The Music

Something thats often overlooked in video games, music can really make or break a game. It's something that you might not notice while playing but you find yourself humming the songs after your done playing.

Ever since the 80's when the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) became a popular household item, Developers have hired composers to work on music in games to add to the mood and overall feel of a game. Some could say that those composers back in those days were real music masterminds considering the limited sounds they had to work with. (Bleeps and Bloops)

However dispite the limitations of the time some real great music was made that people still know to this day. Many people know the music from the old mario games



Another game that is very well known for the music is another NES game, Mega Man 2. If you ask anyone who is a fan of the game to hum the last level music they'll be able to


With the popularity of music in games come the really hardcore fans for video game music. There are remixes of these songs all over youtube and a lot of videos of people playing the songs on the piano or guitar.

Then there are people you take their love for the music to a whole different level. It might be hard to believe but there are actually bands who's sole purpose is to cover these songs. Some bands like to take the songs and stay fairly faithful to them while giving a rock feel. The Minibosses are a band of four guys. Two guitarists, one bassist and a drummer who wrote this 10 minute song covering some of the most popular songs from megaman 2


If you skip to 6:58 you can hear their cover of the song in the above video



Other bands use the music as a inspiration and don't neccassarily follow the music exactly. Powerglove takes music from video games and use them in their metal style music.

This video is their song "Mario Minor" which inspired by the mario games




Probably one of the most impressive use of video game music is a touring concert called "Video Games Live" where an entire orchestra travels the world every year playing renditions of peoples favorite music from games.

All of the videos on youtube are really crappy quality so i don't really have one to show but basically they play the music while a screen above them shows clips from the game. I've never been to one but i hear that it's a really cool experience