Video Game Sounds

Sound in video games is a subject that has always fascinated me, even from the early stages of my gaming experience. Soundtracks and music in particular have always been a crucial factor in my opinions of games, especially at an emotional level. Like visual aesthetics and landscape, I think there is something in music that really moves me in ways that gameplay, story, or competition never have. When I think back on what I would describe as the most beautiful video game scenes I have ever experienced, in almost all cases there is music involved.

The Phendrana Drifts landscape from Metroid Prime always resonates with me, due in large part to the music and atmospheric ambience.

I have found that in most games, the potential of music depends greatly on the type of gameplay experience that it accompanies. For example, our playing this week of League of Legends has demonstrated to me that if the play style is focused entirely on in-game tactics and combat, the music almost inevitably takes on a background, ambient role rather than a central one. In other words, the gameplay itself is so engaging and distracting that little attention remains to appreciate things like music and ambient sound. Besides, the sound of combat far outweighs anything else.

At the other end of the spectrum, a game like Rock Band is entirely devoted to sound and music. The gameplay is the sound, so music acts not as a complement to the game, but as its foundation. For me, though, the best sound experiences in gaming are passive, in the sense that there is ambient noise and music that you can totally immerse yourself in, without having the feeling that you have to work to produce the sound. As is the case in Rock Band, the constant reminder that missing any notes ruins the song acts as a stressor that in many ways detracts from the sound experience.

One game that stands out in my mind as one in which sound and music are crucial is The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. This is probably the game I have have played that has the most innovative soundscape, both musical and ambient. The theme of this game is the imminent running-out of time, with the omnipresent falling moon looming over the entire game, literally. As the three days progress, the music gets faster and faster, moving over time from a leisurely atmosphere to one of intense stress and chaos as the moon nears its apocalyptic collision with the planet’s surface. With the ever-increasing number of earth-shaking rumbles and the din of falling debris, sound adds a suspenseful dimension to the game that makes it remarkably realistic. Even the individual worlds within the game have their own soundscapes to offer; from the distorted underwater sounds of the ocean, to the dolorous and dissonant canyon, to the dank, drippy swamp ambience, to the cold, lonely mountains, this game has a uniquely characteristic sound environment for every region within the game. All of this, on top of the somber music in-game that casts a depressing (yet remarkably beautiful) pall over the entire experience.

Technically a musical tribute, but I think it captures the essence of the game well.

Additionally, the game Slender is an exemplar of how important sound can be in a game. With the spooky background music and the crescendo of grinding ambient noise as the game progresses (broken sporadically by the slamming noise associated with encountering your terrifying foe), this game’s effect on the player is built almost entirely around sound. I can evidence this notion by saying that when I tried playing the game without the sound on – because I couldn’t handle the stress of it all – it seemed to lose almost all of the suspenseful intrigue that it previously had. Even though it was less stressful without sound, the gameplay experience was highly diminished nonetheless.

A few more examples of music that I see as definitive in games:

The hauntingly memorable “dancers on a string” sequence from Bioshock.