The Beat Goes On

Play On: The Composers Behind Today's Game Music

Coda
As the writer Anais Nin once said, "Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together." A saying all the more true when considering the role of music in games. Music enhances our game experiences, broadens their impact and makes your heart pound even faster when it's time to kill those stupid, stupid zombies. But the people who make the music are rarely the starry-eyed, ostentatious dreamers we often imagine them to be.

While there may be someone, somewhere finding musical inspiration in the bottom of a bottle, or the bosom of a comely, young lass, the real professionals are the ones who can juggle the weight of an exhaustive library of musical influences, soothe the nerves of fretful game producers, tap the vein of a game's inner meaning and still deliver a powerful score before the game goes to press. These are the true musical geniuses, and while the work they produce may not ever hit the Top 40, it does add a great deal to the games we play; enriching the experiences and enhancing our enjoyment of them. A surfeit of that would not be a bad thing at all.

Russ Pitts is an Associate Editor for The Escapist. He has written and produced for television, theatre and film, has been writing on the web since it was invented and claims to have played every console ever made.