BEST LICENSED MUSIC

It’s usually said that if music is the food of the soul, play on. For all those people who don’t have the time to create their own brand of music for their games, licensing popular tracks to play along with seems to make everyone - from the band, to the publishers to the gamers - happy. But playing with licensed music is a lot like walking on a tightrope between two high cliffs in a storm, blindfolded, on a unicycle and juggling powersaws with diamond-tipped blades. Here are the people who actually made this harrowing trip in one piece and won a place in our hearts for making the games all that much more fun.

The Nominees

And the winner is…

Boy was this a close call. With Guitar Hero 3 giving it a run for its money, we were really lost as to which one to pick. Rock Band, with a spectacular track listing - iconic songs from legends such as The Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, RHCP, Metallica, The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Garbage, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, R.E.M., Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, Stone Temple Pilots, Bon Jovi, The Who and a crapload more - easily made the cut, especially when you consider that you’re not only slamming on your guitar, but also crooning into the mic and banging away for dear life on the drums. Life just doesn’t get any better than this.

The Runners-Up:

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock:

Just because GH3 isn’t the winner doesn’t make it any less awesome. With icons like Hit me with your best shot, the unbelievably enjoyable Barracuda, the tempestuous Rock you like a hurricane, the do-you-in-the-butt tough Through the fire and flames and dozens of unbelievably fantastic tracks from Lacuna Coil, Killswitch Engage, Iron Maiden, Metallica and others, this game has reunited us with some of the best songs in music history, while allowing us to interact with them in totally new ways.

Boogie

The game might not have done all too well, but the music for this one again featured some of the most iconic numbers that most of us have grown up with. While the driving games in the genre rode the punk rock and new rave waves, Boogie stuck to tried-and-tested pop numbers from the 80s and 90s that everybody could just sit down and enjoy. The only reason it doesn’t climb any higher than this is simply because it included songs (aka poptrash) from Britney Spears and JLo.

Reader’s Choice Award:

Powered by Gregarious (42)

• Vaibhav Says:
  January 2nd, 2008 at 12:21 am

  Way To Go Guy !!! keep the good work up !

• Ravi Says:
  January 2nd, 2008 at 7:48 pm

  Congrats guys for bringing out this cool website!.

  The winners are as expected.heh.

• Speeder Says:
  January 7th, 2008 at 1:01 am

  Good layout and nice name. Looks like another address gonna get added to my bookmarks

• bobby sandhu Says:
  January 12th, 2008 at 6:52 pm

  It took the web server 1.54 seconds of back-breaking labor to give birth to this page.
  No computers were harmed in the making of this page, but a few hundred browsers may have been euthanised.

• V Says:
  February 20th, 2008 at 6:20 pm

  Nice results.Seems fair enough.
  Cheers!!!

• LEGEND Says:
  April 7th, 2008 at 7:35 am

  WELL TOMB RAIDER AND OTHER GAMES LIKE LOST PLANET ,SOUL CALLIBUR, SILENT HUNTERS, FIFA, FLATOUT, RED LINE ETC…….SHOULD HAVE BEEN INDUCTED.