II. What Makes a Great Soundtrack

Thanks to John Romero, Outlaws was the first truly great PC game soundtrack I encountered. From that point on, I was hooked. I couldn't help listening to every new PC game with a critical ear to see if it approached the greatness of Outlaws. I began keeping games I would otherwise give away or sell, based on the quality of their soundtrack.

But what seperates the great soundtracks from the also-rans? I began to formulate a couple rules based on experience.

• Unique. A unique soundtrack stands out because it doesn't resemble music in any other game. For example, the funk of Interstate '76 or the classical riffs of Total Annihilation. We haven't heard those genres of music in any other games to date. But create a techno soundtrack and you're automatically competing with dozens of other similar sounding games. These soundtracks, even if they aren't your cup of tea, at least took the time to try something different. That automatically moves them up several notches on the scale.

• Memorable. A memorable soundtrack has a visceral association with the game it appears in. For example, the Tie Fighter music, which was dark and brooding, but instantly recognizable as Star Wars. Or, the creepy, haunting strains of Dungeon Keeper's ambient tracks. These are the soundtracks that you absolutely, positively do not turn off while playing the game. They don't just add atmosphere— they are the atmosphere. Even if you never played the game, the minute you hear these soundtracks, you get a strong feeling for what the game was trying to accomplish. After hearing the soundtrack to Outcast , several people I know actually went out and purchased the game on the merit of the music alone, trusting that the rest of the game would be of similar quality.

• Well known. Music isn't a popularity contest. But it's hard to get people excited about the soundtrack to Big Red Racing, no matter how good it may be. Some soundtracks become popular because the game itself is wildly popular. For example, every recent Blizzard game will come up in discussions of great soundtracks. And they are all quite good. But compared musically, some are clearly better than others, particularly Diablo I and Diablo II.

Given my natural interest in the topic, it's only natural that the website I founded, GameBasement, would end up hosting a PC game music radio station sooner or later.

A Few Questions

I get asked this question a lot: why PC games? Why not (insert favorite platform here)? Well, there are two reasons. First, I do almost all of my gaming on the PC, so it is the platform I am most familiar with. Second, there are literally dozens of web sites already broadcasting arcade, console, and music from other platforms. As far as I know, we are the sole PC-only game music broadcast in the entire world.

The other question that occasionally comes up is the legality of providing nearly complete game soundtracks in a radio broadcast. I believe this is covered under the "Fair Use" doctrine in US copyright law. "Fair Use" is a limitation to a copyright holder's rights. It allows others to use some or all of another's work under certain circumstances without the copyright holder's approval. There are four factors used to consider whether a use made of a copyrighted work is a "Fair Use":

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

2. The nature of the copyrighted work;

3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

I don't think any reasonable person would consider listening to the soundtrack as potentially damaging to sales of the game; it's a small fraction of a product created by a large number of people, not just musicians. The situation would be very different if we were broadcasting, say, a complete Ricky Martin album. In that case, the audio is the entire product!

The Atwood Awards, plus Tips on Dialing In