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Video game and music by Tommy Tallarico

Summary
In a study done by Tommy Tallarico a video game music designer, Mr. Tallarico explores the effects of video game music on the gamer .According to Mr. Tallarico, "If you remember in Space Invaders, you know, as the ships started to come down, the aliens, and as they got closer and closer, the sound got faster and faster. Now, what the game programmers did was that they took the person's heart rate, and as they're getting closer and closer, people would start to panic. Now they'd do the same studies without the sound, and the people wouldn't panic as much. And it goes to show and prove how significant audio and music are." As Mr. Tallarico explains music is meant to change heart rate and directly affect the video game experience. Tallarico then delves into how technological advances made music even more integral to the gaming experience, “As personal computers became more agile and more powerful, suddenly the music track could handle something resembling real music. It was 1993's Myst that made Wall realize the power of music in a game. He says the game actually aided the player through the mysterious worlds, functioning as clues.

Analysis
This was quite an intriguing excerpt from a study to read. Being a gamer myself I hadn’t realized the importance of music in video games until after I read this article. What I am curious to know now, after reading this article how the music has evolved over time. As Tallarico alluded to in the last quote about how music now “sounded more like music” and “aided the player through the mysterious worlds functioning as clues”, it would appear that music evolves with the generation. In a game of pong for example there is just a base layer or music that plays. For the present generation of video games for a game such as Metroid Prime : Hunters, there is also a base layer of music but depending on the situation and the location of the character the music changes and will become exaggerated.