History of Vocal Music in Video Games

[1983parrothead]

Perhaps the earliest vocal music to chiptune conversion was Ray Parker Jr.'s Ghostbusters theme song for various platforms, perhaps initially starting with the Atari 2600 version in 1985. Correct me if I am incorrect.

But the first video game to feature vocal music in Japanese and English versions was Psycho Soldier's arcade theme song. While the first Japanese vocal song to chiptune conversion was Teddy Boy Blues (Song by Ishino Yōko).

[moran]

The Goonies game had the Cyndi Lauper song The Goonies R Good Enough as its main theme.

[strizzuth]

Goonies came out in '88 while Teddy Boy Blues was released in '85. The Mark III version, Teddy Boy, came out in '86. Ghostbusters was actually first released in 1984 for the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit. It was then ported to other platforms including the Apple II and ZX Spectrum that same year. The theme song was present in all 4 versions including a bouncing ball karaoke effect on the more advanced C64 and Atari, and a simpler effect for the Apple II and Speccy.

However, all of this is preceded by Journey Escape for the 2600 from 1982 which had a short chiptune version of Don't Stop Believin'. Journey for arcades in 1983 had longer versions of a few more songs including Wheel in the Sky.

[Lord Dalek]

Journey arcade also has a single of Separate Ways on a cassette tape that plays when you clear a loop.

I think Psycho Soldier was the first game to sing a full song in game.

[moran]

Aug 22, 2014 13:21:40 GMT -5 strizzuth said:

Goonies came out in '88

The first game was released in 86 and used the same music. Goonies II was released in 87.

[ommadawnyawn2]

A couple from the early 90s:
Cannon Fodder (1993) - "War Has Never Been So Much Fun"
Sensible World of Soccer (1994) - "Goal Scoring Superstar Hero"

Road Blaster (ARC, 1985) has someone acting as a DJ in the intro track:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciMTAcqdh4o

The SCD version's intro has the hilarious 'On the Road' instead:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke9_D890saY

[strizzuth]

I unironically love On The Road.

[Diego]

The first vocal theme I can remember is (as TC said)from Psycho Soldier.
The second one (from a non-CD source)is the intro from Down the World, on the SNES:



There's a arrange version out there. I remember I used to like that song a lot.

Edit: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fetl0aXP1_4

[1983parrothead]

There are more games with a great deal of real vocal music other than rhythm games:

B. Rap Boys
Violent Storm
Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure

[vnisanian2001]

1984's Freshman Tooru-kun (a.k.a. High School Graffiti: Mikie) featured covers of the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night, and Twist and Shout (the latter was technically not originally a Beatles song, but the arrangement was based on their cover).

It was a very early arcade game for Konami.

[lanceboyle94]

Sept 1, 2014 12:02:23 GMT -5 ommadawnyawn2 said:

A couple from the early 90s:
Cannon Fodder (1993) - "War Has Never Been So Much Fun"
Sensible World of Soccer (1994) - "Goal Scoring Superstar Hero"

Vocal tunes was Sensible Software's kinda thing ever since Cannon Fodder, really.







There's actually three versions of Goal Scoring Superstar Hero: the original from the Amiga SWOS, an arrangement for the intro of the DOS version, and yet another arrangement initially for Sensible Soccer 2006 but also used on the XBLA port of SWOS, this time titled Goalscoringsuperstarhero for some reason.

Sept 1, 2014 12:02:23 GMT -5 ommadawnyawn2 said:

Road Blaster (ARC, 1985) has someone acting as a DJ in the intro track:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciMTAcqdh4o

The SCD version's intro has the hilarious 'On the Road' instead:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke9_D890saY

On the Road is the fucking best, I love it.

[magic89]

I dont know what first vocal music in VG history was, but my first time heared vocaled* song was "Walker" for Amiga.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEWwqKPr4E0

*If can call this because only sampled voice clips only are heared,