Years ago, my brother turned me on to a thread on what seemed like a random website's forum. The thread itself isn't really important, but just suffice it to say that it involved a meme revolving around a motivational poster with a Middle Eastern man smiling with the words "Great Work!" in large type at the bottom.
Little did I know that this thread was on the forums for a FANTASTIC site called Overclocked Remix. This site is populated with talented musicians who have taken classic video game music, and either remastered, remixed, or remade their favorite tunes from said games. For the most part, if you remember a cool ditty from a past video game, someone will have a remix posted for it. They even put together collections into albums that you can legally torrent directly from their site.
But, here's the point: Most of the remixes I download are from games that predate my PS2. I just can't really think of many songs from games from that generation or later. I remember jamming to Toejam & Earl, any of the first 3.5 Sonic games, and a few things from the SNES like Super Metroid and Super Mario World. With the exception of Final Fantasy VII, World of Warcraft, Ocarina of Time and Halo, memorable video game music has almost all but disappeared. I still remember Morgan Webb reviewing some mediocre racing game and describing the BGM as "generic butt-rock."
When was the last time you heard a song and realized the source game immediately? Yeah, it's been awhile. Even some of the BEST games lately have had really generic soundtracks. Uncharted 2, God of War 3, and Red Dead Redemption all have fantastic gameplay but nothing worth remembering in terms of theme music. As close to an action/adventure movie Uncharted 2 was, it is somewhat surprising that it had no solid theme. A bit of a letdown, but not really anything that lessens the experience of the game.
I just pine for the days when you turned on your console to play a game and grinned or felt the adrenaline rush at just the first few bars of the theme song. I guess we just need some new, talented music composers and perhaps they're coming.
Oh well. I'm just a nutcase anyway. I'll keep playing either way.
Gnome, out.
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