Games are nothing without their melodies, sound effects and
orchestra’s in my opinion, it’s one of the things that stick with you for years
even after you’ve forgotten what the game was about, you will never forget
about that certain music track or sound effect that was in one of your
favourite video games.
Sound is used in so many clever ways in video games, it even
makes everything you do in the game a lot more prominent and it has more impact
on you. For example when you fire a rifle from a call of duty game or blast
someone with a tank shell from Battlefield 4, the sounds they create give such
realism and immersion.
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| Battlefield 4 - Firing on an enemy, Explosions! |
Music and sound in games literally bring the game to life,
probably even more so than the visuals of the game, imagine if a blind person
were to listen to the sound of a vibrant atmosphere in a fantasy game like
Dragon age or an MMO like World of Warcraft, they would see so much with their
imagination and ears. Or imagine playing your favourite game with no sound at
all, and how boring it would be.
Scary/Horror games like Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Outlast, would
have no impact on the player if there were no sound effects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXydcJ6JOlg
They have even made some games successful just from the
sound track, imagine playing Mario without the iconic melody or jumping sounds.
It would just be dead.
Slender, is a great example of this, it wasn’t a great
looking game at all, but it was its sound and music that made it so popular, it
created incredible suspense and thrill and as you progressed through the game,
the music gets more terrifying and tension builds up immensely just due to
music, without it, the game would fall apart and wouldn’t be as
successful/popular as it was back then.
Sounds and music are
used to tell a story about the game, and what will probably happen next, just
like they do in TV and Film, They set the mood, and atmosphere of the scene and
create suspense and thrill. It helps players understand that they are
progressing through the game as well if the sounds and music are used well
which links into intelligent game design.
I found a cool article on the top ten composers of video
games it’s an interesting read about the memorable music that went into those
games.
It reminded me how much emotional impact the songs in video
games can have, just as any other song has. A song is a song, no matter where
it’s used, it can still be used to create effects and stir our emotions up.
I remember about 10-15 years ago when I was playing my SNES,
all the music from the games I used to play back then are still stuck in my
head till today, I had a great time going back and searching for those old
memorable tracks. Even though it was 16bit, the melody and charm of the music
made it so awesome to listen to.
You know when a game is successful when it has such a huge
impact on you personally and on loads of other people, simply just from the
music.
I kind of miss the simplicity of the music that these old
games brought, the big triple A titles are following in suite of film and are
all orchestrated pieces now, which is fantastic but there comes a time when you
just want music that isn’t from an orchestra, well I do personally.
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