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PoV: Videogame Music Used To Be Great |
Listed in: Xbox 360 Tags: videogame music, videogame orchestra, videogame scores, videogame soundtrack
This is a PoV, meaning 'point of view'. In other words, if you don't like what I think, then you can take some time out and sit in the corner. Or get lost on Youtube looking at Zen magnets. Alternatively, you can sit in and listen to my views on the shifts in gaming music in recent years.
I was raised on some gaming greats without knowing the hype or success of the games I was playing. Ocarina Of Time, Banjo-Kazooie, SM64 and Goldeneye made up my N64 collection, with Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid and Symphony Of The Night being my PlayStation collection, all making up the first titles I'd ever owned.
What do they all have in common? They all have damn great soundtracks. (Or in the case of Goldeneye and Super Mario 64, catchy.)
They all also relied on synthesized audio produced from internal synthesizers, if not MIDI from the N64. This meant that composers would need to be damn good at composing and arranging music to make the limited and usually low quality sounds sound good. Nobuo Uematsu and Grant Kirkhope among them.
Now with the advent of high quality audio in games, and the modern tendency to lean towards blockbuster films, orchestra's seem to be not only common, but indeed the standard for any high budget game, and that in itself is great. High standards equals high rewards. Viva Pinata, composed by Mr Kirkhope used a full orchestra and was nominated for a BAFTA. Harry Gregson-Williams’ work on the orchestral and electronic scores on Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 defined his style for gamers new to his work, not to mention the series’ main theme being a sort of anthem amongst gamers.
But alas, with the surge in popularity of orchestra’s in videogames, I can’t help but hear a constant ‘sound’ throughout 99% of modern games I play. The sound is one of loud brass, strings, heavy percussion and slow piano all used in various scenes of emotions.
It’s also one that I call generic.
It seems that big studio's throw money at the development team, even more money at advertising, and wads of cash at the first composer they can find with a good reputation. A reputation, it seems, built on the luck of having previous generic scores on games that have become successful.
Loud doesn’t mean good, nor does imitating Hollywood scores or having a huge budget.
I’ve shoddily put together a video below with 8 tracks, switching back and forth between 4 videogame scores that I’d consider ‘older’ (from 90’s up to 2004) and 4 modern scores. I haven’t included the titles, as I think the overall sound will speak for itself. Of the 4 modern scores, 3 are from games, one is in fact from a film. Can you even tell which?
Give your views and opinions; have videogame scores lost their soul and character?
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Comments
The music in most of today's games just isn't unique anymore.
I listened to Skyrim's soundtrack and it wasn't very memorable aside from the trailer theme(and of course Malukah's cover of "The Dragonborn Comes")
I think that the music in games should be just as creative as the game itself, then again most games aren't unique or creative these days just as their music isn't.
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Well said.
"...all making up the first titles I'd ever owned."
Are you in your early 30's?
The fact of the matter is, most kids these days don't understand WHY that music was so awesome. They never listened to 5+ years of crappy beeps to appreciate just how awesome that music was.
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most filmmakers will not put that much attention to the film's score, and it is probably the same in games too.
Some movies almost need a score/orchestra due to the scope of the movie/series. Aside from the opening music to the Harry Potter movies, i couldn't name one other score/song from those movies as iconic. However, i could probably recognize 6-8 different segments of music from Star Wars and know exactly where they occured in the film.
As for games, even the best games' music would get annoying after a period of time. Most people consider the early Final Fantasy games to be very well scored, but there were plenty of times where i instantly hit mute and put on a CD to hear something different.
Or you get to a point in the game when the action is intense and you don't even realize there is music in the background because you are too focused on the game or the cutscene.
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What I also like about more memorable music is how the mind associates them with the virtual area's, and many years later when you hear the music, you recall memories of times spent there and remember it like a period of time at a real place.
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Its all due to budget cuts, they ditch quality composers to starving ones that will do it allot cheaper, and the good ones left like Nubeo Umatsu because he wont accept a pay cut and rip off holloywood movies music styles which SquarEnix was pushing him to do....
At least we have Indie games, at least they try to be original and entertaining, I can easily name two (they're my favs) which are Bastion (which have two nice songs written just for the game) and Cave Story (which was ruined on the 3DS not just the game but soundtrack as well)...
Also if you don't believe me about SquarEnix cutting the budget on music see Final Fantasy 13-2 reviews and how many people turned the sound off as there were too many bad music... But what do you expect for a composer that was doing it for SquarEnix for free for work experience... Damn you SquarEnix stop cheaping out on full priced games and on a great franchise otherwise you wil kill it off, bring Nubuo back...
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yeah...
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