Sound Byte: GameSpot's video game music blog!

They should make a current gen game that played like StarWars Jedi Power Battles for PS1/etc. 1`- player Co-op, with updated graphics, and of course maybe less linear.

I have always loved the music in StarWars games. Thanks you composers for all your hard work. I love the ambiance sometimes.

Sound Design RULLLLLZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ:D

Orchestrated music :3 .win.

Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 have some of the best game music I've ever heard (especially the Gusty Garden Galaxy). The idea of using an orchestral approach for Mario was a good one.

I like it'#.

If anyone wants great video game music then look no further than the Sonic games, only thing thats stayed consistently good throughout unfortunately. :)

@medouleueis Seeeegaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Probably my personal favourite game sound ever.

Golden sun's music EPIC

ah... the art of music meets the art of gaming

I did an original take on the Halo theme and arranged it based on inspiration from the "Halo Wars" trailer and the live action Halo Trailer. The score was recorded with minimalist equipment but the recording came out better than expected. Enjoy...(I play all instruments)... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJczoCZthPk

I wonder if this segment will talk about the music in sports games?

Anyway.. Nice initiative.. Will follow and visit this blog everyday..

Please, give us full music videos in concert! But full music recording in studios is good as well... And I also would like to stay tuned with every game soundtrack launch.. its possible?

A blog on Akira Yamaoka would be great. What is he up to these days?

@ berio2toru Yes Gary Schyman writes some nice music, liked hes Bioshock tracks quite a bit. Speaking of technology its a bit of a double edged sword. Symphobia for instance is something you hear in many compositions today, TV and games. It's basically a sample library that uses entire orchestral sections(horns, strings, winds) instead of individual ones(cellos, clarinets, trombones etc,,). The upside is that it speeds up the work flow, the downside is that it all sounds like Symphobia and poses limitations on your instrumentation, all to often you cant have just one section of strings without the violas kicking in. Overall the technology can either make some lazy or allow them a great deal of flexibility, its up to the individual. But its quite incredible what can be done now opposed to just five years ago. As far as the Japanese go someone here mentioned Shadow of the Colossus, this was a rare treat in game music, I haven't heard many pieces sound this complete. The Takashi Yoshimatsu sound your talking about might be just a result of the content in the Japanese games, the soundtracks are not very different from their movies either, or maybe they fall into the same rut as our composers. I recently asked a couple younger composers what they listened to and they answered, video game and film music. I cant say without actually listening to classical in its many incarnations they will actually come up with something we haven't heard before.

The Star Wars sound was really nice, but i was hoping an interview along the lines of Martin O'Donnell

Great! Now get us an interview with Shoji Meguro.

think the first track I really liked was the black mage village (ffix), I remember playing it over and over and hardly playing the actual game at all ^_^

Final Fantasy IX has one of the best and if not The Best Music. Shadow of the Colossus has one of the most Epic soundtracks ever, same with the God of War series, Elder Scroll Oblivion's music was Beautiful, Okami's soundtrack was pure art...

This should be a podcast than a blog.

This is a cool idea since I love game music (faves are God of War, Jade Empire, and Bioshock), but shouldn't it be a music podcast instead of a blog?

@ orbit991 That's the problem with Game music at the moment. Same old same old. But seriously Gary Schyman is up there with the greats... But i do wonder whether the technological advances is hindering the development of music in our chosen medium. No doubt most 'composers' clone music because that's what they are asked to do. At the end of the day they are selling a commodity. Their trade. Which is why I'm in the opinion that bigger budget games can afford to get famous composer such as Nobuo Uematsu to compose music for them. Obviously there must be a difference in ideology of music in games between West and East but at the end of the day its all down to money. Oh btw orbit991 since you sound like you know your stuff about music do you think most japanese composers sound like Takashi Yoshimatsu??? The only reason I ask is because most current Japanese videogame music sound so Romantic and tonal. Basically way to 'sweet' for my liking...

I'm glad GameSpot decided to do this. I always pay a great deal of attention to video game music and I have a ton of soundtracks I listen to.

@kingswede I love 8-bit music, The Moon from Ducktales is clutch, I prefer the boss music from base 1 and 2 or the snowfields in Contra, but that whole game has such kickass music. Id also submit, Ninja Gaiden 2 level 2-2 and the Double Dragon Theme.

Lubu's theme :D and the siege of Madrigal Great section :D

Remember the music in Shadow of the Colossus? Epic and emotional - changing from a minor to a major key when you could finally climb the giants back after figuring out that you had to stab its ankle first to have it stumble and fall. As you got closer to the final blow, a new layer of music would pop up - making the battle even more thrilling. The music was crucial for the game, a dynamic and active force complementing an amazing story. You knew you were on the right track if you heard an intense crescendo in the soundtrack. Moral of the story = this blog rocks, Koh Otani is the man, go play Shadow of the Colossus again.

2 of the greatest vg songs ever, Duck tales - the moon, and the theme from the first level (the jungle) in contra/probotector :)

I as a gamer who hopes to become a composer in the future find this feature pretty neat.

wow nice

Great to see a dedicated section to VG music. Hopefully there will be links to information about how to get involved in video game composition as i've found very little on the web.

@ berio2toru I agree about Zimmer the orchestrations are hack jobs, directly transposed from a piano, but I have to give him credit for catchy melodies, then again he worked in advertising so your getting some catchy jingles from him. Film scoring tends to be a bit more creative in smaller budget films, Hollywood pretty much stuck to the Batman, Harry Potter theme clones or directly rips of Stravinsky note by note, John Williams made hes career on the right of spring. Will have to disagree abut what we consider quality composing in games though, the word quality is mostly an oxymoron to me in this instance. I actually did work on a couple projects with a guy from Easter Europe, he's very good at cloning music from other pieces but not so hot if he was just to sit down and write something original. I don't think it matters that he's from Europe or Africa though, the standards are just low and much like many formulaic games that rehash what was done before to follow what is safe, same is done with the music. I know many of you think your game theme is the greatest, but listen to some actual classical music sometime and you will find a much richer and complete versions of what you are listening to.

Very nice! I look forward to future installments with eager anticipation!

@ orbit991 to some extent you are right which is kinda sad to say. But your sweeping generalisation is totally wrong. Its just like in film scoring, you are going to get some crap developer telling the composer he/she wants to sound like Hans Zimmer because he's "in" right now. Damn how i hate Zimmer's copy and paste compositions... Sorry my hatred is high up there with Andrew Lloyd Webber lol I think mainly triple A titles are able to produce fantastic scores because of the budgets that they are allowed. Also have you noticed that most recordings are done in Eastern Europe... No offensive if any of you guys are from there but its all down to monies and budgets. Hiring out Abbey Roads, paying for the musicians, musician unions, studio engineers, recording engineers, conductor. arranger... we're talking serious bucks here

finally... Garry Schyman is a really nice guy, so is Richard Jacques and Christopher Tin. All fantastic videogame composers. I am still adamant that Jesper work has gone down hill since Hitman Blood Money. I actually rate Garry's work highly. But don't get him started about Dante;s inferno... poor chap I feel for you dude I really do!

Nice addition! I've been a big fan of video game music for a while now (especially since FFIII (aka VI). Looking forward to this! You should definitely interview Ari Pulkkinen, who composed Trine's soundtrack.

zeldaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Shenmue soundtrack please!

Nobuo Uematsu and Jesper Kyd FTW!!!11!1!!

Jesper Kyd and Michael Giacchino. they created my best games , Assassins creed and medal of honor

Grr... So many soundtracks... It's really hard for me to decide which one's the best.

Nobuo Uematsu = Ledgend

kirby music was the best

Oblivion's soundtrack is awesome :D

Tales of vesperia-nice soundtrack!!!!

sonic games always had the best soundtracks

Soul Reaver - some of the most memorable and atmospheric original game music I've ever heard.

Metal Gear Solid music is the best Harry Gregson Williams FTW!!!!!