Looking for interesting game music for thesis

KireGoTI

Hello there, other Penny Arcade fans. This will be my first post in this wilderness.

I am doing an academic paper on music in interactive spaces, something that I think we're desperately in need of at this stage. The approach is ethnomusicological, and so I need to do ethnographic research. In other words, I need to Watch and Play actual video games (the horror...) and focus on elements of those games. My goal is to demonstrate the unique challenges faced by composers of music in highly interactive spaces, how this changes the music, and along the way to imply that there is a sense of continuity going into and coming out of the advances of music into these relatively new environments. In simpler and somewhat less accurate terms: I'd like to find out why and how it is that video game music is special and different from music in other contexts.

Some of the games I will be focusing on are Parappa the Rapper, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Zelda: OoT, the original Super Mario, and Super Mario Galaxy. I'm also planning to touch on some audio games. There are two problems here:

1. This is a pretty small range of games, mostly from two small periods in the development of video game music, and not really an accurate genre representation, etc., and
2. With three Nintendo R&D 1 games in the list, all of which are composed by Koji Kondo, I could use a little more variety in terms of composers and ways of thinking about game music composition.

So this is basically just me asking for suggestions. Go nuts. Descriptions would be nice, but I'm fine with just a shoutout of "this is interesting" or "the music for this game is really cool" or something like that.

truck-a-sauras

Castlevania! Symphony of the Night is a good choice in that series... seriously the composer for those games has won numerous awards for such awesomeness.

one part of SOTN that I remember liking was the dank wet underground cave areas, the music really set the mood well down there and felt right.

Improvolone

Katamari Damacy has an outlandish soundtrack, but I don't recall it changing with the gameplay (which is what you're looking for).
The Act is a brilliantly interactive game, but I'm not sure if it has a soundtrack that follows suit (but any research into interactive games on any level should require a look into The Act).
Good call on OoT.
Guitaroo Man?

Drakmathus

cubivore, PN03, Dark wizard, Lunar, Warsong?

everything in cubivore is cubed, along with the music. It changes through the day/night cycle, etc.

I've only played a bit of PN03 but I think the music changes as you fight. The others just have good music to me.

You could also talk about music in the megaman series, I think. Compare Ice Man's music to Ice Penguins music.

Varian

Music that changes dynamically to match the game environment.

The Metal Gear Solid series is an excellent example of video game music composition, where there's a main theme and most/all music within the game is derived from aspects of this main theme, and gameplay is wonderfully enhanced by the score which matches the action onscreen.

Folken Fanel

Metal Gear Solid.

EDIT: D'oh beaten!

I really liked the way it was done in snake eater though.

Nocren

When it first came out, my dad (who's pretty much a non-certified music major) was blown away by FF6's music on the SNES and it's use of various synth voices and layering. Though this and SotN seem to be example more of mood/background music than anything interactive.

Weren't there some games that altered the music based on certain things, like how well/critical you were doing or other criteria?

Orestus

X-wing and Tie Fighter for the PC were both notable in their time for their use of music keyed to happenings in the environment. Some wikipedia magic provides the following

In one of the earliest examples of the use of adaptive music in a combat simulation game LucasArts' iMUSE dynamic music system enabled the intensity of the music to change in response to the changing situation experienced during gameplay. The score included themes for specific events such as the completion of mission objectives or the arrival of new enemies that were blended seamlessly with the main score.

Tomanta

Final Fantasy 6 has an incredible soundtrack full of a both a variety of musical styles and use of themes. The rest of the Final Fantasy games have good scores but FF6 is very likely my favorite of all time. Something you may want to touch on is that video game music has expanded beyond video games. Most of the FF games have excellent "piano collection" cds out, and there are the video game orchestras now...

Also, Contraband

There is also Audiosurf...

Tron

Total Annihilation had an excellent sound track and varied with the action on screen.

Khavall

Take a look at the Dead Space sound design. The score and sound operated on a "Horror cone" effect, where the sound atmosphere would, in situations where what the player would do was less controllable, instead of, say, having the music swell when the character opened the door only to hit a huge dramatic swing when instead of actually going through it to fight the baddie the character notices some ammo on the floor.

There's a video where they mention that too.

pacbowl

The Homeworld 1, 2 & Cataclysm soundtracks.

Aldo

Half Life 2 has an interesting sound track. Most of the game is quiet, but there's music playing at times where a dramatic undertone adds a lot.

*e: Fallout is also interesting, it's practically the only time today's kids listen to their grandparents/greatgrandparents music without groaning and/or rolling their eyes.

Qingu

I'll second Final Fantasy and particularly Final Fantasy 6. For FF6, it's also worth noting that the composer explicitly modeled his score after opera music, with each character having his or her "lietmotif" (I think that's the right term).

Might also be interesting to talk about how the music in Final Fantasy battles signifies how "badass" the creature you're fighting is. You know when enter battle and the "boss music" starts playing instead of the regular battle music, you'd better start casting Haste, Protect, and Shell. Doubly so for the "big boss music" that plays during Elemental, X-Death, Atma/Statue, WEAPON, or sorceress battles.

Was I the only one who's pissed that FF9 didn't have any big boss music?

Qingu

Also, Grand Theft Auto 3.

Whatever your thoughts about the merits of this game or the merits of its impact on the industry, it certainly revolutionized how games interact with music.

Also, Brutal Legend, a game modeled after the imagery of a specific genre of music.

Man, I want to write your thesis now.

Reznik

Okami has a brilliant, magical soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsnJRyTlFb0

Saddler

I suggest going back pre-NES for at least one. A lot of the older games didn't have music throughout, but they had some pretty cool mood-setting musical cues before or after the main game.

Space Panic on the Colecovision is the first game that scared me with music. As your oxygen supply ran out, creepy music would start to play. Quite frightening stuff, and it really made the game. Unfortunately there aren't any good videos of it, and it's only in the Coleco version.

TetraNitroCubane

If you can manage to get your hands on a copy of Jet Set Radio (Japanese), and/or Jet Grind Radio (American), I highly recommend taking a look. Not only are the musical aspects of the game a huge component of the style and environment, but there was a rather interesting design decision to add different tracks (not replacements, just direct additions) of licensed music to new stages when it was brought to America.

And just because I'm playing it now, I thought the musical score for Banjo Kazooie Nuts n' Bolts was amazing. It was a fantastic dynamic score that did some neat tricks in terms of changing instrumentation on the same theme depending on your locale.

And for the love of all that's digital Rez and Lumines should be at the top of the list! These are games that use evolving, interactive music as components underlying traditional interactive gameplay. A standard On-Rails shooter in Rez is turned into something so much deeper and more involving due to the music. A puzzle game that would be normally dismissed was turned into something downright hypnotic with Lumines. Note that Rez might be a goldmine in terms of this topic of interactivity through music in games. When it was released on the dreamcast, there were optional controllers that... uh... vibrated in time with the musical queues to feed back to the user. You're free to make your own conclusions on how this was interpreted for use by the end user.

Best of luck with this, by the way. This sounds like a fascinating topic and my hat is off to you for taking it seriously and writing about it.

Folken Fanel

TetraNitroCubane wrote: »

And for the love of all that's digital Rez and Lumines should be at the top of the list! These are games that use evolving, interactive music as components underlying traditional interactive gameplay. A standard On-Rails shooter in Rez is turned into something so much deeper and more involving due to the music. A puzzle game that would be normally dismissed was turned into something downright hypnotic with Lumines.

I hate myself for not thinking of these 2 obvious examples.

exmello

Diddy Kong Racing was interesting because the instrumentation changed as you entered different area of the track. I remember some article pointing it out to me and when I paid attention it kinda wowed me at the time.

Willeth

The Halo games have some interesting audio work. Aside from the truly great soundtrack in ODST, they've done a couple of documentaries on the process. It alters dynamically to setpieces, ensuring that you'll always get (for example) a crescendo they want upon cresting a hill and seeing a giant battle or a vista ahead of you, but it's always timed to blend in with and match the audio track that's already playing.

Take a look at In the Pit on Xbox Live Indie Games. It's not strictly music, but it's a game based entirely on audio cues.

unintentional

paper mario the thousand year door
a lot of the music is derivative from other mario games but every track sounds new and interesting

Klorgnum

I really liked the soundtrack for Beyond Good and Evil. It's extremely eclectic, but it all managed to fit in the context of the game world. The soundtrack is a free download and you can listen to some tracks online (Myspace link!)here.

Improvolone

Saddler wrote: »

I suggest going back pre-NES for at least one. A lot of the older games didn't have music throughout, but they had some pretty cool mood-setting musical cues before or after the main game.

Space Panic on the Colecovision is the first game that scared me with music. As your oxygen supply ran out, creepy music would start to play. Quite frightening stuff, and it really made the game. Unfortunately there aren't any good videos of it, and it's only in the Coleco version.

You want scary? How about Sonic's "you're running out of oxygen" music? Fuck that.

Electroplankton?

Cervetus

Most of the music in Silent Hill 2 is just fantastic at ambiance, but of particular note is the section where you have to outrun Pyramid Head in a long hallway and the music becomes progressively more disturbed as you flee.

Djiem

If you want music that changes with the gameplay, Rez and Lumines are indeed two fine examples.

I'd have to say Eternal Darkness for the Gamecube too. When you only had 1/3rd or 1/4th of your sanity meter, a music added itself to the ambience of the game, and, coupled with visual effects, really made going through the same area a totally different and WAY SCARIER experience. It was awesome.

I'd have to say I also liked how the music changed a bit according to people you saved in Space Channel 5.

There are games like Rez, Lumines, Space Channel 5, and other, that really wouldn't be the same experience if they didn't rely so heavily on music to set the mood and tone of the game. Music has made very basic gameplay experiences very fun, like in DDR, Ouendan, etc.

Demerdar

Check out the music for Arcanum.

Real good stuff :^:

Hey Ashtray

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U88zyFLzIXQ

Dversed

you have to play shadow of the colosuss

Demerdar

Demerdar wrote: »

Check out the music for Arcanum.

Real good stuff :^:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftvpi-6Z6qw

-SPI-

You have to talk about the lucasarts iMuse system. In particular it's incredible usage in Monkey Island 2. Where depending on actions you take or movement in the gameworld the music will dynamically change style and tempo as well as drop in and out various instruments. For instance the woodtick area of MI2 has a slightly different theme for each room you go into, which it seamlessly changes on the fly.

The early midi stuff was pretty incredible, but even with the advent of more modern music it was still used pretty impressively to seamlessly segue between various variations on music depending on player actions or interaction.

Here's a decent article that illustrates some of what made iMuse awesome

PaperLuigi44

There are plenty of games which I love the music for, but I'm gonna have to suggest 'The World Ends With You'. Fantastic soundtrack.

Here's one of the battle themes.

And here's one of the themes for while you're walking around the map.

Flay

Braid used a (great) soundtrack of professional/independent music tracks, so there might be an interesting thing to look at there. Darwinia did the same, and also had a great soundtrack.

Final Fantasy VIII is also the first game I've played with fully voiced lyrics (though there's also parappa).

I believe I've also played a racing game (I don't play many) where more layers were added to the music as you accelerated. It might have been one of the earlier gran turismos, I'm not sure.

If you want something that's just plain great, there's Beyond Good and Evil:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTdcJWDNsao

Scosglen

L4D has a pretty incredible sountrack. Both the composed sections, as well as the more procedural stuff that happens when the zombie tracks start to get layered on top of each other to get your blood flowing.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7H-CNJXsYM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smCaQAURVeE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E8BKygy4ZE&feature=related

Djiem

-SPI- wrote: »

You have to talk about the lucasarts iMuse system. In particular it's incredible usage in Monkey Island 2. Where depending on actions you take or movement in the gameworld the music will dynamically change style and tempo as well as drop in and out various instruments. For instance the woodtick area of MI2 has a slightly different theme for each room you go into, which it seamlessly changes on the fly.

The early midi stuff was pretty incredible, but even with the advent of more modern music it was still used pretty impressively to seamlessly segue between various variations on music depending on player actions or interaction.

Here's a decent article that illustrates some of what made iMuse awesome

This just reminded me Gruntilda's lair in Banjo-Kazooie. It was the same music everywhere in the lair, but it always changed dynamically to fit the instruments and style of music of the stage you were going to.

bsjezz

if you look into everyday shooter you won't come up with a lack of content; from the way the structure is organized into an 'album' of musically unique levels, to the way that the sound effects, which in most games would translate to arythmic and forgettable noise, are integral to the creation of the musical environment.

it's hugely important to not only music in games but i think games as an expressive artform

SirUltimos

As have been previously mentioned, Braid and Banjo-Kazooie would be both be great. Braid because it uses licensed indy music that is absolutely perfect for the atmosphere it tries to create, and for being able to seamlessly go backwards and forwards as you time travel.

Banjo-Kazooie because of Gruntilda's Lair. As you get close to the entrance to each world it switches from the standard instruments to instruments that make sense for that world. It's wonderfully done.

Apogee

I second Braid (amazing music), L4D for it's mutability, and I'm gonna tack on Freespace 1&2 for their dynamic music too.

Satsumomo

Left 4 Dead is a good example, in the game commentary they mention how they adjust music accordingly to what's going on in order to stress/calm players down.

A lot of good musical suggestions in this thread, but unfortunately I think a lot of people have posted stuff just because it sounds good.