“Alright, it's Saturday night, I have no date, a two liter bottle of shasta, and my all rush mix-tape. Let's rock.” When you get ready for a night of gaeman, you have to get the perfect music, and while I'll agree with Fry, Rush is pretty ownage to shoot down space invaders to (when you have the 20 minute rush epic, 2112, looped you know your down to business), but different circumstances require certain music to get optimum performance out. Here's how I break it down.

When you need something to pump you up, as you run around in a fast paced FPS like Unreal Tournament or Timesplitters, maybe even a TPS like S4 League, you have to listen to something equally faced paced. You need something to get the blood pumping and to get into the groove of just running on a suicide run, shooting your double SBP's, mowing down everything in the way, then just as you run out of ammo and get over run by monkey's, you go out in a fiery suicidal rocket explosion, taking anyone around you with you. I usually put some techno/trance/industrial on to get me pumped up. Timesplitters has the PERFECT soundtrack for this, I actually downloaded their cds (Free Radical has them for download free here, aren't they so nice? More companies should be like this) onto my computer to listen to in other games of similar nature. My playlist will normally include Timesplitters, some industrial (like Panic Lift), some techno (usually its from other video game soundtracks, a few DJ mixes), some techno/metal mix (Blood Stained Child), and the pokemon remixes.

Ok you're playing a shooter, but its not fast past, its something a little slower like Team Fortress 2. Here's where it can get a little tricky. Sometimes its good to take from the previous list to get you in the groove, but then again, with slower paced games “the groove” can get you killed as you try to do things that just don't work. Let's take TF2, my favorite class is the spy. Backstabbing people to metal or techno just doesn't work. Backstabbing people to silence just doesn't work. You need something with class, something with elegance. This is normally when I pop the symphonic arrangements. You time and manage your stealths perfectly, flowing with the enemies forces as not to get caught, feeling the tides of the crescendo's and decrescendo's of Karajan conducting Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. A demoman's sticky bombs explode perfectly to the timpani as a crit rocket flies past you and explodes as the woodwinds make their entrance. Then you find your target, the medic with an ubercharge ready and a heavy waiting, as the music climaxes you throw off your soldier disguise and send your knife swiftly into the medics back, dash forward to the heavy before he sees what happens and dispense of him, and then cloak back into the shadows with the resolution. When you need to find your groove for a slower paced shooter, you just need something like Holst's Planet Suite or Sibellius' Finlandia to clear up your head and calm you down as you effortlessly float across the battlefield racking up kills.

What if there's something that just has a feel to it, it's setting just requires something or you might as well not play at all. Battlefield Vietnam is like that. You just can't be in the jungles with your m16 (or ak47 depending which team your on) without some music of the era. The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, The Beatles, you just have to have them on your playlist, or you aren't playing Battlefield Vietnam, your just playing some shooting game. It really does make a difference, just play the Apocalypse Now soundtrack while sitting in the bushes waiting for your kill or flying around in a MIG and it'll double your score.

Ok so enough shooters, what if your just playing a RPG or something? Now if you're playing something with a famous, well known soundtrack, why the hell would you try to change it? If not just put something enjoyable to listen to on, RPG's tend to not have the “groove” factor that most shooters do. If I'm playing a classic like Chrono Trigger or a Final Fantasy, or anything with a soundtrack made of pure win (The World Ends With You), I'm not going to mess with it. If not, I'll just listen to good music, the style doesn't matter much on this one, some jazz (Diablo Swing Orchestra), progressive (Dream Theater, Atomic Fireballs), or just anything (apparently Saturn makes some pretty sweet music).

Now if you're writing a blog post on listening to music while playing the vidya, you listen to the Gurren Lagann soundtrack. ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWER.