One of the most interesting developments of the fifth generation of consoles was the popularisation of the music game, which came in many forms. And Akira Yamaoka masterpiece soundtrack to the horror landmark Silent Hill (1999) blended industrial noise with murky sub bass to create an uncomfortable, genuinely disturbing atmosphere that was closer to the abstract sound design of David Lynch Lost Highway (1997) than any traditional video game soundtrack. Nobuo Uematsu conducted an orchestra for ‘Liberi Fatali’, the operatic opening music in Final Fantasy VIII (1999), a far cry from the 8-bit sounds of the first game. Quake (1996) explored this opportunity, enlisting Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor to provide its soundtrack long before he was winning Oscars for his work. With streaming, some developers realised that a cinematic soundtrack could potentially turn their medium into an entertainment industry to rival Hollywood sophistication. The era dominated by the Playstation), Nintendo 64 and home computer marked a shift away from experimenting with new sound forms towards refining existing ones. In his book Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution, Steven Poole writes that “a modern development company might devote many hours to accurate sampling of different cars’ engine noises for a driving game to make the who audio-visual performance as immersive and (deceptively) ‘authentic’ as possible”. If they wanted a heavy metal soundtrack, they could ask a heavy metal band to record one, rather than try and make one themselves and accidentally mash it up with disco. Streaming gave games the freedom to include any sounds they wanted to. In part two, we explore the development of sound from the Playstation and N64 onwards, and its influence on underground producers of today. In the first instalment of the Dummy Guide To video game music we looked at the early days of gaming-related noise.
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