Songs and video games...

Music and gaming go together like hack n slash. In some games the music is simply background, so far into the background in fact that the only reason you remember it is that at 4am, when you are still mentally replaying that last unwinnable boss level, the music is going through your head like a toxic stream.

Other games use 'proper' music that you may or may not have heard in the charts. Chief culprits of this are urban sports games such as the Tony Hawk series. There's nothing like grinding your way through major cities to the tune of heavy metal, rap or punk/ska. This tune accompanied many a wipe-out of mine on a certain skateboarding game. Embedding is disabled but here is an unofficial version of the same tune.


Some games have quality soundtracks or theme songs written especially for them. The Silent Hill franchise is well known for its excellent musical score written by Akira Yamaoka and is well worth checking out on youtube (beware of the scary vids, the game is not rated 18 for nothing). This video is from Silent Hill 4: The Room, and is just breathtakingly beautiful. I *think* it is free of nasty imagery, but not 100% certain (trying to type and listen here)


I don't know what it is about women's voices and shuddery horror but here's another soft breathy song about death and killing. The 'Portal Song' or 'Still alive' to give it its proper title, is a rather pithy message to the player from the computer GLaDOS. The line "I've experiments to run and research to be done on the people who are...still alive," is deliciously creepy. Wholly safe for work and young eyes:


And finally, if there could be a song so unsuited to horror survival gaming and yet so bloody funny when applied to it...here ya go; silent hill meets Benny Hill.


Enjoy!