Video Games and their Music

While reading Bogost's chapter on relaxation, I thought about the many ways I like to use video games as relaxation. I do enjoy playing Solitaire, but mostly because I'm bored, not because I need to relax. I really love playing Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon like he mentioned in the chapter, however, maybe their relaxing qualities were more subconscious for me. I mostly play Animal crossing if I don't my villagers will forget me....

In Harvest Moon, I tend to just keep on farming solely because I'm broke and need to upgrade my tools and farming stuff so I can make more money.

When I tried to think of a single game that I played only to relax, I couldn't think of one. I usually will just play video games in general in order to relax. So whether it be shooting zombies in Left 4 Dead, shooting the enemy in Black Ops 2, or simply playing whatever game I'm in the middle of (Currently Bioshock Infinite), I just relax through the act of playing them and getting into a world where I don't have homework or job responsibilities.

One way I do choose to use video games in terms of relaxation is through their soundtrack music. If I
had to choose one song to relax to it would be Vigil from Mass Effect. It starts off quiet and ambient and slowly builds. This is the first song you hear when you start your epic journey as Commander Shepard to save the galaxy. I could listen to it on repeat for hours. In my music playlist, I have soundtracks from Mass Effect, Portal, Halo, Journey, Animal Crossing, and even more. I'll listen to them while doing homework or cleaning. Especially with Portal, some of the songs are much more upbeat and I'll save those songs for when I'm working out or just need motivation.

I find video game music very interesting. We went from chip tune music to full on orchestras. Yet both are being used today in more way than one. There'd are many games that come out today that have the same music style and graphic style as they did 20 years I ago, they are designed hat was on purpose, not because that's the extent that video games have. However, most games today have orchestras recording the soundtrack or electronically creating the entire soundtrack with a giant soundboard. There are orchestras that will tour to many cities solely playing video game music, sometimes, they games they are playing music from are even playing in the background.
And the music we have for some of these games are interesting. Much like a movie soundtrack, the music is supposed to evoke a certain emotion while we accomplish this task in a video game. However, in a video game, you can just stand there. You can not move the controller and if your in a spot where you aren't getting attacked, you can just stand thee for hours. In a movie, there character doesn't do that, the character keeps moving and the music doesn't play on repeat for hours. In video games, if you stand there, your music keeps playing. I definitely know there are some games where those songs get stuck in my head and they will just play on repeat for hours. But a challenge that video game soundtrack composers face is composing music that won't want to make you want to rip off your ears when you listen to it over and over it again. I like Koji Kondo's approach to composing music for many Mario and Zelda games.

I truly think that video game music is very interesting and sometimes can be underrated for everything it has to do at once. And if you are ever looking for 5 hours of relaxing video game music, here you go:

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