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Video Game Music changing with Generations

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 4:48 pm
by Snake Plissken
As technology enhances and generation passes music changes in even the games. Games are getting to the point of being movies, and they have to back it up with orchestrated music and or singing.

As you guys already know and I know most of you are, very old school gamers. And I was wondering what you prefer, do you think the music and games are just getting too realistic with the times and the music as well. Games I think are getting too unlogical and their losing their simplicity.

As the graphics get better, the story of the game is all crap! No heart, no screenplay. Thats what was cool with some oldschool games, the graphics may have been a bit dated to today's standards but the plots had reason and they were also simple at that too.

quote my friend maddox---
"Remember when it was okay for a video game to not have convex volumetric fog rendering and bilinear interpolated textures to be fun? Since when did it become acceptable for 30% of your system's resources to be devoted to rendering shadows, atmospheric scattering, ambient light effects, and all this other superfluous bullshit that game coders keep adding to their engines so they can win some imaginary pissing contest?

Nobody cares about graphics if the game plays like dog shit. I'm bored to tears with first person shooters. Changing the theme from one time period to another isn't enough anymore, assholes. Did someone beat you to the punch on that killer WWII shooter you were making? Don't worry, just take the same concept, change a few textures, and call it Battlefield Vietnam. We won't notice. Hell, why not Battlefield Korea?"

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 10:53 am
by Jonathan Ingram
There are some great games around now, and let's face it, not everything pre 32-bit was a masterpiece. I am tired with games these days, I know the last one I actually bought was about 6 months ago, and it was a GBA game. I often see games and just think "well that's just game x with the skin of game y", but it's a fallacy that all old games were great. I don't mean to have a go at anyone, but I think the argument needs opposition.

I think you also quoted the same two paragraphs from Maddox in an earlier post you made, but you forgot to attribute them to him. As funny and smart as he is, he can be an idiot sometimes.

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:12 pm
by Snake Plissken
I did johnny didn't ya see it "my friend Maddox" :wink: Ha ha haha, we use eachother's quotes and borrow puns :D

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 12:01 am
by Warrior Bob
It's interesting to me, Jonathan, that you mention GBA software as your most recent purchase. Like any good game nerd I've had a few conversations with my friends debating the various merits of different game systems, and something most of us agree with is that of the machines available today, our favorite is the GBA. I think this is because it is used almost exclusively for 2D graphics, and being confined to planes causes game developers to be a bit more creative in their design to compete with other modern games. Note that I don't count ports of old games as current games. I love my GBA =)

With regards to music, Snake, this is another topic that's come up in our dicussions. Modern game music is getting much more attention than it ever did previously, what with remix groups like OneUpStudios, Virt and friends, and the OC Remix crowd and the like. Then there are big productions like the latter Metal Gear games, who hire Hollywood-quality direction to make their music as great as it can be. The major change I'm noticing now (as opposed to the games of yesteryear, 16 bit and older) is that back then, people who did music for videogames usually did music ONLY for videogames. People like that tended to think a little bit differently than people who write music for a living. Heck, back in the 8 bit days, the guy who wrote the music and the guy who wrote the code for the game were often the same person. On computers this was usually the same guy who did the graphics too. People who don't write music for a living will come up with different tunes and sounds than professional musicians, and that makes for a different sound.

Heck, the number of people writing music for Sega games is few enough that some people have described songs as 'Sega-like'. Gotta love it.

I have to disagree that all modern games have lost heart though... as always, there are diamons in the rough. Thing is, when we go look at classic games, we only remember the good ones. Just recently, I point to the Gungrave games, anything by Nippon Ichi, and the Xenogears/Xenosaga line for examples of games with great stories and plots, sometimes to the detriment of gameplay (ahem Xenosaga cough), but they definitely have screenplay, just like you said.

But you're definitely right that they've pretty much lost simplicity. I want my interactive manga.

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 8:57 am
by Jonathan Ingram
Heh, to quote Maddox again, "my favourite console is the one with the most games I want to play right now, and that's the GBA".

I enjoyed Castlevania Aria of Sorrow immensely, perhaps simply because of my love for SOTN, but I still thought it was a great game, and Boktai with it's innovations is a delight to behold. But if you want simplicity, perhaps Wario Ware is up your alley, that random craziness was great, like playing a box full of old free Amiga demos.

As for music in games, to me it follows that if you have better graphics, you'll want better music. I don't think that this is in sacrifice of story, good stories in games aren't easy to find no matter when you're talking about. And for gameplay - just look at Grand Theft Auto, when that came out for the PSX it was a pig to look at, but played like a dream.

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 4:24 pm
by Ninja Kurosai
I sooooooo hope that someone makes Emus (Especially an MSX one :D ) for the PSP, or I might resort to buying a Gamepark32 :x

<_<
>_>

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 9:28 pm
by Warrior Bob
From what I hear, emulation is king on the GP32. And the homebrew scene is pretty wild too, I hear.

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 2:22 pm
by Ninja Kurosai
Warrior Bob wrote:From what I hear, emulation is king on the GP32. And the homebrew scene is pretty wild too, I hear.
But it dont let you play Metal Gear 2, then 10 seconds later play Metal Gear Ac!d :P

Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 11:17 am
by Warrior Bob
Hehehe, this is true.

Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:19 pm
by Kami
We live in a time in wich games are being produced just to gain money. Look for example the case of film-based games, they lack quality and they're only made to make fast money, and games like "the sims" or football games it is all the same, new graphics new skins and it is done. Fortunately there are those type of games wich bring allways something new even if they're sequels, of course I'm thinking about metal gear and other kojima games :P , but there are only a few wich can do this.
Anyway, I think that a good music does not make the game good, but it helps. Imagine what would happen if a good game had a music like super mario bros. from NES, i think the suicide tax will go up :lol:

Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 6:53 am
by Snake Plissken
Kami, you are reading my mind arn't you!!!(puts skull cap down)

Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 9:41 pm
by ReasonWhyNot
As far as the Metal Gear series is concerned, I was disappointed that Kojima didn't use TAPPY for MGS2 or MGS3. I think Williams does alright stuff, but I really love TAPPY's music. He created some incredibly moody and beautiful pieces in both Policenauts and Metal Gear Solid, and I really miss that in Kojima's new games. Hell, the music was really the best thing about Policenauts and MGS1 in my opinion.

Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 3:23 am
by Jonathan Ingram
I can totally see where you're coming from, but of course Kojima wanted a Hollywood name to reinforce the series' 'movie' status. However, I think Gregson-Williams' opening to MGS2 is great, and even though its his name on all of it you have to remember that they just took his music and reworked it for the game, stealing little bits here and there, so Norihiko Hibino and Muraoka should be credited also.

TAPPY is a group by the way, isn't it? A Japanese jazz band I think. You're right about Policenauts though, one of my all time favourite soundtracks.