Video game music as a time capsule
by steinaech
| Posted in
Gaming, Music
Many games have an original score as an OST, but some games, generally sports related games, feature licensed songs from performing artists, usually radio hits, sometimes DJs (you’ve probably seen the name Junkie XL a few times.)
I was playing Burnout: Paradise for the first time on my PS3 a few days ago – both of which came out 15 years ago – and Creepshow by Kerli came on and I thought, “Wow, there’s an artist I haven’t heard of in a long time.”
Burnout: Paradise features 40 licensed songs in addition to music composed for the game. As shown by the graph below 54% of the songs were released in the 5 years prior to the game’s release, counting a whole decade brings it to 69% (nice).
If you ask someone what their favorite video game soundtrack is, you’re likely the hear many people mention a Grand Theft Auto game. Beginning with GTA III and carrying onto the current installment, GTA V, Grand Theft Auto games featured a “radio” as a soundtrack. There is no ambient music except for title and transition screens. You would hear the radio anytime you entered a vehicle. As an example, San Andreas (generally regarded as the fan favorite) featured over 150 licensed songs from the 1990s (the time period that the game takes place in) spanning across 11 different stations. As each game takes place at a set period in time, the soundtracks are all made of songs you’d expect to hear on the radio if you were living at that time. The games also feature talk show segments on the radio and while these are fictitious in contrast to the licensed soundtrack, it’s worth mentioning.
Crazy Taxi was released in February 1999 and while not the first game to use a licensed soundtrack it’s mix of high octane gameplay mixed with it’s lineup of 4 pumping punk rock songs that were released just a couple years before the game (particularly The Offsprings “All I want” – ya ya ya!) lent it great popularity. Released just 7 months later on the Playstation 1 (and arguably a large audience), Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater sported 10 tracks of 90s punk songs that had a lasting cultural effect. Many Millennials and Gen Z-ers will credit the Tony Hawk series and it’s use of 90s/2000s punk rock and hip hop as shaping their musical tastes.
Tony Hawk’s Underground (2003), one of my all time favorite video games, has a soundtrack of a whopping 77 songs (the most of any Tony Hawk game and 67 more songs than the first Tony Hawk game that released only 4 years prior) across Punk, Rock, and Hip Hop genre’s, the majority of which were released within the decade prior. In 2004 MTV added a new category to their music awards, Best Video Game Soundtrack, which was given to Tony Hawk’s Underground further cementing the impact that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater’s use of licensed soundtracks had.
I may be remiss to not mention the Fallout games, games set in the future but stuck in in the past, that feature true pieces from the 40s and 50s of America.
Of course by the 2000s every sports and racing game were using licensed soundtracks. What’s interesting about playing these games now is that they feature so much music that was popular when released they can transport you to a time that you may not remember, or maybe weren’t even alive for.
Video Game Accessibility – Not just for disabilities
Last updated August 31st, 2023 |
by steinaech
| Posted in
Gaming
Accessibility as a word is a measure of how easy it is to use or access something. Usually, regardless of subject, this is used in the context of people with disabilities. The simplest accessibility options are those such as subtitles and closed captions for hearing impairments, scalable UI and colorblind options for visual impairments. More advanced accessibility options include things such as custom controllers for people with missing body parts or control issues with body parts.
But there’s another facet of life where accessibility can play a role – parenthood. As a dad of a 9 and 5 year old, husband, and homeowner, time is a luxury. I don’t always know how much time I’ll have to play something so a lot of the time I’m restricted to the type of games that I can play. Do I want to get into a story heavy game if there’s opportunity for interruption? Not really. Do I want to play a round based game like Counter-Strike or Apex? No, because if I die early I’m just losing time until the round resets.
I first started thinking about other ways games could be accessible when playing through Dark Souls Remastered a couple years ago. In Dark Souls’ case not being able to pause is part of the game’s design. Luckily Dark Souls is good about saving often and it saves when you quit which is only a few taps away when you need to suddenly leave but if you’re in a boss fight and need to leave you’ll need to restart as you cannot rejoin those after exiting.
I understand that Dark Souls can’t be paused because of the online component but the game can be played in a fully offline mode. Why can’t I pause the game then? Is it truly a design choice or a failure to program a pause state when offline? The latter is remedied simply enough. However, if it’s a design choice then why not add an option in the settings to allow pausing? Ship the game in it’s intended to play state but allow those that need pausing for whatever reason the ability to do so. As a designer I understand the desire to not compromise one’s vision for a project but I would also want as many people as possible the chance to enjoy it as well.
Debate about having difficulty settings in Dark Souls has come up in the community as well. Dark Souls (as with many FromSoftware games) are supposed to be hard. It wasn’t until I watched Dark Souls speedrunners that I figured out how to be good at the game and was able to beat it for the first time since first playing Prepare to Die Edition. But why do they have to be hard? Dark Souls is an amazing world full of interesting creatures, people, and lore, so why can it only be experienced if you’re good enough at the game? Star Wars Fallen Order and Remnant: From the Ashes are both Soulslike games with difficulty settings allowing people of lesser skill capability to still enjoy them.
Difficulty settings as an accessibility option have found their way into other games as well, particularly horror games such as SOMA and Outlast 2’s “story mode” difficulty where you are more or less free to roam the world and explore all its intricacies without much worry about enemies that would kill you in other difficulty settings. Even Assassin’s Creed Origins and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey have a “discovery mode” that gets rid of the game’s combat and allows players to explore the worlds without threat.
I’m sure there are many, many examples I’ve not considered here, this is by no means meant to be a comprehensive essay, just to explore a different side of what we traditionally think of when considering accessibility for video games.
Let me know if there are any interesting options a game had that made it more accessible to you!
Rise of Nations Review
by steinaech
| Posted in
Gaming
Originally written May 30 2005, mistakes and all. Found on an old backup cd.
System: PC
Graphics: 7/10
Story: 9/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Extras: 7/10
Overall: 8.25/10
Graphics: Well, theres not much to say about the graphics. There just basic RTS
graphics like any other game except just a little better.
Story: Rise of Nations has 4 types of Story mode. The best out of these is the
Conquer the World campaign. You pick your contury and fight other countries to
take them over and gain bonuses by kiling them like getting a new army or Economy
bonuses for the next battel you do. It’s much like risk if you ever played it.
Gameplay: Though there are not many ages because they condensed it by making bigger
catagories, this is still an awesome game. It goes way in depth. You have to control
your economy by upgraded and making sure you don’t produce to much of one thing. If
your producing to much wood or something your economy begins to whack out. You have a
national border which is the limit for where you can build. You expand your border by
building cities and upgrading a the University. The government also plays a major role
in this game. Depending on which way you go depends on either your economy, or your
military. All of the wonder can have a drastic change on your empire to depending on
which ones your build on how you use them buy make sure you protect them becuase once
they become out of date you can’t build them anymore obviously. The only thing I,
personally, don’t like about this game is the low population limit which is 200. It
won’t get any higher than that. Another cool aspect of this game is when fighting you
can take over the computers town but killing all nearby units and them protect it for
a couple mintues and then its yours.
Extras: One of the main extras is the map editor. Like just about all RTS games you
can make your own maps to play on and design them however you want. This game comes
with about 15-20 different nations to choose from which is prerry awesome. And each
nations troops look different form other nations.
Still have my original animal crossing town. It’s been awhile…
