Episodes
| Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Repeated | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Charlie Brooker's Video Game Playlist | 20190303 | 20190310 (6M) | Video game music has come a long way since the bleeps and bloops of Pong. Games like Assassin's Creed and Red Dead Redemption 2 now come with dense, cinematic scores that stretch over 50 or 60 hours of playing time. Mark Savage speaks to some of the industry's leading composers, including Yoko Shimomura (Street Fighter II), Grant Kirkhope (Goldeneye) and Bafta-winner Jessica Curry (Everybody's Gone To The Rapture) and finds out how games companies threw a lifeline to Europe's orchestras when they started commissioning new works. He'll also find out how Michael Jackson and David Bowie ended up as video game characters; and why bands like Depeche Mode and Katy Perry have re-recorded their hits in gibberish for the hit game The Sims. Recorded in Japan, the US and UK, the programme also features observations from gaming expert Charlie Brooker, who chooses his favourite video game music in a separate 6 Music show on 3 March. Mark Savage charts the evolution of video game music. Charlie discusses his passion for video games & selects some of his favourite game music. Charlie Brooker discusses his passion for video games, and selects some of his favourite game music. Years before he created Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker was a video games journalist – reflecting a love of gaming that stretches back to his childhood. It's a passion that's cropped up throughout his career – from programmes like Gameswipe to his appearance on Desert Island Discs, where he selected a track from the Gameboy title Robocop as one of his discs. The most recent episode of Black Mirror – Bandersnatch – even revolves around the creation of a choose-your-own-adventure game, and included bespoke music written on a vintage ZX Spectrum. As part of the 6 Music's History of Video Game Music series, Charlie sat down with Mark Savage to discuss how he discovered games at a local swimming pool, why he finds Super Mario Bros addictive, and how he's using Zelda to teach his children to read. Along the way, he chooses his favourite tracks from video game history. Charlie discusses his passion for video games, selecting some of his favourite game music. |
| 02 | 20190310 | Could you write music for a film if no-one had shown you the script? That's the problem games composers face every day. They're scoring scenes where the player has free will, and the music only works if it reflects their choices. So how do you do it? Mark Savage takes a deep dive into game music, with composers The Flight (Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Horizon: Zero Dawn) and Winifred Phillips (God Of War, Little Big Planet) stripping down their soundtracks to reveal how they work. Radio 3's Tom Service drops in to explain how game music is full of psychological cues; while Ludomusicologist Tim Summers explains the importance of “death music ?. Wrapping up the series, art-rock band 65 Days of Static demonstrate how they created an “infinite soundtrack ? for the sci-fi game No Man's Sky, which changes every time it's played. How do you write music for video games? Charlie discusses his passion for video games & selects some of his favourite game music. |