Poll Question 085 – Do you listen to game music when not playing games?

31st May 2008

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

Game music , like movie soundtracks, can be pretty cool. So, this week’s poll question is

Do you listen to game music when not playing games?

I DO!

I have a large collection of movie and game soundtracks. I generally prefer listening to this type of music, especially if I am doing something, because music with voice distracts me; I have to have a private karaoke session, including air guitar or desk piano!

I love the music from Chaser and Unreal tournament and I’m just getting into the HL soundtracks at the moment. Actually I’m listening to the HL2 tracks as I create this post. I wish my car had a CD player then I could listen when driving. (It has a tape player and is 26 years old! The cost of a CD player would probably be more than the car is worth.)

I wish it were legal to make my soundtracks available for the people who don’t know how to rip them from the game. If somebody can post a concise guide to doing that I would be very grateful. In fact I’ll even create a separate post for it.

The Poll

13 Comments

  1. Luke L

    I love soundtracks. I have all of the Halo ones as I find the music a good mix of orchestral and rock, but I also have a lot of Hans Zimmers movie stuff. I think the best game soundtrack I have is the Vice City one as there is such a good range of music on that, even if it isn’t technically “game related” stuff.

  2. Yes I do! , game music is getting better and more important every year (resident evil would not be half as good and scary without the music , another good example is Metroid Prime 2 echoes , the very sinister music in Dark Aether really makes the game complete, it puts you in another world)
    I also like the variety of artists who made there own versions of game music, take Zelda, on the internet you can download versions of System of a Down (because they really like the game) but also from the Boston Symphonie Orchestra (normally I don’t listen to classical music, but this one is so beautiful, I almost cried)
    In my country (the Netherlands) there is a happening once a year in the Vredenburg Music Centre in Utrecht, where a symphonie orchestra plays a variety of famous game-music (Mario, Zelda,Metroid, Halo etc,etc )
    My appreciation for classical music has certainly grown and it’s nice to hear the difference between the electronic version of the game and the live classical version, sometimes the orchestra version is much better!
    So I like to listen to game music, also when i’m not playing, and it often brings back memories.

  3. Indeed, In fact I have over 20Gb of just Video Game music, ranging from Mario, to Final fantasy. Anyone can beat that, is more of a Video game music nut than me.

  4. firba1

    I love game soundtracks, especially games like Metal Gear Solid and Halo. They are t3h fun.

  5. Jimbo

    Yes I have about 4 gigs on Vg tunes on my PC. The original HL soundtrack is fantastic as it uses some well-known cues you sometimes hear in tv shows and commercials. I honestly didnt like the HL2 soundtrack as much as the previous, but then episode 1 and 2 came out and those tracks are absolutely amazing. I have a cd burned of all my favorite hl tracks in my car. I keep myself from listening to it though…I tend to drive faster if I do. And you always see things like this– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1870853.stm

    As far as ripping HL music, download a program called GCFscape and turn off Steam. Then load GCF up, find the source shared.gcf folder in steam, and viola! Just drag and drop those juicy pieces of music into a folder.

    As far as other vg soundtracks though…I just don’t know…*COUGH* http://gh.ffshrine.org/soundtracks.php *HACK*

  6. Mel

    I am amazed, never imagined any one would be so into game music.

  7. Senator33

    Same….OK while playing games, but why otherwise?

    Kinda reminds me of sitting through a concert where the orchestra is playing ballet suites….but no dancers are on stage. Boring.

  8. RndGuy

    Wow, no one mentioned Doom music!
    If you have not heard doom music, check http://www.last.fm/music/Bobby+Prince

    I have dedicated my life to game music particularly doom music.
    Bobby Prince has made some serious s#it so you should check it out!

  9. Jimbo

    Yes. Bobby Price is great too. I’m sure you’ve stumbled across the Doom Remix project, RndGuy?
    http://doom.ocremix.org/main.html

    “Kinda reminds me of sitting through a concert where the orchestra is playing ballet suites….but no dancers are on stage. Boring.”

    I don’t get it…so if there’s a music video to a song, you won’t listen to the song on your pc/cd-player/ipod because there’s a visual interpretation to go along with it? Music is…MUSIC!

  10. RndGuy

    Yes I have that. I just love the Darkness Dawning.

  11. Neal

    I only listen to the Quake soundtrack, mainly because it is NIN. Otherwise, I am not really thinking of the music as ‘standalone” without playing the game. I would like the ‘still Alive” song at the end of Portal, though. Hilarious! I’ll try Jimbo’s trick.

  12. For those who are interested, on december 8 is the next edition of Games in Concert (note: the site is dutch)
    The Metropole Orchestra is playing live , also various artists are present (f.e. Live on stage , the dutch guys that made the soundtrack for Assassins Creed). For the full program and info check the link below.

    http://www.gamer.nl/gamesinconcert

  13. Generally, no I don’t. I have other music that I listen to when I’m not gaming.

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