The 10th Hour 02.05.10: The Best Video Game Music

Posted by Chris Lansdell on 02.05.2010

From Sephiroth’s Theme in Final Fantasy VII and the opening music in Super Mario Brothers to the main theme in Metal Gear Solid and even the intro from NBA Live 95, 411's Chris Lansdell ranks the top 10 pieces of video game music! See which tunes made the list and why!

Hey yo. Welcome to The 10th Hour, the column that brings you a top 10 list each week from the world of gaming. I'm your stand-in host Chris Lansdell, and this week we have a hummer of a topic for you. I'm far too tired for witty banter, but never too tired for the

BANNER!

Music in Games – Peanut Butter in my Chocolate

In the heady days on the PlayStation, when we were just starting to experience the novelty of games on CDs on a consistent basis, the music in games was often original and high-quality. Like with anything new, developers wanted to show off the power of their system and included a lot of rockin' tunes in their games. That's why a lot of these songs come from the 32-bit era. We're going to split this topic into two lists. This week, we'll do actual music written for games. Next week we'll got with songs that are used in games that I discovered through said game. In order to get the full sensory experience of this column, I recommend cranking the volume, hitting play and reading the entry for each song as the song is playing. Value-added nostalgia included!

10. NBA Live 95 (SNES) Intro Theme



Let's start this mother off with a tune that wasn't as good as I recalled it being. NBA Live 95 was the first basketball game I got for my SNES, having recently upgraded from the NES and a combination of Double Dribble and Ultimate Basketball. I could have sworn I remembered a digitised voice saying "N…B…A Live" before the main music started, but even without that it's still a fun listen and brings back memories of winter evenings in England, fouls turned off, playing as the Magic on Rookie mode. Score, shove the opponent, steal, repeat. I was getting quintuple doubles in some games (especially once I turned off goaltending) and Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott were averaging somewhere around 90 points a game (love those threes!). Cheap? Sure. Fun? Definitely. I think this was the first game that actually made me play the intro all the way through, a habit which I retain to this day.

9. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out (NES) Training theme



One of those that everyone in my generation has heard. On the list more because it's iconic than because I loved it, I nonetheless have fond memories of relaxing after a pulse-pounding battle with Bald Bull or Super Macho Man and watching Mac chase after his manager…who happened to have a bike. "Now how is that fair?", thought a young me. Of course there have since been some fairly tasteless YouTube videos posted with the training scene as the backdrop to a voiceover, but what sticks out in my mind is another video I saw on YouTube where they did a live re-enactment of the video complete with the music played on piano. Do you think I can find that now? Hell no! I've played the new Punch Out! and although it is a very enjoyable game and has that extra something with the motion sensitivity…it just doesn't feel the same as hitting Select for the Shoryuken, you know?

Yes I know it wasn't really a Shoryuken, but it looked like one and that's good enough for me.

8. Guile's Theme, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (SNES)



This entry and the next one are both from the same period in my life: I had just moved back to England from Barbados and had bought my first system out of my own money (as opposed to begging parents/Santa for them). SSF2T was the first game I picked up to go along with it, and I played it to death. The music from Guile's stage doesn't sound quite the same without "Sonic Boom!" and the sound of crashing crates, but it's still pretty rockin'. And really, can you hear this without picturing THAT hairstyle? Oh yeah, remember the Guile Handcuffs? Pretty sure they only worked in SF2 arcade, but that was one useful glitch. Of course I never tried it against a human for fear of getting lynched (I was about 13 at the time), did it only work against the CPU?

7. Ken's Theme, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (SNES)



You might be wondering why this beats out Guile's theme. Well, they have all the same memories, except you can replace "Sonic Boom!" with "HADOKEN!", and Ken's hairstyle isn't all that memorable. He did set people on fire though, so there's that. No, what really puts this over the top is that I knew a guy at university who was in a band called GNA – Gamer Nerds of the Apocalypse. Yeah, I know. Anyway, they used to do an extended cover version of Ken's theme with some amazing bass riffs. It was pretty funny to watch them doing bar gigs and having people thrash out to that tune, having no idea what it was. Alas this was before the days of digital video and YouTube, so I cannot share the awesome awesomeness of this awesome with you. Just trust me on this one. Plus their bassist was hot in that goth chick zombie-hot kinda way.

6. Metal Gear Solid Main Theme (PSX)



If you never played MGS, you're missing out. If you never heard the theme, you're also missing out. There are several versions available online, but this one is the one that brings me back to my university days when this game was the shiznit. I won't bore you all with the same story about playing this in university, but I will say that I haven't played any of the other games in this series because I'm scared they will ruin the perfection of this one. The music encourages adrenaline and gets you pumped to stalk around killing people. And really, who doesn't want to do that?

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5. Sephiroth's Theme (One-winged Angel), Final Fantasy VII (PSX)



Now we're into songs that are actually in my playlist. What's that? Yes, I know that's a sad confession, but that's never stopped me before. So, hands up all of you who played Final Fantasy VII. Yeah, that's a fair few of you. Now, hands up those of you who made it to the final boss. OK, the crowd's thinning out. Finally, hands up everyone who didn't have that awesome music stuck in their head for weeks afterwards. Nobuo Uematsu was the composer of the score for Final Fantasy VII, and it stands as one of his best in my mind. This piece, fittingly found at the end of the game, brings both the soundtrack and the game to a crescendo. Even today I can't see the name Sephiroth written anywhere without reading it in the choral voice from the theme. Besides, dude was a freaking one-winged angel! Uniqueness in video games is hard to come by, but go ahead and name another one-winged angel. Uh huh that's right…ain't none! SEPHIROTH!

4. Johnny Bazookatone Main Theme (Multiple systems)



I reckon a lot of you are scratching your heads over this game. I'll admit that I have never actually played it, but I did get a CD with an edition of GamePro in the UK. That magazine USED to be the bomb, but I understand it's gone downhill in recent years. To give you an idea of the timeframe, Johnny Bazookatone was released on PSX, Saturn, PC-DOS…and 3DO. There's some nostalgia for you. It was a vivid cartoony platformer where the main character had a saxophone. That was his weapon – a sax. The screenshots looked pretty cool for their time, and I popped in the CD to get an idea of what I was missing…dang. Rock with a jazz sax: how can you go wrong?

Now I want to go and buy this game. I wonder if it will run on my PS2…

3. Super Mario Bros 1 - Worlds 1.1 and 1.2 (NES)



Not only is this on my playlist, it's my ringtone. Nothing screams "GAME GEEK!" like a phone that plays the techno version of "Dada da dadada da" whenever I get an email. Yes, we have already established that I am sad, pathetic and devoid of a life.

Really, not much needs to be said about this entry. It's iconic. Even people who aren't gamers will probably recognise these two tunes, especially the first one. I've heard famous bands perform them during sound checks, I've heard crowds "singing" both at wrestling events (as well as the water world and castle tunes), it's played in basketball arenas when certain players score (like Cleveland's Jamario Moon)…it's been everywhere. I was my son's age when I first played Super Mario Bros, and HE recognises the tunes 23 years later. Staying power my friends.

2. Soul Blade Intro Cut Scene (PSX)



When this game was released, the intro turned many heads. Not just because of the naked chick rising out of the river (who, it was rumoured, displayed her goods with a correctly input code or in early versions of the game), not just because of the perfect ass shot at 1:53, but also that song. I remember playing this intro over and over in the games store where I worked, never getting tired of it. Then we got complaints because some kid got scared by the part where Cervantes rips his face off. Yeah OK, I can see that. I mean it's not every day that a zombie pirate removes his semi-human face to reveal a roaring flaming skull. BUT IT SHOULD BE DAMMIT! It doesn't hurt that the game was great too.

1. Killer Instinct Main Theme (SNES)



My favourite piece of game music has vacillated between this song and the one before it. This one is currently in the lead for no reason other than I happen to have heard it more recently. It makes an incredible wrestling entrance theme too. Something about this just screams "EPIC!", and the game for which it was made certainly didn't disappoint on that. Apart from breaking the mold and shipping with a black cartridge, Killer Instinct also shipped with "Killer Kuts", a CD containing all the music from the game. It's almost like Rare and Nintendo knew they had knocked one out of the park with the soundtrack on this one. And remember, this came out on a 16-bit system!

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There's the list boys and girls. I'll be back next week with another list, as we said before. In the meantime, be sure to peruse my fellow writers and enjoy their collective awesome. Now, put the snacks in the back and I'm ghost like Swayze!