1980-1985
1980
Taunting Berzerkers
Manufacturer Stern introduces the innovative shooter Berzerk, which features the most recognizable voice synthesizer module of the early arcade era: "Get the humanoid!" "Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" "The humanoid must not escape!" "Chicken! Fight like a robot!" Inexplicably, players seem to enjoy being mocked and taunted by a machine and continue to feed it money. The market for Microsoft operating systems is born.
1980
The Pac-Man Cometh...
The most popular video game of all time (in terms of pure pop-culture consciousness) makes its debut, with more than 100,000 units shipped to the US alone. The game boasts many memorable sound and music elements. The opening ditty is one of just a few video game melodies to become instantly recognizable. If we want to get cerebral about it, we can ponder Pac-Man's voracious, insatiable eating of dots--is this the sound of consumerism run amok? Also consider the sound of Pac-Man dying (blinking out), which has become a universally accepted "defeat" sound.
1980
Pac-Man Fever
Video game music hits the pop charts: Atlanta musicians Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia spoof Ted Nugent's song "Cat Scratch Fever" with "Pac-Man Fever." Sample lyric: "I've gotta callus on my finger/And my shoulder's hurtin' too/I'm gonna eat 'em all up/Just as soon as they turn blue." The song goes to number nine on the US singles charts. A follow-up album features additional songs dedicated to Frogger, Centipede, Donkey Kong, Asteroids, Defender, Mousetrap, and Berzerk. Buckner and Garcia rerelease the Pac-Man Fever soundtrack on CD in 1999.
1980
Smart Bomb! Smart Bomb!
A side-scrolling space shoot-'em-up from Williams, Defender rivals Pac-Man for the most popular arcade game of its time, with more than 55,000 units sold worldwide. Despite being limited by the standard single-channel mono amp, Defender features a busy, chaotic sound design. The game's constant thrusting and shooting, with subsequent exploding aliens, creates a wall-of-noise effect that adds greatly to the game's dynamic intensity
1981
Donkey Kong Ditty
Nintendo's blockbuster arcade game features another winning sound design. Shigeru Miyamoto created the music himself on a small electronic keyboard. The Donkey Kong ditty, deceptively simple and impossibly tenacious, will subsequently lodge itself in the brain cells of an entire generation.
1981
Tempest: Sound and Fury
Atari's first color vector game, Tempest, hits arcades, and true to its name, the relentless sound schematic rivals Defender for sheer wall-of-noise power. Tempest was one of the first machines to use Atari's POKEY chip, the primary function of which is to generate sound. The chip has four separate channels, and the pitch, volume, and distortion values of each can be controlled individually. Tempest uses two chips, for a total of eight "voices" arranged in endless combinations. Atari releases a separate soundtrack for the game, believed to be the first stand-alone audio soundtrack in the video game industry.
1982
Double Your Fun: The Atari 5200
Atari's 5200 system incorporates the four-track POKEY chip and is essentially a console version of the Atari 8-bit computers (400/800, XL, XE, XEGS). Several arcade favorites migrate to the home console and benefit from its improved technology--think Vanguard, Robotron: 2084, Joust, Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Pole Position, and Centipede.
1982
The Original DJ: Q*bert
Meanwhile, back in the arcade, cult favorite Q*bert incorporates some innovative sound elements. As author Steven Kent points out in his book The First Quarter: A 25-Year History of Video Games, sound engineer David Thiel programmed random numbers into the speech chip that generated Q*bert's "voice." The result: Whenever Q*bert died, he muttered angry gibberish that sounded like speech (but wasn't). At the same time, a word balloon appeared over his head with messages like "@!#@!"--the first alien swear words. The game also used mechanical pinball hardware to generate the "thunk" you hear when Q*bert falls off the pyramid--a decidedly analog solution to a digital dilemma.
1982
Don't Stop Believin'
Video game music and rock 'n' roll collide in the first of many subsequent meetings when Journey Escape for the Atari 2600 is released. In the game, you must guide the members of rock 'n' roll supergroup Journey past hordes of swarming groupies and photographers to their scarab escape vehicle. Digitized Journey songs are, naturally, provided. What must have seemed like a merely good idea at the time now seems like absolute and total genius.
1983
Into the Dragon's Lair
Cinematronics releases Dragon's Lair in 1983, which was the first arcade game to feature laser-disc technology. As such, the game was also one of the first to incorporate stereo sound and actual human voices. The animation staff--former Disney artists--use their own voices for the characters.
1983
Spy Hunter in Stereo
Another of the first stereo sound games, Spy Hunter has one channel dedicated solely to the familiar Peter Gunn spy caper theme and the other dedicated to activated game sounds--machine guns, helicopter blades, and other in-game action noises. It's a classic game, and Spy Hunter's reputation is marred only by the fact that it produced--in the words of the Simpsons' comic book guy--the "worst sequel ever."
1985
The Dawn of the NES
Nintendo test-markets its soon-to-be-dominant Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in New York. The 8-bit system uses a powerful Motorola 6502 processor.
1985
The Tetris Syndrome
Russian programmer Alex Pajitnov inflicts the powerfully addictive Tetris upon the world. The infectious soundtrack adds greatly to the puzzle game's enduring appeal. Subsequently, millions of glassy-eyed players endure endless loops of vaguely martial Russian Muzak playing in their heads.
1985
Super Mario Bros. Arrives
Nintendo releases Super Mario Bros. for the NES. Considered by many to be composer Koji Kondo's first true masterpiece, the music and sound design of Super Mario Bros. sets a new high-water mark. Constantly shifting tone to match the action onscreen, Kondo's sound design achieves a new kind of synthesis with the gameplay. Try playing the game with the sound off, and you'll quickly miss those music and sound cues--for example, the exact timing of your immunity power-up wearing off. With the Super Mario Bros. soundtrack, video game sound design begins to move in a new direction, away from cinematic conventions and toward something altogether new.
A History of Video Game Music
This feature offers a timeline of significant milestones in the evolution of video game music. It includes details ranging from pong on up to the modern era, with audio clips of some landmark games, as well as links to video clips of more modern games.
