I'll be the first to admit that I really like racing games. I don't know why, but sometimes there seems to be some sort of stigma surrounding this genre. "You just drive around in laps" is a complaint I often hear. Well, yeah, and going by that simplifaction of things, all you do in a first person shooter is clicking on bad guys. I just like racing games. Participating in a race requires being able to control your nerves and having a good sense of how to take corners. Not to mention that travelling at extremely high speeds - on a screen or not - is just damn awesome.
There's one thing I will admit, though, namely that racing games, especially more recent ones, all seem to be suffering from a universal problem: they have AWFUL soundtracks. Whether it consists of original compositions or existing pop songs, the music department of a lot of racing games is nothing short of aural rape most of the time. More often than not, I mute the in-game music and play my own selection of (obviously cool, sophisticated and tasteful) songs using Windows Media Player. In order to prove the lamentable state of music in racing games, I'll diagnose a few titles released in the past couple of years and categorise their tastelessness.
Patient: Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2010
Symptoms: Godawful autotune shit and rock songs that even approach Bon Jovi in boringness.
Diagnosis: It's been obvious for a while that the "EA Trax" system doesn't always result in the most colourful soundtracks. Because EA's games are mostly big titles that have a very pluriform target audience, the soundtrack can usually only contain generic music that noone really likes, but that isn't bothersome either. Knowing that I needn't have to expect 'hidden gem' or 'acquired taste' type of artists or songs in Hot Pursuit's soundtrack, I was still disappointed with it. First off, I honestly cannot grasp how anyone likes music with autotune in it. If you're really that uncultivated, you might as well start using Songsmith to record your own albums. Moreover, nearly every song in the soundtrack is subpar even compared to what's hot in its respective genre at the moment. Basically, they're artists who try to play the same generic pop music that usually weasels its way into the charts, but fail to be successful even with that. Now, why would that be?
Stage of the disease: 9. There's still a handful of listenable songs to be found, such as that 30 Seconds To Mars song and the two tracks by The Klaxons, but that is really it.
Prescription: Just *coughdownloadcough* the soundtrack of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 from 2002. It actually had some decent alternative rock, such as Course of Nature and The Buzzhorn, and while the music wasn't THAT remarkable, it went really well with the music. Also, there's no autotune.
"Wow, autotune pop is so amazing!"
Patient: FUEL
Symptoms: Sleep-incuding genericalness of the highest order and short-term memory loss.
Diagnosis: As much as I love FUEL, I turned off the music a few minutes into my first playing session. Not because it made my ears bleed like Hot Pursuit's audio disaster, but because it was just... boring. FUEL's music consists solely of a handful of uninspired guitar tracks that lack the speed or aggressiveness that is obligatory when accompanying a racing game. In FUEL's case, this might've been forgivable, seeing as the game relies more on atmosphere and loneliness than driving so hard that you feel your head is about to fall off. But even then, these tracks seem to be unable to capture an atmosphere of whatever kind. The worst part is that there are only about 5 different tracks. I've actually spent more than 70 hours playing this game, so I'm glad I turned the in-game music off in the first few minutes of gameplay.
Stage of the disease: 6. Inoffensive but possibly dangerous as it may cause drivers to fall asleep.
Prescription: Desolate, melancholic music of your own choice. Alcest did the trick for me, although the occasional death metal also works if I want to have the feeling I'm going really fast on my candy-ass dirt bike.
Fenriz makes your bike go faster.
Patient: FlatOut - Ultimate Carnage
Symptoms: Wimpy wannabe punk and angsty rock music for vampire kids.
Diagnosis: Whenever I play FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage, I get the idea that this game wasn't marketed towards my 22-year-old self. The music that plays in the background is the kind of harmless pop punk takes me back to my high school days, when crap like Green Day started getting popular. Do you remember hanging out at the basketball court after school, illegally drinking and smoking with your equally black-clad friends while listening to American Idiot? Because I sure don't. At least I have to admire FlatOut for trying to appeal to angsty kids who think dying their hair black makes them 'alternative', instead of going for the 'let's just piss off everyone'-approach taken by Hot Pursuit. I don't know, maybe they should call the next game in the series FlatOut Boy.
Stage of disease: 7. There's some half-way decent stuff in there, but it's very rare. Just turn it off, you madman!
Prescription: Just play Megadeth or something. Not that I'm into them all that much, but they make for bearable background music most of the time.
Patient: Burnout Paradise
Symptoms: "Hey look, we got a Guns 'n' Roses song!"
Diagnosis: Every time you start up the game, 'Paradise City' by GnR will play. Every. Single. Time. Even if you mute the in-game music, it will still play before you have loaded your profile. That's just cold, man. Not that GnR was bad, but I want to at least have a choice in being reminded of their botox-infested hasbeen of a frontman every time I decide to play this. The rest of the soundtrack is decent enough, even though it features artists such as Seether, Avril Lavigne and Faith No More. You can even switch to the next song with the mere press of a button. Still, turning off the music is still recommended, as you don't want to search for the few decent songs in the middle of a fast-as-hell race.
Stage of disease: 5. You may encounter some decent songs, but you can't unring a bell, so mute the music before the crappy songs start ruining your life.
Prescription: Relentless black metal will do for now.
Patient: Need For Speed Underground
Symptoms: Traumatic rap music and screamo from hell.
Diagnosis: Okay, so Underground isn't a recent game, but I felt the need to include it because I believe this game set the trend for horrid soundtracks. As if hearing that hilariously bad 'RUM-PUM-PUM' song everytime you start up the game wasn't enough, it actually seems as if the makers actively tried to find the most unbearable rap and rock out there and cram it all into one soundtrack. At least, that's the only explanation I can think of when hearing complete and utter DUNG like 'And the Hero Will Drown' by Story of the Year. I'm aware of the fact that a lot of people out there actually praised this game's soundtrack back in the day and still do, but they are probably the same people who think street racing culture is cool and complain about Hot Pursuit 2010 not having a story.
Stage of disease: 10. This soundtrack is beyond all hope.
Prescription: Even Songsmith Motörhead will sound forgiving at this point.
Don't hate; compensate.
Bear in mind that I actually love all of these games, bar Need For Speed Underground. It's probably not even their fault that they have to abide to what seems to becoming a law in this genre of video games. Not to mention that playing your own music is a sensible solution in most cases. Just make sure you turn the in-game music off, or your ears WILL explode.
Jesse Dolman, NoobFeed.
I always take a closer look at the soundtracks, specially regarding racing games. Those games are fun to play but the soundtrack is quite boring. On the other hand, I played other games with awesome soundtracks such as NFS: Undercover and one of my personal favorites, DiRT 2.
No worries, you deffo ain't the first :P I hate to admit it but you 're certainly right about the "below average" music included in racing games. And like you do, I tend to choose my own kind of music when playing racing games, GT5 in particular.
I've only enjoyed the tracks from NFS MW2, rest of the racing game tracks weren't as suitable as the game required. Specially when you are on a tense moment, a mismatch song can take away your concentration.
It's true that time to time these background music can be very annoying even though they belong to great albums or greatest hits. What I do is disable the background music and only keep the game music. Though during the free roaming I don't mind whatever is playing.
Hey I like the new banner. Just need time to get used to. Hope that you all are doing well. Blessings of March on the way!
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Grid and NFS Shift have good menu music, that's all I know. Otherwise, I don't listen to music during races as it can take away from being able to hear the RPM's for shifting. If I do listen, I put on my own selection. You can't rely on the replay of a small selection of game music to ever keep satisfied for long. Oh, and sorry for my sentence fragments and generally poor grammar. If nobody can understand my post, I apologize for writing this way.