The Soundtrack of Gaming

Gaming has become a worldwide phenomenon -- gaining as much attention as Hollywood itself.  The industry continues to progress due to evolutions in new technologies, engaging graphics, smart marketing and promotional ties, and now more than ever – from incredible audio soundtracks.  Today’s gamer not only has access to mind-blowing graphics, but also to a wide range of dynamic sounds to set the mood for victory or defeat and truly get your head in the game.

A new career market has emerged for up and coming sound engineers, mixers and writers to score some of today’s top games.  Established musicians are getting into the game as well – from the Yeah, Yeah Yeahs and Public Enemy recording exclusive tracks for Driver: Parallel Lines or Depeche Mode contributing to The Sims Soundtrack.  Rapper 50 cent literally got into the game with the creation of 50 Cent: Bulletproof, a game based on his life. Gaming audio even has it’s own awards ceremony – “The Game Audio Network Guild Awards (G.A.N.G.) to celebrate the performers, producers, developers and mixers involved.

In addition to the popularity of console gaming, the convergence of portable gaming and portable audio (through movies, music etc.) has also generated excitement in the industry – making devices such as the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP extremely popular.  The convergence craze continues into the cellular industry as well, with acclaimed cartoon band Gorillaz recently debuting Gorrilaz Entertainment System, an exclusive videogame being offered by RealNetworks for mobile phones.

So, what are some of the hottest in gaming soundtracks?  There are many games out there to include, but for simplicity sake, we’ve decided to list a small representative sample that includes games with popular acts in the soundtrack or that are heavily reliant on sound for game play. This list is not in any particular order.

Side Bar:

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1. Wipeout Pure: (1st person Car Racing Game)
“Pure bests its predecessors by offering not only a higher quality selection of tracks, but also more of them. The game ships with 19 different pieces of audio from the likes of LFO, Orbital's Paul Hartnoll, Photek, Tiesto, and most notably Aphex Twin. The series' former composer, Cold Storage, has even lent a new track to Pure; Wipeout never feels as much like Wipeout as when jamming along at top speed to one of his tremendous cuts."

2. Lumines: (Music/Puzzle Game)
"The developers have come up with a musical staff bar that sweeps across the puzzle field, roughly in time to the music. Your combos will only be counted and cleared when the bar makes its pass, which make the music an integral part of the play. On slow tunes, you may find yourself in nervous fear of filling up the puzzle well, but you will also have a good deal of time to build dazzling combos; on fast tunes, the bar will sweep all your little combos away as fast as you can piece them together, but whether you can use the hectic pace to your advantage and melt away unmatched pieces is another matter entirely. The challenge is not to just build square-shaped combos, but strings of like-colored combos across the length of the staff bar's sweep."
 

3. Madden 06: (NFL Football Game)
“When Madden first started pushing music in the game the music was predominantly rock oriented and the track listing was relatively small (12 songs in Madden 2003). With Madden ‘06 the song list has expanded to 22 tracks and is fairly evenly split between modern rock and rap, with an equal proportion of the two genres being further split between name acts like Foo Fighters, Godsmack and Memphis Bleek and up-and-coming talent such as Nine Black Alps and Stat Quo.”

4. Taiko Drum Master PSP

“The PSP title will include a large list of songs, with J-pop, classical, anime, variety and Namco original music all accounted for. Notable entries include We Will Rock You, Ridge Racer and Moji Pitan Medley. In all, 38 songs will be included.”

5. Tony Hawk's Underground Remix

“The in-game soundtrack to Tony Hawk Underground 2 will feature an eclectic selection of music ranging from songs from such classic acts as Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash and The Doors, to the likes of Metallica, the Ramones, Sugarhill Gang and Jimmy Eat World.”

Other links: 

Gamespot.com reader’s poll provides readers insights on the best in gaming soundtracks.

The music section on IGN.com provides insights and reviews on music and it’s convergence with the gaming industry while also providing some audio clips.