WTH happened to awesome boss music in games?

[disolitude]

darkknightkryta said:

disolitude said:

 

I'm not sure about your analysis because I think you're saying that without blowing lots of money on an orchestra you can't have a good quality soundtrack in a game?

I'm arguing here that the arangement and tone/atittude of the music is key regardless of instruments used and production. You can have an awesome 8 bit sounding boss music that fits a modern AAA game boss fight while and orchestra can completely miss the point.  Appart from God of War, which is trully epic in every way, including sountracks, when orchestras are involved, they tend to just mimic movie scores and sound like backround ambient noise. 

I will admit that God of War has awesome compositions, stuff like this is great - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufWX2yg1XIE

But even that sounds like I'm watching the intro credits to a Marvel Super Hero movie directed by Tim Burton, and not fighting a video game boss. 

Well, this is a partial misunderstanding :P.  I was saying that most devs have switched over orchestra.  Some devs haven't.  Some like that synth sound, like in Mass Effect.  I was just saying that classic music is being relegated to niche games pretty much due to budgets.  So I'm sure you'd find better tracks that suit you in those games, is what I was trying to say.

Funny you mention that track cause that's the one I was going to post :P.  I think it fits perfectly, that epicness with the brass taking over.  It tells a story, which is why I like it, and why I like killing enemies to it.  There's a version in the original God of War, it was done with keyboard orchestra, maybe you'd like that one better?

I would put Mass Effect in the same category as God of War in terms of music. Very skillful and cinematic music written to match the mood and situations of the game...

Mass Effect series is definitely more synth based, but the funny thing is that the same guy composed both Mass Effect and God of War games - http://gamingbolt.com/mass-effect-god-of-war-composer-working-on-company-of-heroes-2-original-score

I don't have any issues with either of those 2 games since they are so heavily story driven and their audio matches their overall tone.

I do see a lot of missed opportunities in terms of soundtracks in other current gen AAA games.

Like Halo 4 for example...343 Studios could have done so much cool stuff and reinvented the audio for that game but they were perfectly content just doing their best impression of the old Bungie made Halo compositions. It sounds great but its familiar territory. Some of those insane battles with newly introduced Promethians really could have used some lively "boss" music...etc