Sound in games is integral. It helps the player understand the situation they might be in and can be used to add suspense. Space Invaders; one of the first games to use music; even had its music increase in tempo as you progressed in levels to help show the heightened difficulty. Since then video game music has progressed soundtracks of a similar level to that of films. But even with the limitations of the consoles games still created iconic music scores. By the 1980's music soundtracks had progressed significantly with individual levels having different music instead of the whole game consisting of one repeating track. Game soundtracks have also been popular since the mid 1980's in Japan but after the success of Final Fantasy, soundtracks began to gain a more global popularity.
Games such as The legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time allowed players to use an ocarina to use melodies which would have effects in the world. It was a very clever idea for the time and was a great example of ways in which music could be used in games. Innovative Rhythm games like Vib-Ribbon even created levels based around music you enjoy by reading CDs you enter into the game. And today Symphony uses your music library to create mini shooting levels. More commonly games such as Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero are extremely popular rhythm based games.
Composers will take the central themes of the game into account when creating the soundtrack. For example, Grant Kirkhope who worked on the soundtrack of the first two Banjo Kazooie games Based many of the melodies around the tri-tone, the furthest apart two notes can be in an attempt to highlight the difference in personality between the characters Banjo and Kazooie. He's been quoted saying "I ended up going mad with that idea and using it everywhere."
By the PlayStation 1 era, games were well known to have background music as a standard feature. Therefore for some horror games a lack of music/sound in certain areas of the games could be used to cause discomfort in a key story point of the game. This helped highlight a feeling of alienation and isolation to unsettle the player for upcoming events in the game to catch them off guard.
Today with the latest generation of consoles, games can produce much more realistic and convincing sounds allowing the player to become far more immersed in the game. This allowed things such as voice acting. Before there wasn't enough memory available to have voiced characters but now most big titles have voice acting in all parts. The game La Noire even uses voice acting and reading characters expression as part of its main game mechanic which would have been much more difficult in the past. The introduction to voice acting has allowed for much more cinematic games that can gain a great response.
Games such as The legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time allowed players to use an ocarina to use melodies which would have effects in the world. It was a very clever idea for the time and was a great example of ways in which music could be used in games. Innovative Rhythm games like Vib-Ribbon even created levels based around music you enjoy by reading CDs you enter into the game. And today Symphony uses your music library to create mini shooting levels. More commonly games such as Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero are extremely popular rhythm based games.
Composers will take the central themes of the game into account when creating the soundtrack. For example, Grant Kirkhope who worked on the soundtrack of the first two Banjo Kazooie games Based many of the melodies around the tri-tone, the furthest apart two notes can be in an attempt to highlight the difference in personality between the characters Banjo and Kazooie. He's been quoted saying "I ended up going mad with that idea and using it everywhere."
By the PlayStation 1 era, games were well known to have background music as a standard feature. Therefore for some horror games a lack of music/sound in certain areas of the games could be used to cause discomfort in a key story point of the game. This helped highlight a feeling of alienation and isolation to unsettle the player for upcoming events in the game to catch them off guard.
Today with the latest generation of consoles, games can produce much more realistic and convincing sounds allowing the player to become far more immersed in the game. This allowed things such as voice acting. Before there wasn't enough memory available to have voiced characters but now most big titles have voice acting in all parts. The game La Noire even uses voice acting and reading characters expression as part of its main game mechanic which would have been much more difficult in the past. The introduction to voice acting has allowed for much more cinematic games that can gain a great response.
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