Here is kind of a funny story…
There is this game on the Commodore 64 that I had spent a lot of time playing when I was young, it has simple graphics, easy game play and a great plot. I probably spent hours building a strategy to try and beat the game and even though I found out that there is no actual end to it, I still had lots of fun playing. But there was something else to the game that always captivated me, the music. I am sure most of you have had that one game where the music just stuck in your head and you couldn’t shake it out, it was so good you could care less if the game was any good or not. Well for me that game is Rags to Riches, a lesser known title for the C64. Even to this day I have that song in my head, it some times would drive me crazy but I love it at the same time. I used to wonder all the time how a lone game creator came up with such a great tune. Many games of those days usually were created by a small team or a one man show, so who created the song? did the programmer just slap it together? was his real passion in life music?
Then not too long ago, I started playing the game again. And while I was playing it I was imagining how this game would have been great to bring back, maybe as an Atari 7800 game, Nintendo NES or even PC. But the question of who wrote the music still stuck with me so I did what we all do today and hit Google. I didn’t expect to find anything and there wasn’t much out there, but I did find a wiki page which had a bit of information. I was pleased to be able to read about one of my favourite games that I figured had been lost in time, but even more pleased when the answer I was looking for was right there at the bottom of the page. “The music in the game is taken from the theme in the first movement of Mozart’s Trio for Piano, Clarinet and Viola in E flat major (K498).”
Mozart! it is frik’n Mozart… I couldn’t believe that after all these years I had no idea that the piece stuck in my head (which I thought was made from a video game programmer) is from one of the greatest composers to ever live.
And this got me thinking about the role music has in video games and how some of the best games out there have really great sound and music. Who doesn’t know the opening bars to Super Mario Bros? Sonic the Hedgehog has a wide variety of music which could probably be played at your local dance club. Also let us not forget the ever classic Pitfall II, if you haven’t played that game I suggest you give it a try! The game was so advanced for the Atari 2600 that it needed a special sound chip inside the cartridge.
I feel good music is just as important as good game play, but not all great games had great music. I remember some games either had terrible music or a constant loop of a few bars that just made me want to rip my ears off. So in those cases the sound would come off and my stereo would take the front seat. The only problem with playing my own music though is if the game effects were needed as a indicator for something, you were kind of stuck with the game music at that point. oh well!
Great music is just one piece of the equation, its great sound effects that can also pull you in too. Both the Atari 2600 and 7800 unfortunately suffered with a subpar sound chip, so many of the games often used the same tones and blips which wasn’t too exciting. In fact, there are a lot of old games that have very little sound and no music at all (sorry pong). The Intellivision however did have some great sounds and music, part of which help it to compete against the mighty Atari. Games like Snafu and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons had great sound effects, I still get chills from the sound of that dragon gobbling up my tiny stick figure protagonist. Burger time was a true classic and the sound was a perfect fit, the Intellivision port nailed it. The Commodore 64 on the other hand was also amazing for its day, almost all my favourite games like Space Taxi, Impossible mission (which I already talked about in an earlier article) and most noted of all… Ghostbusters! Both the music and the sound effects were spot on! and hey why not? it is after all Ghostbusters!
Brian Pudden