16 bit world, you only have 3-4 voices and with those you had to make them distinctive... the best of them I still think are on the C64 and the Amiga system. Some of the chunes produced were just brilliant with very little resources available.... once those resource limits are lifted, people don't appear to try as hard to make the most out of what they have.

Case in point, the sound track to Doctor Who was done using a basic synthesizer (by today's standards) and tape loops. It was a major effort to do something like that in the day, and with limited available tracks... yet today, when sound tracks are produced, they feel muddy and in-distinctive as if we are spoilt for choice on available technology and scope. Many layers a piled onto of the sound track that it looses cohesion... less is more, reduce scope and focus on melody more. The same can be said of movies as well, the block buster pulling all the stops to make it grander in scale, yet the movies with the most visual impact have very little in the way of orchestra music, the minimal music is used to make simple and effect statements.

Of course I could be talking bollocks; its my own point of view after all.