Interactive/Context-Sensitive Music.

[Grey Area]

Only example i can think of is Burnout 2. When you get the burnout it ramps up the volume of the tune thats on. Really ups the addrenaline and makes you drive crazier to keep the high volume on.

[Tig]

TOUCH FUZZY!



Hardly the greatest example. But someone had to mention it.

In Ocarina of Time, if you stand still in the Hyrule Field area, the music slows down and becomes more lulled. Start running and the music picks up pace again.

I've played OoT for almighty lenghts of time without noticing this. Got to load it up again now.

[IainMcC]

Funnily enough, I've been writing an article on this very subject for PC Gamer over the last month or two.

I've been doing quite a lot of research into this subject, and the questions I'm trying to answer in the piece are:

1) What was the first videogame to feature context sensitive music?
2) What are the best examples of videogames (from the 8-bit era upwards) to feature context sensitive music?
3) What does having context sensitive music add to the experience of playing a game, opposed to a set, repeating score?

I obviously have a few ideas about 2) and 3) but I've yet to find a truly definitive answer to 1). If anyone can help me find the answer to 1) or have opinions on the other two questions they'd like to share with me, I'd be eternally grateful.

[Alf-Life]

Feel free to check out the games mentioned here, then. The ones I've personally experienced - and which might be useful for you if it's a PC-only topic - are the Monolith shooters; No One Lives Forever (1 and 2) and Aliens Versus Predator 2 (and Tron 2.0?).
These games come with mod tools and stuff (helpful editing sites for NOLF at nolfgirl.com and AvP2 at gamegossip.com's forums/planetavp.com) so you can actually get ahold of the wavs and whatnot to see how they were done, too.

[jezzace]

If its pc only article you're doing make sure you mention the Lucasarts iMuse systems.

[IainMcC]

The piece isn't going to be totally PC-centric, though the more modern examples will be, for obvious reasons. I'm more looking for information about pre-486 era games, Amiga, 8-bit games, etc, because I already know all about iMuse and most of the more recent examples on context-sensitive music in PC games.

Charles mentioned Wizardy on the C64, but I've been trying to find earlier examples, without much luck so far. Anyone know of any?