Your Game Music is Bland and You Should Feel Bad

[II2]

Good article.

I might have a slightly different take as someone drawn to more experimental music and sound design over strong 'anthem' and 'theme' tunes, though I can see the value of them, absolutely.

Here's a thought, Yahtzee - it strikes me that all these soaring symphonic scores and orchestral arrangements are, in a very strange way, almost trying to serve as an atmospheric ambience to establish a mood, in the same manner minimalist soundtracks are used for RPG / horror games. However, it seems the failure is in that where your Silent Hills or Fallouts or Planescape Torments had excellent, memorable feels from their respective experimental OSTs, the 'feel' that the cliche common orchestration of major releases is just that of a high budget spectacle and the perceived need for top-tier production gloss.

We associate the big dense orchestral OSTs with big budget games because that's always where we hear them and the homogenized association also seems to be driving demand for them in games who want to be 'important' and 'big', but might be better served with an approach that offers SOMETHING different, tonally.

Just my 0.02

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Old news, I was bitching about this back in the day when Final Fantasy X came out.

Final Fantasy IX music was basically a MIDI soundtrack brought with a piano, voices, flutes, etc. It was as memorable as a (S)NES-tune, but could be labeled as "actual music" because it wasn't limited to 8/16-bit blips and bloops.

Have a go at Jesters of the Moon, Loss of Me or The Place I'll Return To Someday and tell me that doesn't sound like the stuff that could linger in your head for days to come.

Though I've played FF9, The Place I'll Return To Someday really didn't hit me as THAT memorable. Sure, it was catchy and all, and sure I could hum the melody from memory, but it wasn't really iconic (to me, at least) as a Final Fantasy song. However, that all changed when I heard this:


Now, as I remember both this and the old song, I can say with absolution that it is an iconic song. I needed that perspective shift that the original song didn't quite give before. Perhaps it's that it didn't suit my personal taste before, but I can see now how the original inspired that kind of memorability.

Also, Persona songs should not go without mention. Very memorable. (Again, to me at least)

Spoiler: Go go Persona!

[sub][sub][sub][sub][sub]WORLD, Y U NO NAOTO?[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[Vigormortis]

One could argue on some of the finer points you've asserted, Mr. Croshaw, but if there's one thing you are unequivocally right about it's this little snippet:

"Whether it's running from cover to cover snapping off gunfire, or blocking your way through a melee fight, a good song instantly makes any moment of generic combat memorable."

Upon reading that, I instantly recalled a number of memorable crescendo-like moments from across my gaming experiences. Including this one:
Without that song, it would've felt like just another "fight off waves of incoming enemies" event. With it though, it was far more memorable.

On a side note...

Spoiler: I feel modern games don't have nearly enough operatic music.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Did really nobody mention Skyrim yet? I thought bought the main theme and "The dragonborn comes" two super memorable songs.
I loved all the Mass Effect BGM, the atmosphere was always astonishing.
And of course Borderlands 1+2 are probably in my top 10 ever.

Spoiler: Skyrim

Spoiler: Borderlands

Spoiler: Borderlands 2

Beware contains awesomeness!

 

[zenoaugustus]

"Ezio's Family" is a song I'll listen to on occasion. I'd say Assassin's Creed 2 got it's soundtrack right. But, overall, I'd agree; there aren't many memorable songs anymore.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

The Elder Scrolls has always been top-notch when it comes to soundtracks



And of course the song that is burned into the mind of anyone that played Morrowind.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Oh Yahtzee, you poor bastard. You clearly haven't played Super Meat Boy, have you? Somebody get Danny Baranowsky on the phone ASAP; a British-Australian game critic is in desperate need of his talents.

XD

 

[sammysoso]

I don't think a recognizable melody is really necessary to make a game score great. It all depends on the function the music is trying to have.

And I will have to disagree that there aren't any good melodies anymore. Halo, Mass Effect, Uncharted, Elder Scrolls and more all have great scores with prominent melodic parts in the music.

Not sure what full orchestras have to do with anything, they can do basically whatever the composer wants them to do.

 

[Olas]

I know it doesn't count as an 'original soundtrack' but the 1950s (cold war era) music from Fallout 3 always struck me as a very ironic yet fitting backdrop to the game.

"I don't want to set the woooorld... ooooon... fiiiire... "

 

[elvor0]

Old news, I was bitching about this back in the day when Final Fantasy X came out.

Final Fantasy IX music was basically a MIDI soundtrack brought with a piano, voices, flutes, etc. It was as memorable as a (S)NES-tune, but could be labeled as "actual music" because it wasn't limited to 8/16-bit blips and bloops.

Have a go at Jesters of the Moon, Loss of Me or The Place I'll Return To Someday and tell me that doesn't sound like the stuff that could linger in your head for days to come.

Though I've played FF9, The Place I'll Return To Someday really didn't hit me as THAT memorable. Sure, it was catchy and all, and sure I could hum the melody from memory, but it wasn't really iconic (to me, at least) as a Final Fantasy song. However, that all changed when I heard this:


Now, as I remember both this and the old song, I can say with absolution that it is an iconic song. I needed that perspective shift that the original song didn't quite give before. Perhaps it's that it didn't suit my personal taste before, but I can see now how the original inspired that kind of memorability.

Also, Persona songs should not go without mention. Very memorable. (Again, to me at least)

Spoiler: Go go Persona!

[sub][sub][sub][sub][sub]WORLD, Y U NO NAOTO?[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

Wow, they're pretty kick ass, just been checking em out, their Master of Puppets/Dancing Mad fusion was very nice indeed

 

[General Vagueness]

Boooo, shame on you Yahtzee, the Halo Games have excellent soundtracks! I mean we all remember this right?


Du du du dunnn, du du du dunnn, du du du duuun de do de

But on topic, yeah we don't get too much great stuff these days, some of it's alright, some of it sorta good, but nothing iconic, aside from the aforementioned Halo theme, I mean where's our new Nobuno Uenmatso for the new generation?

exactly, except with Halo 4 they left out the old theme and all of the previous Halo music except for a few seconds at the very beginning and one song over the credits, and possibly reusing some notes in a minimalist piece that I appreciate but find hard to fully like
anyway, Yahtzee, and whoever else, there's this Chrome extension called YouTube Options that lets you hide various parts of the page, on YouTube and several other video-heavy sites-- I've been using it to get rid of comments and one or two other things for about a month now and it's good

 

[RedDeadFred]

So basically Yahtzee prefers 80's music over Original Soundtracks. If it fits, then by all means use it. However, I prefer more creativity in my games than just having random rock songs pasted into it. If that's really what you want, just have your own tunes playing at the same time...

Also, games with great OS:
Mass Effect series
Elder Scrolls Series
Bastion!!!!!!!!!!(best ever IMO)
Borderlands 2 (love the music that plays when you're on top of the Bloodshot Ramparts)
Halo Series
MW2 (Hans Zimmer ftw)
Portal 2

And there's many more. Honestly, given how sound quality has gotten better in games over the years, I think gaming music has gotten better. It allows for much more complex music.

 

[Xdeser2]

You're kidding me, right?

Most games with OS's use them incredibly well. And saying that Halo has a bad soundtrack? You can accuse Halo of alot of shit, but saying its, I dont know, dumbed down music in games, thats defiantly not it.

Having a "hummable" track dosent mean jack shit for the quality of the music, really. It just seems like your playing to the "Gaming sucks because its not exactly like what it used to be" crowd -_-

 

[Starik20X6]

Here are a couple of songs from recent games that I really like:

I'll admit it to you, simple peasant wearing short pants, [http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Rather_Dashing] that this song gets me infinitely more psyched than, say, Eye of the Tiger.

 

[talideon]

"...the loss of limitation has led to in-game music becoming generic, unmemorable, and unwilling to stand out."

Couldn't be said better, Yahtzee. I can remember old games like The Last Ninja [www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExftoivJ_EU] and in spite of them running on an 8-bit system with 64k RAM everything about it was memorable, especially the music.

Keep in mind though that we're not just talking about any old 8-bit machine, but the C-64, whose sound chip was designed by synthesiser design legend, Bob Yannes.

Take Wizball, for example:


Though that clip sounds as if it's synthesised SidPlay--the filters are off for a start--nothing was able to approach that level of quality in audio synthesis until the 16-bit era. And sticking with Martin Galway, here's Parallax:


Matt Grey's Desert theme from Tusker:


Jeroen Tel and Reyn Ouwehand's work on Dutch Breeze:



Markus Siebold's excellent work on Turrican II:


There was something very, very special about that little machine.

 

[Darken12]

I get what you're saying, Yahtzee, but orchestra musicians needs jobs too. This is a good thing for them.

Also, I like bombastic orchestras. I can hum the Halo theme just fine.

 

[Niccolo]

Of all the modern Triple-A games I've played recently (Admittedly, not too many), I'd have to say Skyrim has the most non-bland music... Especially the pieces that play when a dragon drops out of the sky on you.

One of my favourite background soundtracks I stick on regularly is from Bastion. It's so good (especially Setting Sail, Coming Home). I've never bought a soundtrack from a Triple-A title, however.

I bought Bastion the day it came out on Steam, all because Yahtzee gushed unashamedly about it. I played it for half an hour, thought 'fuck it' and went back to Steam and bought the soundtrack. Of all things, it was the title music which sold me on the idea.

I'd say the two songs that really stick out for me are "In Case of Trouble" and "Slinger's Song". Really, though, the music that comes with each new weapon is fantastic; its tone subconsciously adds to the history of the group that used it.

 

[Altered Nova]

Claiming that licensed tunes are the answer, as if every game is Resevoir Dogs or GTA San Andreas, is a case of incredibly narrow vision. How would a licensed tune fit into Skyrim? How would Final Fantasy benefit from it? How would Halo benefit from having a Rolling Stones number?

While I agree with the rest of your post, I found the last sentence of this paragraph kind of funny because the Halo games have had licensed music. Halo 2 had songs by Breaking Benjamin and Incubus. In fact the fight where the instrumental version of "Blow Me Away" started playing was one of many favorite moments from the entire franchise.

 

[Whispering Death]

Bioshock Infinite doesn't get enough credit for a great soundtrack.

What about this amazing rendition of Will the Circle be Unbroken. Not just a good song, but what it does to set the theme of Columbia and if you listen to the lyrics what they mean to the entire plot of the game. Extremely well thought out and executed soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAIS-ADK6c8&list=PL3QZUm48uWnsdFakp3A2fI-NzmfH1jyQe&index=3