Every gamer knows that music can turn any run of the mill level into an epic fight for survival and glory. There are plenty of famous musical tracks from video games from Super Smash Bros. to World of Warcraft’s Invincible.
Here are some of the most memorable musical moments in gaming. These moments span the breadth of music’s use in gaming, from interactive songs to battle soundtracks. Together, they show some of the most interesting ways music can be used in video games.
The Curse of Monkey Island: A Pirate I Was Meant to Be
The Curse of Monkey Island has one of the funniest interactable songs in gaming. After the series’ hapless hero Guybrush recruits three pirates from the Barbery Coast – a barbershop – he meets them aboard his ship to find them singing a sea shanty.
The genius of this moment is that as the three singers, Edward, Bill, and Haggis, sing their song, any dialog option chosen by the player is integrated in their rhyming. It only ends when the player has Guybrush Threepwood finally choose to say “we’ll surely avoid scurvy if we all eat an orange” to throw his crew off, but before that, there are many different verses of this catchy sea-tune. Rarely has a musical moment been so well integrated into both a game’s gameplay and its tone.
Saint’s Row 4: I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing
Also on the comedic side of the spectrum is the use of Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing during the opening sequence of Saint’s Row 4. The player plays the Boss as they charge headfirst at a launching nuclear missile.
As they begin to climb up the warhead, dismantling it along the way, the Saints call in to offer tearful goodbyes and Aerosmith’s power ballad makes for one of the funniest prologues in the series. It doesn’t hurt that it ends with the Boss diving off the nuke and straight into the oval office to become President of the United States.
Mass Effect 2: Suicide Mission
The score for Mass Effect 2’s suicide mission heightens it to one of the most epic moments in a BioWare game. Every squadmate involved included Commander Shepard themself can be killed during the suicide mission if the player isn’t careful, which makes the swelling music both inspirational and extremely tense, especially one a first playthrough.
With the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition due for release in 2021, the suicide mission and its soundtrack will be one part of the original trilogy which many fans will be looking forward to experiencing once again in the remaster.
Undertale: Death By Glamour
Undertale is known for its score, most famously MEGALOVANIA, a part of the soundtrack which spawned so many covers that it became a meme in its own right. Though the game makes great use of music throughout, there’s another part of the soundtrack which is particularly memorable.
Death By Glamour is the piece from the Undertale soundtrack that scores the boss fight with Mettaton, a quiz robot turned killing machine. What makes it so enjoyable is the fact that Mettaton transforms from his blocky robot form into a Bowie-esque glamour star for the final boss fight. The song takes Mettaton’s earlier theme, Metal Crusher, and shows just how much can be done with the same motif as its clunky, robotic sound is transformed into a glam rock tune that makes Mettaton’s transformation really come to life.
Of course, there are many other fantastic uses of music from across video games. It’s a part of the art form that can be easy to miss when immersed in a game despite the immense work it does to bring some of gaming’s most memorable moments to life, and always one worth noting as a key aspect of the medium as it evolves in interesting new ways.