Topical Tuesday: Be a Composer!

The Escapist Staff

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Topical Tuesday: Be a Composer!

If you could change the music of any videogame, which would it be and why?

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Fortuan

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Oct 14, 2008
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I would change some music of military shooters to classical music when doing awesome replays i.e. battlefield or COD
 

Onyx Oblivion

Borderlands Addict. Again.
Sep 9, 2008
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I'd make every open world game with cars have a GTA quality licensed soundtrack. No in-game music while driving.

I actually discovered some of my favorite bands through those games.

And they're always so varied, too. There's something for everyone. Except maybe metalheads. And even then, there are likely a few rock songs on the soundtrack that they'll like.
 

Covarr

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May 29, 2009
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I would change Super Smash Bros. Brawl, to have the proper version of "Snake Eater" instead of the instrumental version. In fact, thanks to the Brawl hacking scene, I already have. Also replaced one of the Final Destination songs with "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny".

P.S. Thanks
 

Calico93

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Jul 31, 2010
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Id make Battlefield have a bit of rock/metal in it, same with COD, MOH etc, for awesomeness.
Most games I play already have really good music.
Id make Borderlands have more western, rock, funk music when youre actually playing, not just at the end or in the intro, thatd be pretty damn cosmic.
 

TheGreenManalishi

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May 22, 2008
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I'd have taken all the in-game ambience of Other M and had Kenji Yamamoto, Hip Tanaka, Norihiko Hibino or just about anyone else give me some decent motifs.

Of all the crap Other M gave us, nothing was more depressing than the lack of music.
 

Eumersian

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Sep 3, 2009
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I would add music to Marathons Durandal and Infinity. I have no idea why they left out the music in the levels. Marathon 1 had so much to offer in terms of music.

One thing that I did do was I noticed that the mp3's used for the music in Age of Empires 3 wasn't locked or anything, so I just renamed some of my favorite pieces of classical music to the names of the files in AoE3's music folder and moved the old music to a separate folder for storage and moved in the new music. It worked perfectly. I was listening to the Legend of Zelda Overture while fending off a group of Frenchmen.

I would replace a lot of music from pretty much any large, Sci-fi game and make it more orchestra-y. There should always be a nice techno touch to the music in such a game, but I feel like any epically large game (like the Metroid Primes or Mass Effects) needs to have extensive symphonic orchestra work out the wazoo. Exception: Fallouts. Lovin' that ol' timey jazz.

Also, I don't think I've ever seen a single game with a soundtrack done by a concert band. Concert bands have moved so much from the Marches of the late 1800s to huge works from composers like Alfred Reed and those others. Concert bands are just as capable as an orchestra.
 

Coliumbos

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Mar 15, 2010
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Add more mixes/decent orchs to SSBB, i.e. Primal Dialga remixes (here for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poiqPQpiTN0 or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEu3WpkdZLQ).

Other than that, shoot me for I have no soul.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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I'd add "Ride of the Valkyries" to the soundtrack of Saints Row 2. When I'm storming Ultor with a military helicopter, I want that playing.
 

SturmDolch

This Title is Ironic
May 17, 2009
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I would have loved it if Dragon Age included some of the metal chords that were in the trailer. Maybe just during fights, or play one when you do a cool finishing move. Would have been much more epic.

Zachary Amaranth said:
I'd add "Ride of the Valkyries" to the soundtrack of Saints Row 2. When I'm storming Ultor with a military helicopter, I want that playing.
Luckily for you, it is in the game! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Row_2_soundtrack#Klassic_102.4] I made my own playlist that just plays that song for precisely that reason.
 

Lightnix

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Mar 19, 2009
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Could I do the opposite and replace normal music with video game music instead? I'd much rather hear, for example, Holy Orders (Be Just or Be Dead) than any of the pop drivel that radio stations spew out daily.
 

Dragoon785

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Jan 9, 2009
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There's a lot of stuff that would be nice to change, for fun or for better. I may add another one in here but I'll start off with the Star wars games. As much as I love the music composed by John Williams, he actually designed the music to react with what is going on on the movie screen. Since those songs are used in games, they are actually not usually reacting to anything the player does unless programmed, but even then it is not the same. Maybe not necessarily change John William's music but try to actually make the music more interactive with musical stabs or better yet, if you can't afford John Williams to perform interactive music, get someone who emulates Star Wars and its classical tunes well with a strong melody and really work through a game's mechanics to creative something that reacts with the player well. It can be a Videogame musician's dream to work that out well while having the budget, technology, talent and time.
 

SaturdayS

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Nov 8, 2010
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Rather than adding new mucic to old games I'd rather have new music for new games. Really, enough with the nintendo sequal rehashing.

But to play along I'd happily replace any game music with they're OCRemix.org counterparts. Not that creative of a suggestion, but it would make me happy.
 

FinalGamer

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Mar 8, 2009
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To be honest there's little I dislike in game music that really makes me wanna say "I would have pulled everything out and redid it in this style". My only true complaints if I was REALLY picky is when a song or two doesn't sound....tense enough.

Example, when I was at the end of No More Heroes, facing against the last boss (no, not THE last boss who's a guy, I mean the "last boss" if you're playing normally). The song "Rocket Surgeon" plays and I always thought it didn't sound just quite right. So I got the song and went to Audacity and put it up a higher pitch and voila, it sounded better and more tense and thrilling with a hint of mournfulness that fit the battle rather appropriately.
So, really I have no real complaints except for MAYBE a different pitch for a song, but I never really disliked a game's soundtrack so much in how it was portrayed that I would have wanted to revamp it all.
 

Dr.Susse

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Apr 17, 2009
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Even though Red dead redemption's music as a whole was awesome. It would be so much greater with a bunch of Enico Morricone scores! The amount of times I was playing and listening to his spaghetti western brilliance on my ipod was quite large.
 

mew1234321

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Oct 15, 2009
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This is where we all sit back and admire the warm, toasty of glow of the Custom Soundtrack, Haxx0red in or otherwise.

For me? Just let me replay any survival horror game with the addition of some ridiculously cheerful J-pop tunes.

It'd bring a tear to my eye, and warmth to my soul.
 

rda_Highlander

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Nov 19, 2010
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Any fighting game should have more hard-rock/heavy metal style in soundtrack. Like the Guilty Gear series. For Christ's sake, these are games where two people fight each other to the death! It's basically Fight Club only even MORE brutal. Why the heck do I need to listen to some cheap keaboard-drum dizziness almost all the time? Think Tekken with Rob Zombie, Mortal Combat with Fear Factor! Super Mario bros Brawl with AC/DC! Ok, the last one is exaggeration but you get the idea.