In my daily life, there are few genres of music which I can utilize as effectively as video game music. It’s just the sort of thing I love to put on in the background while I have any sort of work to do. I think it’s because unlike any other genre, video game music is designed to be listened to while you perform an intricate task. (Which is why I find the idea of a video game music concert kind of ridiculous.)
Anyway, talk about game music here. A rule: every single post must include a piece of your favorite game music.
When “Video Games Live” came to my area, it happened to be the special performance that they were recording for television and DVD. So it included a bunch of famous people and soloists. They put on a good show.
I think this is certainly the case for looped music. One-shot, triggered sounds however often make me stop in my (virtual) tracks to appreciate them.
Some of my favourite triggered audio comes from the CORE design Tomb Raider series, the first in particular. Nathan McCree’s soundtrack is incredible. Here’s an contemporary video from behind the scenes at Core with some great insight into his style at the time.
It’s in French but you can still make out the English audio track if you listen closely.
I’ve no idea how to reply to people by selectively quoting them yet, so thanks to mothmanspirit for linking a Street Fighter EX tune. Every time I listen to tracks from those games I get kind of sad realizing how much more exciting modern Street Fighter tournaments would be if the matches were complemented by SFEX jams and not the junk the games (SF4/SF5/SFxT) have now that half the time sounds like music library non-stuff for transitional bits in a reality show about muscle cars.
