Audio has been an important part of the colossal machine we call the video game experience. Even more these days, with nearly every game filled with in-game voices and cinema lurking around every corner. DTS, Dolby Digital 7.1, even standard Stereo output. SCART, HDMI, the tech is seemingly endless. But for all the audio hardware games now support, are we truly getting an experience that compliments that hardware?

Sure, the sound effects have a huge focus, and those can be downright awesome. However, I have noticed that it has become exceedingly rare for a game's music to not only wow me, but to even stand out period. Even RPGs, which have a heavy emphasis on musical scores to assist in bringing out more emotion to a given scene, are starting to suffer drastically, as if the composers aren't spending more than a month per game, and just sorta throw everything together in a generic Chinese-to-go box. Even Star Ocean 4, my favorite RPG from this generation, has a sub-par musical score. In fact, the only new gen game I've played that impressed me with the music was a game I hated; Resonance of Fate.

On the other hand, games like Paper Mario for the N64 blow me away each time I play them. Don't think PM covers a lot of different ground? Beat chapter 6. Every piece is masterfully layered, giving an almost three dimensional representation of the landscape in form of sound. The layers are flighty, then airy, then happy, then mysterious, and for the final layer - dark. What's more, each score for each area in chapter 6 seem to precede each other. You can hear a touch of something in the first track, that makes itself more pronounced in the second track, until finally it becomes the main part of a later piece. They are all part of their own album, in their own right. One continuous, changing, flowing fountain of melody that soothes the soul.

If a game is truly fun to play everytime, does a masterful score that makes you shiver and shudder at times not add to the playability? I think it does. I hope the future has better scores. Scores that return us to the days where the music and the gameplay complimented each other so much that they became one entity. If that day comes, I'll be sure to get some DTS equipment. -Astro-