Music/Ambience in Video Games

Nothing jumps out of the darkness, crawls on the ceiling, lights shit on fire with it’s mind, or jumps out of a pool of blood in a hallway without a sequence of screeching violin notes in the background. Nothing. And if said crawling, jumping, lighting shit up thing doesn’t do so with the finesse of a concerto cutting their strings with a dull knife, said thing loses a large amount of scare. Said creature could be faceless, nameless, lacking of a tangible understanding of emotion or compassion, and/or visible appendages, but if the concerto doesn’t ring true in the background, said creature loses substance.

For example, you are walking down a dark hallway with a flashlight illuminating your path. Aforementioned creature jumps from a ceiling tile with silence following in his wake and mutters, “roar.” You give the walls a new paint job with his brains and skull without hesitation or fear. Now, imagine you are in said hallway with said flashlight illuminating said path in said scenario. Said creature executes said function and jumps out of said ceiling tile and mutters said phrase. But this time, aforementioned creature is accompanied by a screeching violin/viola/cello concerto. You jump out of your skin and begin shooting wildly at stone walls and all the damn oxygen. You have just relieved yourself of feces, urine, and ejaculatory fluid.

You have just experienced the effect music can have on a seemingly ordinary situation. Well, ordinary for a video game. But then, take into account the music leading up to the aforementioned scenario. A better word for this would be ambience. Ambience could be soothing, calm, and whirring. But ambience could also be loud, screechy, and intensifying. You’re walking down the hall and you hear a subtle piano chord ring out that’s both soothing, and contemplative at the same time. ’Is this building up to something?’ You ask yourself. The piano chord rings out once more, but this time, a quiet bass chord accompanies it. Again, soothing but intensifying. And once more, said ambient noise rings out once more but with a building, and very high, organ note the continues and you walk towards the ceiling tile.

Your eyes begin to water, cold sweat leaks down your cheeks, and the piss is clawing its way out of your bladder. And BAM, he jumps down from the ceiling tile, you scream “FUCK THAT SHIT.” And without thinking another thought you run the hell away back down the hall. The next time you’re playing a game like say… Left 4 Dead (which is more intense than scary), F.E.A.R, Silent Hill 1-4 (5 doesn’t make the list, it’s not a horror game), or Fatal Frame, pay attention to the footsteps, the whirring soundtrack, the blistering screams of lost souls, and the gliding ambience and try not to shit yourself.

Morality in Games

I enjoy blowing shit up. Really, I do. Pigeons are fun to blow up. Buildings, orphanages, hospitals, asylums, homeless shelters, insurgent dens, people, trees, people, people, people, and people. So why make me feel sorry for it? It's like throwing hammers at a retarded heroin addict and calling them cotton balls. It doesn't work.

I'm talking about video games, not real life. Of course, murder is bad, murder illegal. But when a game designer tries desperately for you to feel a connection to your enemy and succeeds greatly you begin to regret certain actions.

For example, I was assigned to kill some old dude in Oblivion. So, naturally, I hid above him in an attic as the game so humbly requested. And by some miracle I could hear the sad sack of bones talking about how empty his life was. I've done this quest enough times to know that this shouldn't be happening, but low and behold it is. Well, since he hates his life, all the more reason to kill him, right? Fucking WRONG.

He goes on about his history, and it it's getting to me. It's like a hardcore blues song with a 30 minute vocal solo of a woman crying over her miscarriage. And naturally, this leads me to question some decisions I have, and am deciding to make. Do I really wanna kill this man? Or should I let him wallow in his sea of sorrow? (Blatant Alice in Chains reference). The little angel on my shoulder says, "well, yeah, taking a life is wrong yo. Says so in that one thing, that bible whatchamacallit." And the devil says, "crush the fuck with a buffalo head." So I take the latter option and cave his skull into his ribcage.

I thoroughly regret such a decision as I'm walking down Burma's main road. And now, every damn time I blow up a house, set a forest fire, run over a pedestrian, grenade tag a locust, reduce something to a bloody pile I question it and wonder what it is I have killed. So, just between me and you, morality sucks ass and screw you Bethesda. Morality in games doesn't work for me, in any way. If it works for, fine, whatever floats your boat.