Poll: Video Game Music

[Space Spoons]

I know who Howard Drossin, Nobuo Uematsu and Koji Kondo are. The last song I added to my iPod was an "Emerald Hill Zone" remix from the Newgrounds audio portal. I've already pre-registered for next year's MAGFest (Music and Gaming Festival.)

I'm not ashamed to come out and say it: I'm a video game music fanatic.

Since I was very young, I've found video game music more fascinating and enjoyable than anything I hear on the radio, and I'm glad to say that I'm not the only one. The video game music remixing community is becoming more well known, and it's not altogether uncommon to see concerts dedicated to music from games springing up at more progressive venues.

Escapists, what's your view on video game music? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Do you make it? Let's hear your thoughts.

 

[BBLIZZARD]

Eh, it's ok depending on the style. I'm not into the whole techno, neo classical stuff in most games but that's just me.

 

[Enskie]

Racing games have the best music for me, but that's because they play 'real' songs, i.e. Need For Speed: Underground 2 had the song "No One Knows" by Queens Of The Stone Age. But for 'game' music, like a soundtrack, I liked the Halo 3 battle theme, with the classical feel that it had. Also, Deus Ex's soundtrack had a sort of serene feel to it that mixed quite well with the experience of playing the 'assassin' character, pumped up to the eyeballs with rifle and pistol skill, and carrying his knife, sniper rifle and stealth pistol.

 

[Jumplion]

I like to listen to Video Game music. You've got the classics like the LoZ stuff and the Tetris theme and you've got music on par with hollywood IE some MGS songs and such.

 

[-Seraph-]

I have always found video game music to be more enjoyable than any other type of music. I also find it the most talented, just like making music for a movie, it has to capture the audience and convey emotions and theme at once. Although i find VG music to be more talented in some ways, you have to respect people like Nobuo Uematsu who can pull off amazing tunes even back in the NES era when hardware was VERY limited. To be able to make wonderful music with such inferior and restrictive hardware is real talent, it takes a damn good musician to pull off musical scores like that found in final fantasy (favorite VG music ever).

I love game music, i listen to it all the time and more often than the few bands I do like. I wish over here it was widely more appreciated like that found in Japan where they would release game sound track along side the games initial launch. Even stuff from the 8 and 16 bit era have been more effective pieces of music than that found in today's mainstream...which ya gotta wonder sometimes.

 

[bittman]

Kingdom Hearts would be my favourite soundtrack and is probably the only one I can literally pinpoint exactly where in each game they occur. Since I made no effort to try to figure out where which one actually played, this is what I call excellent game-musicology (that even a term?).

The orchestra's that run a concert of great game tunes are also quite fun to attend, but beyond that I'm not a person who downloads the soundtrack's of games.

 

[AngryMan]

I do a lot of pen-and-paper RPing. Some game music (especially from BioWare games) is just perfect for the game sessions.

Some of it even gets listened to during my spare time. I have a playlist consisting of a pick-and-mix of music from Mass Effect, EVE Online, SupCom, Red Alert, Guilty Gear, BF 2142, CoD4, Oblivion, Starcraft and Dark Messiah, among others.

Not a fan of Final Fantasy music though, unlike one of my housemates.

 

[Graustein]

I have always found video game music to be more enjoyable than any other type of music. I also find it the most talented, just like making music for a movie, it has to capture the audience and convey emotions and theme at once. Although i find VG music to be more talented in some ways, you have to respect people like Nobuo Uematsu who can pull off amazing tunes even back in the NES era when hardware was VERY limited. To be able to make wonderful music with such inferior and restrictive hardware is real talent, it takes a damn good musician to pull off musical scores like that found in final fantasy (favorite VG music ever).

I love game music, i listen to it all the time and more often than the few bands I do like. I wish over here it was widely more appreciated like that found in Japan where they would release game sound track along side the games initial launch. Even stuff from the 8 and 16 bit era have been more effective pieces of music than that found in today's mainstream...which ya gotta wonder sometimes.

I agree entirely, except that I prefer Hip Tanaka and Go Ichinose to Nobuo

 

[zen5887]

Final Fantasy 7

I started playing this again so I could listen to the songs.

 

[jezz8me]

Generaly it is only good ingame but music like from the MGS series, Silent Hill, Final Fantasy and even the 8bit glory or chrono trigger are awsome.

 

[SecretTacoNinja]

Love it love it love it! I have the orchestrated soundtrack from Ocarina of Time on my MP3 as well as NES and Sonic remixes that I found on OCremix.org. I'm a massive VG music nerd. ^_^
I also think the music in Halo was one of the reasons it went from a generic shooter to a rather good shooter (trying to resist using the term 'Gun-Wank').

 

[Knight Templar]

Im not much of a music person.

Also Enskie I know where that picture is from, I'm watching you.

 

[Dommyboy]

I enjoy all video game music except the music that doesn't fit and the music from Lost Odyssey. I'm also not fond of the music from Oblivion, don't know why, just dislike it.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

Escapists, what's your view on video game music? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Do you make it? Let's hear your thoughts.

I know more about VGM than about video games in general, you tell me.

 

[demon lord 2037]

It just depends on the game

 

[Aoi Denkou]

Same as the last guy.
It really depends on what game it is.

 

[smallharmlesskitten]

Quite a lot of my music comes from my racing/ extreme sport games... I know... I suck

 

[Unknower]

Music which changes depending on how you're playing and the situation is the best.

I'm tired of the way some games start to play music after a invisible line is crossed. It was funny in one driving section of HL2 to leave the buggy and continue on foot to a empty house. Fast-paced techno combat music didn't fit that. At all.