I have to agree with this. Though the technology exists for game musicians to do pretty much anything they want, I can''t remember the last time a piece of game music has stood out...

Songs from many old games (8bit/16bit era) still linger in my head, and I find myself whistling them...but more modern games? I''m lucky if I can remember the music at all, even for games I played last week.

First off, All CD''s that you buy in the store are 16-Bit audio quality bit depth... You must mean the graphics are 16-bit?

Their are plenty of games that I remember the tune to very well... Wolfenstein 3D (the original) for example... It''s such a classic tune. I have to agree with you though... It seems every kid or middle-aged man with a MIDI keyboard and sampler thinks they are a composer... a game composer none-the-less... :L They make ambience and noise mainly for todays games as if that is something new. You give a kid Sound Forge or Wave Edit or Cool Edit and they all of a sudden think they are a sound designer. Professional Composition and Effects and Foley Work actually take quite a few talented people to pull off an effective score or foley work for a game or a film. A Foley Pit is loaded with all sorts of things to record to create sounds for noises in the film or game... though, It seems in the game world it is lacking becuase the "sound designer" decided to bang his cheap computer MIC on the desk for a gun shot and so on. Anyway, I agree with you, the music and sound has gotten a lot better... but at the same time... development is terrible.

Nothing compares to the music from Sega''s Panzer Dragoon series for the Saturn. I still have the music from Panzer Dragoon Saga wandering around in my head.

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"I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit. Touch it and the bloom is gone."
Lady Bracknell in "The Importance of being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde

antwithmallet,
I totally agree with you. Modern games place much less emphasis on quality melodies and composition because of the advent of higher quality sounds and graphics. In the old days (8-bit,16-bit era), composers had little to work with to make songs. The composition of a certain piece was critical to make a good song. Now good sounding songs can be made using cool sound effects and tricks. Its just not the same... Have you listened to Final Fantasy Symphonic Suite? I have listened to it a million times and I still cannot believe how GOOD it is. It is basically an orchestral arrangement of FF1 & FF2 themes, but to hear them with the quality of real symphonic instruments is astounding.. Astounding because Uematsu''s themes are THAT good. Or at least they WERE that good. Now even his music is taking a back burner to graphics and special effects it seems (just listen to the FFX soundtrack.. Its almost all background sounds). I''m sad to think that the modern generation of gamers will never experience the excellence of the old school games... Themes such as Matoyas Cavern, FF2 Theme, FF4 Theme, etc still serve as my primary musical inspiration.. Maybe someday our game project will show the way game music is supposed to be :-)

WarCraft II. It was MIDI, but damn was it good! Nowadays, you''ll get some ambient garbage, maybe even a little tooting and snares (maybe even tooting and snares done by the Moscow Philharmonic!), but you don''t ever get stuff like what they put into WarCraft II.

I like MIDI. I don''t like RedBook. I don''t like MP3. At least not in games. Why? Because MIDI is a music format, and it has to contain music. With WAV game audio, you instead get something like this: "drip... drip... timpani BOOM BOOM... moaning... orchestra hit... drip... drip... Pizzicato strings... drip..." Sure, it''s kinda spookey, but it isn''t music. I''m not saying that there is never a place for ambient stuff. It''s just overused. Sound effects are not a substitute for melodies!

btw: WarCraft II is both MIDI and RedBook audio on the same disc... Blizzard is a company that makes very nice soundtracks for all of their games. To tell you the truth, Blizzard soundtracks kick Squaresoft soundtracks...

I never really got into Final Fantasy... I don''t really want to either. Utmatsu (whatever his name is) was lucky to land his gig though... the composer to the movie soundtrack "spirits within" is much better.

yeah i agree with that drip drip thing above... haha. Sometimes that kind of stuff is required becuase you can''t play a "melody" in a scary scene... just doesn''t work... a melody is a "pop" idea, in the thought that you think their should be a "single" on a game soundtrack. while I disagree... Don''t think of it as melody... think of it is ... make a good theme... much like in the movies.

Unbreakable and Sixth Sense soundtracks do not have music in the since that it is all notes... most of it is ambience and whispers, mixed with some strings and timpani''s... yet, it was still a great soundtrack and complimented both films.

I just hope the game soundtrack world doesn''t get as egotistical as the movie soundtrack world.... James Horner, Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Danny Elfman and so on... It seems all hollywood films are composed by the "top 10" so called "Greats"... while i believe that their is so much more talent in the world waiting to be discovered if hollywood would give them a chance. the best is still yet to come...