Video game soundtracks are rarely on the top of list when it comes to finances, and rarely even listed on review scorecards. Yet, as a medium the industry still seems hell bent on retaining a cinematic nature with the sound and to this end the industry is failing.
Now, to be fair, sound effects are usually high on the list of “things to make a game good” but the actual soundtrack itself usually finds itself following basic film tropes:
*Large orchestrated pieces
*Midi synth
*Rock ‘n Roll/Pop Music
*Complete lack of music
There are a few games that I’ve been playing recently which have attempted to, and in some cases succeded at creating an excellent soundtrack — I’m not talking about the excellent Zelda theme and its subsequent rehashings, or the massive scale Final Fantasy orchestrations, or even the highly addictive music of puzzle games — I’m talking about a few games I’ve played recently that have attempted not to bridge the gap between cinema and game, but actually make a soundtrack specifically for the medium.
Mass Effect
Mass Effect fails miserably on most counts when it comes to the soundtrack, like many games before it and certainly many more to come, the designers decided on large scale Hollywood-style orchestrations for the majority of the game. However, at certain points Mass Effect nails it with minimalist, small scale science fiction arpeggios that feel, well, just right. It’s a science fiction game, it takes place in a science fiction universe, it follows science fiction theme’s and ideals — man/woman goes on mission, things go wrong, man/woman must save universe. Occasionally the soundtrack kicks in, lightly, as background, with the feeling of experimental ’70s electronic music, when this happens it is absolutely perfect — immersive, gut wrenching, hypnotic. Unfortunately this changes during cinemas to an orchestra and the whole thing falls apart.
Fallout 3
Fallout 3 has an excellent soundtrack. That said, it’s a very short soundtrack, maybe 40 minutes of actual music. Weirdly, this in game music, which is controlled by a radio by the player isn’t what happens during sequences with event triggers. You walk out of the vault for the first time and what do you get? An old timey jingle? No, for some reason you get a large orchestrated piece that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the game. It’s mindblowing that this is what they decided to do. They create a world in which the ‘50 lived forever, and then shatter the world with modern music pieces. They weave an in game radio into the plot, filled with propaganda, old time songs by the Ink Spots, Roy Brown, etc., then toss in orchestrations that make little sense. Why not use the same licensed soundtrack to convey the plot? Why wouldn’t “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” have worked for the player’s first step into the Wasteland?
inFamous
inFamous is a game that really, truly nails the very idea behind a video game soundtrack. That said, it’s not executed particularly well, but the foundation is there. The soundtrack is written and recorded by Amon Tobin using real world objects — trash cans, concrete, junk cars. This works perfectly for a game taking place in a half-destroyed city. The game itself is nothing particularly special, but the soundtrack is an excellent example of developers actually thinking about what the world they’ve created would sound like.
Final Thoughts
It’s no mystery that the industry needs to step away from film tropes if it wants to come into its own and tell its own types of stories. At the same time the industry needs to come up with its own way of conveying story through music. Soundtracks are an important part to any film — and most of us have our own personal soundtrack running through our heads throughout the day. Why wouldn’t our digital avatar’s have the same thing? What would these worlds, created from scratch sound like? What would I be hearing in my head while exploring a desolate planet, or an apocalyptic wasteland? Orchestrations? Unlikely.
If we look back at where the medium was heading 20 years ago we’ll find scripting like iMuse that attempted to set up soundtrack triggers to help convey themes. This was a stepping stone that didn’t seem to lead anywhere (we’re still here, just play any Call of Duty game and look for the line you need to step over to start the moaning violins and epic horns), but did set up some interesting ideals and systems to execute a soundtrack. Recently we’ve been getting dynamic systems in games like Far Cry 2, where weather, environment and pace are reconciled into the score (Far Cry 2 is another example of a game that attempted to go above and beyond in the soundtrack department, using instruments native to Africa while attempting to create mood and atmosphere with their dynamic system). These dynamic systems are likely the future of video game soundtracks (or, more accurately, are currently the way many work, event triggers not withstanding). However, the soundtracks themselves have got to fit the mood of the rest of the game. I don’t need every game to have massive orchestration, I don’t even want that. Orchestrations are Hollywood tricks to make you feel when the director can’t completely convey a point — tearing up at the end of a movie when someone dies because the actor’s can’t hold their own (okay okay, also they are to enhance the mood). A true score needs to be able to be manipulated and changed to fit the player’s actions, no matter how unexpected those are.
I’ve got more to talk about here in regards to the possibilities for new systems and mechanics, and will do so soon.
With all this blasted schooling and such I haven’t had much in the way of time to explore something that I have relearned to love very much, video games. I realize of course that this is strange to some folks, but considering I’m getting my Masters in “creativity” it has become an important facet to my life, namely because I can play, analyze and enjoy it without it intruding into my own work (my pre-Grad School hobbies namely included movies and books, two things that don’t blend well with reading 1000+ pages and writing 50+ of original works). Personal facts aside, I’m going to dedicate the next six days (January 12th means returning to school) to some of the most interesting titles I played over the last six months, today we get Far Cry 2, followed by Fallout 3, Little Big Planet, Mirror’s Edge, Metal Gear Solid 4, with nods to Dead Space and NHL 09.
Far Cry 2 is a difficult game to describe to people. On the surface it’s a shallow first person shooter filled with random encounters, broken gameplay and guns, lots and lots of guns. But it isn’t what Far Cry 2 is that makes it interesting, it’s what it is trying to become.
Immersion is a word that gets tagged and misused a lot in video game journalism, there seems to be a rift between reviewers, critics and players as to what makes a game immersive — some would argue it’s a well tailored world, others a perfectly sculpted story, perhaps some would even say it’s just an addictive quality. FC2’s take on immersion is straight forward: You are in Africa. You are put between a rock and a hard place (er, two waring factions). You must decide what to do next. Sure, it’s not perfect, you don’t really get to chose sides, which arguably is more realistic than if you did, you also don’t ever really get a complete grasp on what exactly is going on, which is likely just the nature of a game that was forced out the door a few minutes before it was done (or perhaps a statement by the developers that, put into this situation, you likely wouldn’t have a clue what was going on… of course, if it was me, even surviving an afternoon would be a feat). What you do get is your hands, and you’ll be seeing a lot of them. Whether it’s by pulling a bullet out of your thigh with pliers, looking at your map (which handily auto-updates objectives while it’s in your pocket), or holding any of the two-gazillion guns in the game. Of course, all this wouldn’t mean much if the game didn’t look good, and rest assured it looks miraculous — it’s the little things that count they say, and maybe I’m the only one who cares, but I was jumping up and down when I noticed that when I walked into a plant… well, just that I walked into a plant, it folded underneath my foot. I didn’t just pass through it magically.
Of course, with all the attempts at realism, a game, as many developers seem hell-bent on reminding us, is just a game. We need save points, an abundance of health packs (does everyone in Africa use a syringe of morphine, like, all the time?), we need mission objectives and friends, we need fetch quests and unlockable guns, weapons dealers on every corner and random attacks (okay, maybe we could have done without the random attacks). FC2 is, noticeably, a game. It isn’t a life simulator, you can’t change your clothes or even your personality, but it does put you in a terrible situation and trusts you to figure out how to best take care of it.
And that’s what makes Far Cry 2 a step above nearly every single game that was released in 2008. It assumes that the player is smart. No tutorials, no buttering up of an evil world, no lies (okay, some people in the game lie, but you have to figure out who is lying, or what their agenda really is). From the second you launch the game you are screwed, running around a nameless African country with a machete and a crap pistol, picking up broken weapons that explode in your hands while you have to figure how to get rid of your malaria and find the arms dealer that you are supposed to kill. If you chose to find background information about the characters, or meet other people like you, you can, and you’ll gradually begin to understand the war economy, the different factions and the repercussions of what you’re doing, or, you can just run around blasting things to bits, your choice (and the important thing here is that the game itself never really informs you of this choice, you just have to figure it out on your own). Oddly, as the game progresses and you continually accept missions with a growing number of karmic grievances (for instance: Please go and destroy the water supply of our enemy because it will piss them off. What? Oh, yeah, well sure a whole village will likely die, what’s your point?) you begin to wonder how killing the arms dealer, which was your original mission and only intent, could possibly fix all the trouble that you’ve caused.
As far as story and writing is concerned it’s about average for a video game world, which puts it at a sub-par “high-literary (we’ll use the term loosely here, like a joke, or perhaps in a mocking tone)” level. It’s unfortunate because there is a lot that could have been done with this, the immersive qualities of the gameplay and graphics hook the players and trap them in the world, so it wouldn’t have taken much more to push us over the edge. The idea of a dynamic, reactive story, which is what the developer’s set out to accomplish (and again, perhaps a rush to a pre-holiday release date might have broken this promise…. honestly, who gives an M rated game as a gift?), was and still is very interesting. It’s been a promise of video games for the last ten years since it was technologically feasible, but has still yet to be completely accomplished (and yes, Fallout 3 is another release from this year with the same promises). Is it too much to ask that if I kill someone in their sleep and return the next morning I’ll find their wife grieving or a funeral service? Or if a NPC dies while traveling at my side others may be less likely to join me on my journey for fear of the same thing happening to them?
In the end Far Cry 2 is an interesting and complex game. More importantly it sets a new standard for ambition in a first person shooter. Sure, it didn’t nail everything, but it did start a lot of fires.
The point is that this Toshiba commercial flew on by, featuring a Crystal Castles song (the one I actually like, oddly), and it’s worth sharing for the sheer technical expertise of it. So, there you go, someone else’s creations for today!
