2015 In Gaming Part 1

2015 was a great year for gaming. As Microsoft put it, "the greatest games lineup in Xbox history," and it was. Among all of these games are some excellent scores that are worth listening to. Although film scores tend to sound more classical, game scores provide a unique listening experience in the world of modern music. Despite the fact that some game scores can sound somewhat experimental and tend to not require as much complexity as film scores, they still impress.

Inon Zur's score for Fallout 4 is a more ambient sounding piece that reminds me somewhat of Jason Graves' work on Tomb Raider in that the composer uses bizarre sounds to portray the various environments and events in the story. Fallout 4 is for the most part very calming and something you could fall asleep to at night, unlike Graves' frightening and slightly stressful score. Zur brought back that epic theme that gamers know well from Fallout 3, making it more memorable than ever. The soundtrack for Fallout 4 is for the most part incredibly simple and is very mellow which gives the player the sense that the game is not just a violent shooter, but is filled with an expansive open world that was destroyed and is in ruin.

I was a bit surprised at first to see that Jason Graves was not back for Rise of the Tomb Raider. On the other hand, I cannot say that I am disappointed. The sequel to the reboot took on a story that wouldn't fit the terrifying and chaotic style of composition that Jason Graves is good at. The takeaway would be whether or not this new score by Bobby Tahouri would diminish that simple yet profound theme that Graves had created. In that respect, I can confirm that Tahouri continued this theme, but it doesn't appear in the new score the way it did in the previous game with the brass. I feel this solidified the theme in the listener's mind, making it stand out. Instead the theme is slightly less obvious but has a much more complex arrangement that meshes new themes into it. This was a great move, since Lara is nearly a different person considering the events that made her who she is and how her adventures are becoming much more complex and dangerous. Bobby Tahouri wrote a phenomenal score by incorporating the ideas that Jason Graves had created before him and gave us a true cinematic feel that immersed the player in the epic story.

Many fans of the Halo franchise were greatly disappointed after receiving news that developer Bungie fired their longtime and rather talented composer Martin O' Donnell. Though O'Donnell was not hired for the score of Halo 4, he was brought on to collaborate with other composers for the music that would be featured in the popular game Destiny. Unfortunately, he was let go soon after and never was given credit for his work on Destiny, even though Bungie decided to use his contributions to the finished score.
Despite player disappointment, Kazuma Jinnouchi became the composer for Halo 5. This is one of the best game scores that I have personally listened to. It has a good balance of film sounding music and more electronic/action music that is common in games.

Although Jason Graves took part in just the beginning of Lara Croft's soundtrack, he was given the honor of scoring PlayStation 4's survival horror game Until Dawn. This soundtrack is full of terrifying themes and chaos, but is calmed down frequently by some excellent and memorable themes that I believe is Graves' best work to date. The song "The Intemperance of Youth" provides much resolve as compared to the beginning of the score and gives the listener a simple yet enjoyable theme.

For the most part, game scores tend to be written by composers who specifically write for video games, so I get excited when, on occasion, a popular film composer gets the job. I loved Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe's work on Crysis 2, Skylanders, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as well as Brian Tyler's on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. This time Henry Jackman took on the enormous open world of Medici in Just Cause 3, giving it an excellent cinematic feel with traditional orchestral sounds. The island feel is prominently experienced with his technique of creating music for action scenes that are not overpowering in intensity, but more reliant on the strings. Jackman does a good job balancing strong action music while maintaining a light and fun sound, making this a perfect match for the hilariously destructive world of Just Cause.