Replacing Original Game Music

[blade2k]

My friend and I used to go through LOTR Return Of the King co-op on a weekly basis. Not one of the greatest games of all time, but a routine for us for a while.

During the large battle sections, not the walking bits, we used to turn off the game music and play Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms. It gave the levels a far heavier emotional impact than the original score did, especially the Southern Gate battle.

Has anyone else ever done this? Or can think of a level from a game that would have been greatly enhanced by an alternate soundtrack?

 

[Andy_Panthro]

I quite often will play my own music instead of listening to the games music.

Diablo 2 is a good example for lots of heavy metal (in my opinion of course!).

I also would change the music in morrowind/oblivion (even easier with these, just move some files into the respective music directories.), using game music and remixes from other similar games.

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

I'll only listen to my own music after I've completed a game and witnessed (Heard) all it has to offer.
obvious exception being RPGs like Oblivion and Fallout 3. because there is so much to do it's hard to ever really end.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

Thunderstruck by AC/DC and Indestructible by Disturbed go well with most shooters and recently, Dawn of War 2.

 

[DrunkWithPower]

I enjoyed doing CoD4 with The GO! Team.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I used to play WoW with Such Great Hights by The Postal Service. Other than that I think I played UT2K4 with some of my music in the background.

 

[Sir Ollie]

never gonna give you up by rick astley....in any game

It's wonderful in Doom.

Anyway, The Final Countdown is pretty awesome in last stand mode.

 

[Kilaknux]

I like to play "I'm an Emo Kid" whenever Raiden starts talking in Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4.

 

[Flour]

Since I usually listen to classical music, it's difficult to not have or know of music that sounds better during certain situations.
I'll be boring and add the 2 most well known examples, just think of a game while listening to one of these and it'd be very difficult to not think of a part where this would greatly enhance the experience.

Ride of the Valkyries [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AlEvy0fJto]
Also Sprach Zarathustra [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLuW-GBaJ8k]

And some music to greatly improve any chase scene, works great in games like DMC and Ninja Gaiden: Yakety Sax [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spz8_rpE0e0] - this is a slightly faster sounding version from the original and IMO it really improved it, especially

Other than this, I have the standard mix of songs I like and electric guitar music that goes great in basically any fast-paced game.(some exceptions for songs like Time to Say Goodbye [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohXI3po8hK0])

Whenever I start a game for the first time the first thing I do is disable the default music. I pause my own music for any cutscenes I don't skip on the PC, and 360 games that don't pause music on their own don't have cutscenes worth watching. Then, after playing the game a bit I will make a new playlist with songs for any (expected) situation in the game.

 

[Kermi]

I liked that I was able to copy entire albums to my hard drive with my old XBox (someone in Sydney probably owns a pre-owned XBox that has three Sonata Arctica albums on it - I've sadly long lost those CDs) but sadly there were far too few games that supported custom soundtracks. I played Sega GT 2002 solely so I could race to speed metal.
I also made my own radio stations in The Sims 2 and GTA: Vice City.

But for the most part I just had winamp running while playing anything on my PC, back in my high school days when my actual music collection consisted of 600 or so mp3s I found on napster or kazaa.

 

[DYin01]

Raids in WoW go very well with heavy metal or rave music like The Prodigy. Anything with a lot of energy, really.

 

[Pandawudell]

i usually play my own music whilst playing driving games so i don't fall asleep!

a good mix i found was Kasabians new album with skate 2 = awesomeage

 

[riskroWe]

Ion Dissonance or Angerfist go great with any FPS.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

I usually tend to shut off the games music eventually.
Only a few games have music that doesn't get boring eventually.
Some (J)RPG's with their one battle music track, sheesh!

Best game tracks: Diablo 1: "Into Town" and Final Fantasy VII: "Battle Music".
I'd never shut those off ;-)

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

Right.
You know the part in Half Life where the Gargantua (I think that's the name of it) is? And you have to run around to block killing people to get to the control room. Jackson - Johnny Cash.

I've been waiting for the perfect game to play to Misirlou and I think Wet will be this game. We will see though.

 

[Infallible Fail]

Call of Duty 4. Obvious, yes, both because of the music in game and the fun of FPS played to a good song.
OMG. I remember played MGS on the playstation while listening to, like, NOW 17 or something. Everytime i hear the music i get game flashbacks, and everytime i see the gameplay i get music flashbacks. <3 it. Same with Cod4 and Zeitgeist..

 

[Aqualung]

I often play Assassin's Creed while listening to 'Assassin' by Muse. Makes collecting flags more fun, and gives you a mad urge to run across rooftops.

In game, of course.