Videogame music.

[CrazyGoon]

Ok. I think this is an interesting topic, since I have heard many different responses from people I know, and was wondering if there is any similarities between their responses, and yours . Don't forget to give a reason for your choice . I'll let someone else get the ball rolling...

Reply!

 

[lordofduct]

OK, im not sure what you fully mean by emotive and atmospheric... but from what I assume you mean im gonna say emotive. I like the music to make me not just make me feel like im in the area (atmospheric im guessing) but more make me feel the pace and action of said part. I enjoy atmospheric sound, but if it loses any pretense to what the gameplay is it kinda throws me off.

For instance, the jungle music in SA2 is great not only because it sounds jungley with the drums and stuff (also being kinda jungle technoey, is this a pun?) but the face pace of the music helps the most. If it didn't have that fast pace to the music it just wouldn't feel like Sonic and just turn to total crap for me. I could do without the jungle sound if needed, but dont take away the speed of the music. Thats just sacriligous.

Which is something that upset me about sonic heroes (i know, this aint nintendoish... but then both these games are on Gamecube, sooooo). The music just didn't feel right at times in Heroes. Take the "??? highway" i think it was electric highway, second stage. Anyways, it started off fast for a few seconds and then dropped to not as fast as I hoped it to be. The whole soundtrack really lacked in my opinion. Except for the boss tunes. Those match SO well.

Which reminds me Sonic CD had some of the best emotive music. The tunes for the future were just so emotive to what was happening. Especially Crystal Quadrant, it felt depressing and mechanical.

 

[Berty]

I love music that i can rock out too, eg FZero Big Blue theme. So i would have to go with melodic music

 

[CrazyGoon]

OK, im not sure what you fully mean by emotive and atmospheric...

Atmospheric by the means that is complements the environment/ scenario you are surrounded by; in some cases it can seem to just fill the air. My best example of atmospheric music would be from Resident Evil.

Emotive music is just music which it set up to appeal to your emotions. My best example of emotive music would come from the RPG, Lunar: The Silver Star.

For me, games are a lot more fun when you have a kick-ass melody running in the background. Doesn't necessarily have to suit the scene, or appeal to my emotions; as long as I can groove along to it

 

[Ian Van Dahl]

Hmmmm....*Ian crosses his arms and is lost in thought*....this is an excellent question. Which one truly is better? Hehe. I want to say all, but I can't have them all!!! ;_;

Well, I'll have to go with atmospheric. The music must compliment the environment to enhance the emotion that you will feel when you dive yourself into the game.

But then again, the other thought within my mind states that it must be emotive because there are certain parts of the game that are just emotion driven and the scenery has little to do with it. Therefore, an emotional song must be played to amplify a certain emotion being targeted.

Then there's the other guy stating, "Subjective. Different types of styles fit different types of games. An action adventure game will have more atmospheric then compared to an RPG that has more emotive. How would bubble bobble (spw) be like if they just used atmospheric instead of melody?" The thought does bring up a good point, but for me, it'll have to be more atmospheric because when I play, I am the character and it must fit the environment. ^_^

 

[ratfish]

I'm going to say none of the above, but if I had to pick one of them, I guess I'd chose melodic.
Not that anything is wrong with any of those styles, but I chose to remain firm to my belief that games like Rez (you could call it techno, but it's much more than that) really do justice to the role of music in games.
Overall, I'd have to say what type of music I personally look for in games is undefinable, genre-breaking and experimental.
On the other hand, nothing beats a good rythm you can remember and hum or whistle IMO. So I'll say melodic for the sake of answering this poll.

 

[aclors]

Well, I just like music that has no lyrics. That's pretty much it. Though my favorites are RockMan music, I also like Sonic music.

 

[Berserker]

I just like cool music...which to me would be rock or metal. Really liked Crush 40 in the first Sonic Adventure, especially with stuff like 'Open Your Heart' (opening theme). For the sake of a vote, went to atmospheric. Dunno why tbh