Sometimes I’m not sure if video games’ sound or graphics have improved more dramatically since the early days of the medium. When Pong hit the scene about a trillion years ago, the game sounds were as minimalistic as the bouncing pixels.  By the time Pac-Man rolled around, we had blocky on-screen characters rendered with a little personality accompanied by a few memorable musical phrases and sounds.  By the time the Nintendo Entertainment System became an obsession, 2D 8-bit games like The Legend of Zelda and Duck Tales featured some of the catchiest and most memorable game music of all time.

In today’s era of lush, 3D games, the music and action sounds have helped to flesh out entire fantasy worlds.  Would Halo 3 be as endlessly playable without its epic score, or Grand Theft Auto: Vice City as immersive without its extensive radio soundtrack?  Today’s Blu-ray technology is known for the eye-popping visuals it makes possible, but the sound quality is so good that it requires a system like the  Kinyo Game Zone 4.1 Channel Surround Sound Speaker System to take full advantage of it.  I don’t recall the soundscape of Kid Icarus requiring 5 speakers to capture.

Makes one wonder where games will be in another 20 years, doesn’t it?