Opinion: The Future Sound of Gaming

Posted on 23 Dec 2009 at 17:46

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This summer just past, I stood in a field, surrounded by thousands of other fans, cheering for the theme tune from a video game. Most of us seemed to already know the words to Blind Guardian's Sacred, which was written for the soundtrack of Deep Silver's Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, released at end of 2008.

Blind Guardian's brand of epic power metal might not be to everyone's taste, but it's certainly a good match with the Sacred series' distinctive mix of technomantic magic and high fantasy. It's a point well made by the trailer below, which, for my money, walks the fine line between stirring and cheesy with great success.

This is far from being an isolated case. Brutal Legend, an action/adventure/RTS game created by Tim Schafer, one of the brains behind Lucasarts' Monkey Island franchise is the new poster child for balls-to-the-wall rock music in video games.

It follows the journey of Eddie Riggs, the world's greatest roadie (voiced by Jack Black), who's been transported to a world of heavy metal where musical instruments become weapons of apocalyptic power. With over 100 tracks from artists as varied as Dark Tranquillity, KMFDM and Skid Row and a voice cast including Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy Kilmister and Rob Halford, its heavy metal credentials are as impeccable as the gaming legacy of its creator.

We've also just heard that gamers who pre-order Sony's God of War III Ultimate Edition will be rewarded with a download voucher for an EP featuring exclusively written tracks by metal artists. This includes tracks by famed progressive outfits Opeth and Dream Theatre, which are set to appear in the game itself.

Just as with movies, you can't just shoe-horn a track by a popular band into a game and hope it'll fit. For instance. The Crow was a great film and its use of music was excellent. However, many similar horror movies that followed it, with their dark, cookie-cutter gothic visuals and over-loud heavy metal soundtracks that drowned out the dialogue, were far from being masterpieces.

Fortunately, we've yet to see anything this disruptive in plot-oriented games, although members of the Expert Reviews team take offence at the soundtracks of some instalments in the Need for Speed and Burnout series. Racing games in general were early adopters of licensed commercial music. Wipeout 2097 was among the first. Released in 1997, it had an exceptional electronic soundtrack, featuring music by The Future Sound of London and The Chemical Brothers. Crazy Taxi and Road Rash 3D did well on a diet of fast-paced punk and rock, and the Grand Theft Auto series began to feature tracks from known artists on its in-game radio stations.

Video game soundtracks are a surprisingly subtle art. They've evolved from 8-bit classics like the Jet Set Willy music, through the fully synthesised scores of 90s games like Ultima VI and early CD-quality soundtracks on titles like The Seventh Guest. Now, with high-quality compression, massive hard disks and high capacity storage media, you can fit as much music into a game as you like.

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