In Video Games Unplugged: Symphony Of Legends, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra will pay tribute to some of the greatest games ever made.
Themes from Halo, World Of Warcraft, StarCraft 2, Bioshock 2, God Of War II, Civilisation IV, Assassin's Creed II, Skyrim, Final Fantasy VII, Heavy Rain and Journey will feature heavily in the Video Games Unplugged program, and where possible, the QSO has worked closely with the composers of those pieces on their arrangements. In an Australian first, Grammy-nominated Journey composer Austin Wintory will be on hand to conduct pieces from his hugely popular score.
It'll be up to hosts Kris Straub and Paul Verhoeven to tie all of this gaming history together. We had a chat with Straub — a Seattle-based webcartoonist best known for his work on chainsawsuit, Starslip and Broodhollow, as well as his appearances on Penny Arcade TV — to talk music, maturity and Bionic Commando.
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Hey, Kris! This won't be your first time in Australia with Symphony Of Legends; you've done this before. How was your experience in Melbourne last year?
I loved Melbourne. I moved from Los Angeles to Seattle, and I love Seattle, I love the design aspect of it, but Melbourne felt like Seattle's bigger brother. It felt much more developed; like, 'oh, this is what they were trying to do when they made Seattle'. But I had a great time in Australia and I had a great experience out there, I really enjoyed being there.
As far as hearing these video game themes being played by an orchestra for a crowd like that, totally outside the context you're used to hearing them in, what was that experience like?
I wasn't expecting for it to hit as hard as it did, for it to be as emotional as it was. We are part of a generation that's grown up with video game music, and typically we experience it by ourselves. You're typically alone or only with a couple of other people when you're hearing video game music; so to hear them perform Skyrim in a room with 4,000 other people, which previously is actually a really intimate piece of music to listen to, it's pretty impressive.
I was also impressed with how well suited it was for that treatment. I mean, I know it's already an orchestral piece, but they've done all the arrangements with the studios and the original composers, so it's really authentic.
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How important do you think music is to the gaming experience?
I've actually always been impressed by video game music, even from an early age. I remember playing the NES, back when all of the credits for the games were translated from Japanese, and everybody seemed to go by these odd names, and I remember thinking, 'if I wanted to find more work from this person, whether it's the artist or the composer or whoever, I would never be able to find it! What else has this person written? What else would I know them from? I will never know!' And you had to beat the game to see that little credit in the first place!
Bionic Commando was a great example. It was a game for the NES, and that game really stayed with me for some reason. The music really stayed with me, and I remember thinking, somebody wrote this, and it had to be small enough to fit on the cartridge, but it also had to be good enough for you to be able to listen to it for five hours and be fine with it! And not only be fine with it, but once you put the game down after five hours you're still humming it.
So I was always interested by those constraints, and those constraints don't exist anymore. The video game industry rivals Hollywood for scope and the type of music that's written for it. There's not much differentiation anymore, because they're using a full orchestra the same way. But again, it has to be good, it has to be well produced, because you are listening to it for that long.
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What do you think makes a great video game score? Everyone knows the Mario and Zelda themes can get stuck in your head for days, but does that catchiness make them great, or does it just make them annoying?
[Laughs] It could make them annoying. But I think that what makes them great... I personally don't know how a studio works with a composer. I don't know how composers work, and how they have to meet certain themes or certain tones or certain ideas that the game is portraying.
But to use Skyrim as an example again, a lot of the bombastic, big, main theme that you might hear in combat or something, that can't be the only music that you hear throughout. In fact, I think it's the calmer pieces, the ones where you're wandering, the pieces of ambient music that you really take your time with, that can be even more effective or lasting than the very recognisable main theme.
Yeah. A couple of video game scores have been nominated for Grammys — what do you think that recognition means, if it means anything, to the video game industry? Do you think gamers crave acceptance in that way, or are games so big at this point that it's almost like games are doing the Grammys a favour by turning up?
I've never understood the argument that video games are potentially not 'art', because I don't understand how you could get so many artists, hundreds of artists, together, and the end product is not art. I think it was Civilisation IV that won the Grammy, but it just speaks to the quality of games, overall.
Video game music is music, and there doesn't have to be that thickly drawn a distinction between it and music for a TV show or music for a film. It's nice to see it get that kind of acceptance and graduate out of that pre-conceived notion that we may have about it.
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There's a tendency for scores to be more orchestral and more cinematic... do you think it potentially limits the scope of a game? I mean, if you convince Hans Zimmer to write you a few hours' worth of music and he writes this very cinematic score, doesn't that imply that there'd be a particular way you want people to play the game when they hear that score? I mean, are games becoming more like movies to the point where it's detrimental?
I think it's a positive thing. You know, the indie gaming scene is amazing, and there's always going to be room for that. And again, I don't know how a composer works with a studio, but it seems to me that if you have a great composer and they've got a game in mind — I mean, they don't write the music first and then wonder what type of gameplay they can fit to it — then it's up to the composer to understand the tone that they're trying to hit in those moments.
To me, that discipline must be very similar to motion pictures, where they have these moments, they have these beats, they understand what's going on in the story or what the mood needs to be at that moment, and they write music to fit that. I think that would probably always be the case, regardless of what game you are making. You start with the work, and then you add music to suit it.
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You mentioned how huge the video game industry has become. Now that everybody's watching, do you think that puts the impetus on the people who are making games to be more socially responsible? I mean, what do you make of the whole Grand Theft Auto V misogyny discussion, for example?
I think that it's important to have that discussion. Personally, I was disappointed by the content of the game. I think there are always going to be people who want to play games with a certain tone... the game is trying to be a heist movie, I'm trying to think of a film equivalent, where it's really violent...
Like Heat or The Town?
Yeah, exactly. Right, right, right. And there'll always be a demand for that. I feel like we're veering, but I would like to see more emphasis on parenting. Like, understanding that maybe you don't buy Grand Theft Auto V for your 12 year old, I think that's a very good thing for an adult to understand.
Do you think adults are likely to learn that lesson?
I think so. You know, I think we may have this conflict and this disconnect societally because video games are traditionally thought of as fare for children. But they can be a very adult thing, and they can be a very exploratory thing, and they can be a very beautiful thing. It's just like any art; I wouldn't take a child to an R-rated movie, and we're not worried about R-rated films.
But I am really glad to see video games and video game culture get explored in a much broader arena and have attention drawn to them so we can all accept, and we can all come to understand, 'oh, video games are not just something an 11-year-old does in a basement'. The age group is much higher now. It isn't children that are playing them, really. They're things that adults do in their spare time.
The average age of a gamer now is much higher than a lot of people think.
Right, right. So our understanding of games, too, needs to grow up along with the gamers.
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So as far as actually playing the games... I'm a casual gamer. I like the idea of a lot of video games, but I'm not great at them and I get distracted easily. How would you rate your own ability? Are you an elite gamer?
Ha! I wouldn't say I was elite. I like to play First Person Shooters, primarily. I like combat-heavy games. I also like games that allow me to play for an hour and then stop. I have too much to do in a day to be able to lose myself in something where you can wander it for eight hours solid, though I crave it. I wish I had the time, but I don't!
There are so many of those games where I wish I could go back into it and have those experiences I had in college, where you have a certain set of obligations, and then they're fulfilled, and then what are you going to do for the next 36 hours? That's unheard of now! So I wish I could climb back in. But I tend to play more stuff that allows me to get in and get out.
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Do you think that's why mobile games are so huge? Not just because, obviously, everyone has a smart phone, but because they tend to be a bit simpler and you can just pick them up and press a few buttons for half an hour and then put them down for two weeks?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, yes, the fact that everybody has one on them absolutely has something to do with it, because this is a console that everybody's carrying with them at all times. But the content... I mean, there are games for mobiles that go much deeper; there are those offerings. But the most successful ones are the ones you can play while you're waiting in line. I think there's a lot of value in that. I do prefer that type.
Before we let you go, we should do a speed run of your favourite video game scores. Which ones jump to mind for you?
I've been a big fan of Bioshock Infinite, all the scoring of that game and the use of other music from other time periods in that game, I thought that was really clever. Skyrim has been a big favourite of mine. I was a big fan of the Assassin's Creed series. And like I said, if I reach way back, I can find a lot of stuff from my childhood. Bionic Commando was the first time I identified that somebody had to write this, you know? This didn't automatically come with the cartridge; somebody put it on there. These are all decisions that people made!
I'm happy to see that a lot of the ones I enjoy are on the program. Heavy Rain is one that I'm really excited to hear this year. So there's a lot of stuff... I mean, Halo, with that chorus, that's in there this year. So there's a lot of big stuff in this program!
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Video Games Unplugged: Symphony Of Legends will set a hi-score at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on Saturday November 23.
