Week 18: Music in Games

Game Music

I would admit that I have a very large amount of game music on my iTunes, in fact I probably have an equal share of game music to any other of my music. My friend and I are both planning to play Final Fantasy 10: Hymn of Fayth at our funerals, as we both love Nobuo Uematsu’s work in the final fantasy series. Which brings me to another point the importance of music and sound in a game. Music sets the tone and the atmosphere in the game and can be compared to horror films such as when they use violins to heighten the mood and when the victim opens a door only to find….absolutely nothing.
However if the music isn’t done quite right then chances are it will hider the players experience as such music (especially when looped over and over (FF7 battle music I found partially annoying)).

http://www.errormacro.com/2006/08/the_worst_songs_in_video_games.php A link saying the top 15 worst songs in history, fairly amusing.

I adore Final Fantasy music however I also find that Martin O’Donnell’s work on the Halo series particularly good and of course listening to WoW’s Legend of Azeroth still gets me pumped up.
Of course a powerful and popular score for a game can result in success and can lead to the music being available to purchase, such as the Final Fantasy series for example.
However due to the increase in popularity of games in general, the music of such games have caused a car out for concerts and thus forth the first Symphonic Game Music Concert was held in 2003 and conducted by Andy Brick and 3 other concerts have followed and due to such popularity have sold out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphonic_Game_Music_Concerts

However sound is important in a game, creating mood; for example having no sound or very little sound can create a feeling of loneliness whereas having a game full of quick beats etc will get the player amped up to fight or for some action.
Dialog and therefore speech comes under this subject, as a bad voice actor can make a game a bit irritating however in some games where they get round the whole problem of getting the language just right just make up their own language such as The Sims and Okami where they just speak gibberish.

However due to being on a game course I thought I’d leave you with something everyone should enjoy.