darksnowman Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 I'm not a big reader of Kotaku but I was having a snoop round there and came across this article: The Year I Gained the Confidence to Ignore Video Game Music. It got me wondering. Do I ever play games without the music on? Well, yes I do, now and again. Generally I do this in RPGs after playing them for hours on end, like right now I'm having a run round Slime Hill in DQ IX but I'm listening to some stuff by The OneUps. I like to soak in the atmosphere when gaming so I can't imagine doing this while playing GoldenEye or something. What about you? Playing your DS on the go, does it pain you to not be able to hear the sound (without headphones) or are you happy enough?
Magnus Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 I saw this yesterday and there's so much obnoxious elitism in the comments. Like playing games without music is THE WORST THING EVER and people can't play games the way they want. Sheesh. I think some games lend themselves better to playing without sound. Games like Advance Wars or Picross, where you're constantly listening to the same music. I buy those games intentionally to have something to play while I'm watching television. I can see how you'd miss out on something if you're playing without music in games like Halo or Final Fantasy XIII, but I honestly rarely even notice the music in games like that, so I have a hard time seeing the view that YOU MUST LISTEN INTENTLY TO ALL MUSIC OR YOU ARE RUINING THE GAME that seems prevalent on Kotaku.
nekunando Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 I feel Streets of Rage wouldn't have had quite the same impact on me if it wasn't for the fantastic soundtrack.. and I love that the moment you hear a certain piece of gaming music, your mind is instantly transported back to another time
RedShell Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 How Important is Game Music to You? Pretty damn important: http://www.n-europe.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1065558&postcount=14 However, I do play DQIX without the sound these days. That's mainly because having listened to its music for 300+ hours, it began to get just a wee bit repetitive.
Jonnas Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 The only games I can tolerate playing without music are on handhelds. And even then, I'd rather have sound. Playing without sound is like...doing anything else without sound, really. It feels like you're deaf. I can understand if someone wants to mute the music and listen to something else on the background (I've done it a few times), but I can't possibly sacrifice sound effects. A punch has no "oomph" without sound, for example. Of course, there are also the games where music is half of the atmosphere. It's easy to play a GB game in mute, but harder to play, say, Soul Bubbles in mute, considering how much atmosphere can be felt from music and sound effects. Finally, character voices are also part of the fun. Valkyrie Profile (for the DS) has grating music, but I love the voice clips (also the slashing sounds, but mostly the voice clips). VP is interesting in this regard, since voice clips and sound effects help immensely on timing (the game has a combo system similar to fighting games) and are pretty much the only way you'll know when you have landed a critical hit. In a nutshell, music is important, but if you don't like it, there's nothing wrong in playing without it. Sound effects, however, are downright essential.
mcj metroid Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 I love music in general. it's very important to me in videogame as well as movies. A good soundtrack will keep me coming back to a movie. A bad soundtrack will hurt an experience for me.
Grazza Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 I remember even back in the SNES and Megadrive days some of my friends turned off the sound and listened to "proper" music instead. It's not for me, but each to his own. Games like Metroid and Zelda are full of such good music, I want to hear it. The exception (as others have said) is handhelds. I'll play the main story with the sound up, but if it's something that I'm going to play over and over again, like Dragon Quest IX (a big offender, it seems!), I will turn the sound completely off. It's one of life's great pleasures to lay in bed playing on the DS whilst listening to BBC News 24.
LostOverThere Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 I love music in general. it's very important to me in videogame as well as movies. A good soundtrack will keep me coming back to a movie. A bad soundtrack will hurt an experience for me. Pretty much this. I love a good soundtrack, I mean, for goodness sake I've got Super Mario Galaxy 2 on my MP3 player (amongst many, many others).
Dyson Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 I recently took the 5gb of video game music I had off my iTouch to replace it with general music, but it's a huge part of my gaming experience. Some of the music in Tales of Symphonia will stay with me for the rest of my life.
Arnieboy Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 Unless i'm level grinding or i've been stuck looking for something with repetitive music for ages, I have to play RPGs with the sound on. Music makes an rpg, if an rpg has crap music it can ruin the experience. Saying that i play most games with the music on, mario games like Galaxy have that extra wow factor with the music on. Thinking about it, the only times i don't always listen to the music is if i'm playing an MMORPG, soo yeah VERY important to me. Best example: Could you play the Bramble Blast level on Donkey Kong Country 2 with the sound off?
Hero-of-Time Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 Unless i'm level grinding or i've been stuck looking for something with repetitive music for ages, I have to play RPGs with the sound on. Music makes an rpg, if an rpg has crap music it can ruin the experience. This is pretty much how I feel about RPGs. For me the music in an RPG plays a massive part, more than any other type of game. I always listen to the game's original soundtrack UNLESS i'm grinding in an RPG. Even then I have the sound still on but I usually have the T.V. on in the background. I don't see how anyone could not listen to a games soundtrack at least once. Alot of gaming music has stuck with me over the years and simply by humming a tune can take me back to my childhood.
Cube Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 Some video game music is just burnt into my head - in particular Sonic the Hedgehog, Streets of Rage 2 and Banjo-Kazooie. I even enjoyed Dark Void mainly because of the great music.
Patch Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 Game music is very important to me. The only time I've played with the sound off is on the DS due to being in company at the time. Some games are almost defined by their music (like Nando said, with Streets of Rage) or even by their lack of music (Ico springs to mind). It's always seemed a travesty to me that some videogame music composers are absolute geniuses (Yuzo Koshiro, Yasunori Mitsuda) but do not get the same recognition as composers in other media.
Retro_Link Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 I cannot understand why you'd play a console game with the sound off... I can understand it more for handheld, but if it's something with speech or great music, I'd want to use headphones or just play that game at home. Like 'snowman said, where releveant I like to absorb everything the game is throwing at me to try and get as immersed in it as possible! Plus I don't think I've ever found music in a game to be so annoying that I wouldn't want it on. Whenever I play on a friends consoles, he would often mute the game and put a CD on, like Muse. I never said anything, but was always like WTF!
FireMeowth Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 (edited) To me, it's about this important: If a game does not have great music, I won't enjoy it. However, even if a game does have great music, that doesn't guarantee me liking the game at all. Edited January 13, 2011 by FireMeowth
The Peeps Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 It's not something I see as essential but it can really add to a game. Platform or adventure games are probably the games most likely to have the best music to help create the atmosphere. With FPS and other genres I find the music barely has an effect on my feelings in-game so I usually (if the option is there - and on the xbox360 it always is) turn off the game music but keep the sound effects up. Or if I'm on the xbox I'll just stream my own music from my PC.
Pit-Jr Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 Its no coincidence that the greatest games/series of all time also have amazing soundtracks.
Fused King Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 I think my ever growing 1090 tracks of game music and remixes of game music say enough:) A game without music is unthinkable! BRING ON RHYTHYM PARADISE WII!
James McGeachie Posted January 14, 2011 Posted January 14, 2011 Playing games without sound is exactly equivalent to watching a film with the volume off and only subtitles on. You're removing part of the creative experience, stripping the product of some of its soul. After hearing the audio on something to death, sure, fine enough that you want to grind in an RPG with some diversity, but anyone who turns the game audio off prior to that...well I don't have a massive amount of respect for that.
Patch Posted January 14, 2011 Posted January 14, 2011 Its no coincidence that the greatest games/series of all time also have amazing soundtracks. Nicely put. That got me thinking about games that were made before a looping soundtrack was technically possible. For example, the Atari games of old. They had sound effects of course and maybe a short bit of music before the game began. Many Atari games were real nail-biters, having you on the edge of your seat and I think the lack of music really contributed to this. Games like Battlezone, Combat, Berzerk! were all games that were really tense and I can't help but feel that the tension would have been less with music playing in the background, but who knows?
Ville Posted January 14, 2011 Posted January 14, 2011 For me, videogame music is very important...I mean that is the kind of music I listen to on my free time anyway! No bands, but mostly just NES soundtracks via youtube...as you can probably tell from my cover pieces I think some games lend themselves better to playing without sound. Games like Advance Wars or Picross, where you're constantly listening to the same music. I buy those games intentionally to have something to play while I'm watching television. Interesting. For me, the AWDS soundtrack was awesome, no thoughts about listening to something else at all... What about you? Playing your DS on the go, does it pain you to not be able to hear the sound (without headphones) or are you happy enough? I think I have turned the music off a few times, but I can't even remember the situations...probably some difficult part of a game I had been trying to get through for quite some time already. Oh right, it was Monster Hunter Tri, because I had trouble hearing what people were talking about...Still, I don't like playing without music, because I consider it an essential part of any game. Recently, I was considering taking my DS into a train, but didn't want to take the headphones with me, since I had enough stuff already. Conclusion? Didn't take the machine at all, since playing Apollo Justice without music and sound would be no fun at all... Anyway, I think I know what makes videogame music so attractive to me...it's the connection to the game itself, the memories, stories, experiences. Unlike a "normal" music track which is just music and lyrics, take a familiar kick-ass tune like Bob-Omb Battlefield from Mario 64 and wow, the memories and visual images start rushing in. Playing the game for the first time, the excitement and wonder, the swagger and joy of just moving the guy, doing backflips and triple jumps while kicking some Goomba derriere under the clear-blue sky and in the midst of some sweet green grass and flower patches. Or the Wave Race 64 theme...suddenly, you can see yourself dashing through Sunset Bay doing monster barrel rolls and edging the waves with a delightful weight and force, riding backwards or with a handstand just for the exhilarating, grin-inducing fun of it... Thus you could say that videogame music is loaded...filled with positive memories, beating insurmountable odds, scaling that huge-ass mountain, darting through the sky, exploring uncharted waters, finding that ancient cave of magic and mystery, fighting city-sized beasts of gargantuan strength and power, witnessing trust and friendship, working together, showing courage and determination to conquer everything the game throws at you...until finally, you conquer yourself. And that my friends...is awesome.
Oxigen_Waste Posted January 14, 2011 Posted January 14, 2011 As important as anything else: very much. I mean, come on, I can't find a decent playthrough with this part, but remember the downed frigate in metroid prime?? The music alone is 50% of what makes it such a brilliant section: Except when I'm playing racing games like Hot Pursuit or Motorstorm because the sountrack is usually terrible except for a few tracks, and you get tired of those few good ones after a while, so I just turn the music off and just stick with the SFX.
flameboy Posted January 14, 2011 Posted January 14, 2011 very important...there are only the odd few games where I don't care for the music that I will listen to podcast over them but even then I will still have the music on loud enough to hear it...
Fierce_LiNk Posted January 14, 2011 Posted January 14, 2011 Game music is veeeeeery important. Even Game Sounds are important, haunting melodies, the sounds of your character's footsteps, creaking floorboards, etc. The sound is a very under-rated aspect of gaming. Without the sound, Silent Hill Shattered Memories would not be half the game it was to me. I don't understand how anyone can play a game with the sound off. Maybe the sound turned down, but completely off? That's alien to me. I even played Pokemon Red with the sound on, despite its repetitiveness. It was part of the whole experience, for me. Although, I do have experiences where I played music alongside the game. For example, I used to listen to my old stuff whilst playing Perfect Dark. It added to the whole experience of being young, for me. I still loved the soundtrack, but there were occassions where I had my music on alongside it. The two blended together to form something quite special.
Oxigen_Waste Posted January 14, 2011 Posted January 14, 2011 Its no coincidence that the greatest games/series of all time also have amazing soundtracks. Except for Resident Evil 4. Great atmosphere setting soundtrack, but you can't listen to a single song out of context and actively enjoy it.
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