Memorable Music

When I think of game music and its many composers one name comes to mind; Nobuo Uematsu.

Anyone who has played a Final Fantasy game should be familiar with his name. I would argue that the score is absolutely integral to the experience of the game. Personally if I listen to a track from Final Fantasy it takes me right back in time and I can usually visualise which part accompanied the music. The interesting point here is that knowledge of a game's score is usually subconsciously stored. Despite being able to tell you which part of the game goes with which track, I can pretty much guarantee that at the time the music was the last thing on my mind. Therein lay the importance of music in games albeit subtle.

I found it rather amusing to discover that two of Nobuo Uematsu's biggest influences are Elton John and The Beatles. Not that they aren't great composers, just that I would never have made that association!

Uematsu is a good example of video game music breaking into the world outside games, for instance one of his songs was played in the 2004 Olympics. He is also part of a rock band called The Black Mages which flesh out his Final Fantasy compositions. It is nice to see composers getting recognition for their work regardless of the media it was composed for. It’s a well documented fact that games for a long time were considered to be ‘childish’ and went overlooked by many. I find this demeans a lot of the talented work that went into numerous productions, especially the musical side. Thankfully nowadays games are slowly being taken more seriously with the contributing talent gaining increasing recognition.

One of the newer uses of game music is to enhance the identity of a game. Due to the relentless branding and media hyping of games these days, ‘theme’ tunes have arisen which help identify different games. The orchestral score from the Halo series even made it into Guitar Hero as a downloadable track. However, scores and music aside, there is another element to consider here...

Sounds are the unsung heroes of games. Where would survival horror games be without the creaky floorboards and their eerie ambience? What would a racing game be without the roaring engines and screeching brakes? It’s the small details which are the most significant. Combine effective sounds with a decent a surround sound system and when you hear footsteps behind you in game you’ll really feel the need to turn around in your seat just to make sure no one is there. Forget 3D TV, it’s this which really put you ‘into’ the game.

I think it is safe to say that game music has come a long way since the days of midi soundtracks. Sounds in games stand to get increasingly more complex as programmers find new ways to calculate environmental sounds on the fly. If I’m honest I don’t think it really matters. I’m less interested in what sounds developers use and more interested in the creative ways they use them. If we were to travel back in time and give the old arcade games awesome new sounds/music with crazy production values would that make them any better? I doubt it. Music doesn’t need to be complex and sounds don’t need to be mixed on the fly for every conceivable action. They simply need to work creatively to give the game character. Personally that’s what I would like to see going forwards from here.