Soundtrack Review: Dear Esther

Dear Esther began life in 2008 as an experimental Source engine mod, and its popularity led to a full-fledged commercial remake released earlier in 2012. The Dear Esther experience is perhaps more aptly described as an "audiovisual journey" than a true "video game," and the pivotal role of the "audio" in this is difficult to overstate.

Concert Review: The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses

Megan and I went to this unique concert on July 25th at the Mann Center in Philadelphia, performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. It's been advertised as the first video game concert featuring a full, four-movement symphony, and among many suites and songs, there was indeed an extended-form work.

Video Game Music and Classical Idiom: Emulation to Evoke Emotion

In 2005, Roger Ebert wrote in his blog the claim that video games cannot be art. The article caused an outcry in the gamer population, with gamers citing various games and elements of games as artistic. Five years later, while not changing his mind, Ebert admitted to never having played a video game and said he should not have discussed them at all. While the striking visuals of today’s multi-million dollar games can be cited as often as the simple fluidity of control in a 1980s game in discussing the art in video games, one element that has developed a sub-culture all its own is the music. Akin to the pops orchestra that plays movie soundtracks, websites can be found that allow people to post their versions of game songs (such as vgmusic.com and ocremix.com), and YouTube contains a vast amount of still-image videos just to listen to the original soundtracks or remakes (such as Zelda ReOrchestrated). Indeed, video game music has even gone touring through orchestras with concert series like Play! A Video Game Symphony and Video Games Live.

Soundtrack Review: Sonic Generations

Released in celebration of the Sonic franchise's 20th anniversary, Sonic Generations is truly a product of love for its loyal fans. The game positively brims with nostalgia; references to past Sonic games are everywhere, from the old-school gameplay to the classic sound effects to the modern interpretations of iconic Sonic levels. The music, of course, is no exception.

Mass Effect 2: A Study in Dynamic Music

NOTE: This article is adapted from work originally published on Eternal Sonate, 02/29/2012.

A few years ago, if I told you about video game music as an area of academic study, you'd likely scoff. In most people's minds, video game music was no more than a series of bleeps and bloops, hardly compelling enough for any sort of scholarly endeavor. However, recent years have proven the contrary, with a number of groups and academic institutions among those to pursue this area of knowledge. With the video game market as a multi-billion dollar industry and continuing to expand, it's perhaps no wonder that video game music is becoming an area of academic interest.

Welcome to SOUNDTEST!

Thank you for visiting SOUNDTEST! We are a website devoted to the appreciation, analysis and advancement of the unique art of video game music. As keen video game music enthusiasts, we're excited to share our love of video game music with you, and we're looking forward to interacting with fellow video game music fans!

SOUNDTEST will have a few specific types of content. Our main source of content will be soundtrack reviews, in which a member of our team describes his or her thoughts regarding a particular game's music, ranking it according to our scoring system. We'll also have regular (we're thinking monthly) video game music quizzes, which we hope will be a fun way for us to engage with all of our readers. Next, we'll occasionally post a feature article: these are meant to take an analytical look at one aspect of video game music, and may be more technical than the average post. Last, but certainly not least, we'll have our miscellaneous content, i.e. everything else: video game concert reviews, discussions about video game music in the news, links to cool remixes of video game songs, and anything else video game music related we'd like to share.

We're still a developing website, so we'd be glad to hear any comments, critique, or suggestions you have for us; please feel free to leave a comment below. We're eager to get started, and we hope you'll join us in our appreciation of video game music! See you again soon!

Sincerely,

The SOUNDTEST Team