When I go through the list of my favorite games, I find that those at the top are the ones with the best sound design. A game can have cutting-edge graphics, fluid gameplay, and a fantastic storyline, but without a few groovy tunes or satisfying effects popping in every so often, in the words of Randy Jackson, “It’s a no from me, dawg.”

Good sound design adds juice to a game—that je ne sais quoi that sucks your attention to the screen and begs you to “stay awhile and listen.” More than that, great sound design transports you back into a game when you aren’t even playing with a single chord sequence or series of notes. However, if you play as many games as I do, you know that sometimes hearing the same opening track over and over elicits a bit of an ear sigh.

Now, I get it. You’re probably thinking: this guy just spent a paragraph talking about sound design, and now he’s going to start trashing on game soundtracks? But just hear me out (yes, I do puns too). I’m not here to rag on your favorite video game jams or to force you to read my hot take on good versus bad sound design. I am here to offer you a few games with wonderful sound design that only benefit from the addition of a personalized music experience.

Enter the Gungeon

Enter the Gungeon is a rogue-lite (a game genre involving multiple playthroughs of the same levels), bullet hell (meaning you dodge a lot of things) game set in the fictional, pixelated Gungeon, a vast cavern filled with living bullet creatures, lots of weapons, and a hurtful number of gun-related puns.

This game’s fast-paced, punishing gameplay is complimented by a hard-hitting, synth-heavy soundtrack and punchy sound effects that make your body jerk with each sound spike. However, because constantly replaying sections of this game is a feature of its genre, I find myself occasionally wanting a fresh sonic layer to get me through my latest playthrough.

Often, my go-to tracks for this game mimic the intensity of the original soundtrack in attempts to match the same energy and keep me in the zone. I find myself gravitating toward synthwave artists like Perturbator and Carpenter Brut for their tight sense of musical pocket, the darker tones of their tracks, as well as their affinity for sounds that compliment Enter the Gungeon’s pixel aesthetic nicely. Listen to this track, “Le perv,” by Carpenter Brut to get a feel for what I mean.

Another musical genre that I find fits well with Enter the Gungeon is hip-hop, particularly artists that lean toward the genre’s quirkier side. Doseone, the composer of the game’s soundtrack, has a background in hip-hop, which carries over into many of the game’s tracks.

Unconventional beats and hard rhythms fit with the chaotic nature of Enter the Gungeon, such as those found on Danny Brown’s Old and Atrocity Exhibition, two albums I have played over Gungeon runs many times. Danny Brown’s back-heavy flow and quick delivery, along with his driving beats and colorful ad-libs, create a satisfying backdrop to the tone of the Gungeon’s environment and characters. “Golddust” is a great example of all of these elements.

Although I love Enter the Gungeon’s soundtrack, personalizing the music I listen to while playing provides an interesting remix to my gameplay experience. Listening to albums with separation between tracks also helps provide more clarity to the rest of the game’s sound design by revealing the depth to sounds originally blurred.

Sid Meier’s Civilization V

Civilization V, a 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate), turn-based strategy game, is a great game if you have a few days to waste. Seriously, a game of Civ V is bound to keep you occupied for a long time; after all, you are literally managing an entire civilization’s world exploration, economy, cultural development, and everything else required to build a civilization from the ground up. Since this game happens in turns, each game involves a lot of downtime, and the soundtrack reflects a relaxing atmosphere to keep your decisions sharp and your negotiations tactful.

Calming, symphonic scores match the civilization you choose to play with appropriately beautiful tones, while musical chimes, rings, and drums alert you to important events occurring across the map. However, when you’re 500 turns and countless hours into an eight-player game, you probably want to listen to something else (at least, I know I do).

For those slow-paced, lengthy matches, I like to parallel what the game already does so well. Ambient tracks, particularly from electronic artists such as Aphex Twin, serve as a good supplement to the original soundtrack with the addition of more haunting musical motifs that layer well with the sense of exploration and surprise within the game.

Ambiance like this promotes a focused environment that appeals to the game’s strategic elements as well. After all, when playing Civ V, you want to think about what city to invade next, not how meaningful the lyrics of the current song are. Give “Pulsewidth” by Aphex Twin a listen and you’ll understand what I mean.

If I’m toward the end of a Civilization V match, when I’m turns away from a win or trying to prevent one of my opponents from their win, I align those stakes with my musical choice. The underground hip-hop trio Death Grips or the electronic-inspired jazz trio Moon Hooch are two of my top picks for this mood. Artists like these make every decision in a nail-biting game of Civ V feel even more impactful.

Plus, the pulsating beats and eccentric changes occurring throughout the songs transport me to a realm of attention that subsides my rising heart rate and prevents me from getting too “tilted” at critical moments. For an example track, listen to “Three Bedrooms in a Good Neighborhood” by Death Grips.

Really, these and other tracks could apply to any 4X strategy game (they’re all relatively similar). What I love about personalizing music with Civilization V, in particular, is the extensive list of civilizations to choose from, already promoting an open concept in gameplay that you can back up with your own playlist.

Fallout Series

As one of Bethesda’s main series, Fallout takes the story-driven, action role-playing game (ARPG) genre to an alternate Earth where the 1950s never left, even after a series of atomic bombs left an apocalyptic wasteland behind. With the radio stations in the latest three games, old-timey jams and classic hits make up the game’s soundtrack, accompanying the player in their fight against irradiated animals, violent raiders, killer robots, and other, wackier foes. And while I can’t praise tunes like “Johnny Guitar” enough, there’s a reason mods like this exist to try and insert some individual music variety.

In maintaining the 50’s vibes of the original radio stations, I look for music that could conceivably exist in the Fallout universe even if Bethesda didn’t think to include it (likely for copyright reasons, but we’ll just move past that). Classics by Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, and Ray Charles top the list for me, as their discography blends seamlessly with rest of Fallout’s musical selections.

These artists, in particular, deliver a livelier sound to Fallout’s gameplay that I find lacking in the list of crooners and soul-singers. They also help me transition into the nostalgic tone conveyed by Fallout’s imagery, as these artists are reminiscent of my time listening to my father’s record collection as a child. Tell me you wouldn’t want to shoot some bad guys to a track like “Get Rhythm.”

If I’m in the mood for something less lore-friendly, I try to pick tracks that still fit the spirit of the original soundtrack with some modern feels. I go for artists like Fleet Foxes for their wide-open, adventurous tones that fit the game’s open-world exploration, or jazzier, darker sensibilities from groups like BadBadNotGood when I want to stealth my way through a dark building or abandoned vault.

Using a dual approach like this requires more work in terms of changing and finding appropriate tracks, but I find it rewarding to sync what I’m hearing to what my character is doing on-screen. Mixing darker and lighter tones like this helps gameplay feel more dynamic as well, mitigating any potential lapses in immersion, which the game is already designed to maximize. Just listen to “Can’t Leave the Night” by BadBadNotGood and I guarantee you’ll be able to imagine traversing through a bleak, apocalyptic city.

Fallout is the epitome of an open-concept to sound design where, depending on your mood, almost anything can work alongside the minimalist approach to sound effects and careful attention to music balance. Of course, for most, staying as close to the original game experience keeps precedence, but if you want to branch out and experiment, this would be the game to do so.

I want to stress one more thing: this is just my opinion. Video games are a passion of mine that I take seriously, but I would never claim to know the best way to play a game or the best methods of improving gameplay with personalized music. Taste is relative, and all tastes are valid. So if you want to play shoegaze to Call of Duty, death metal to Mario Kart, or just keep it simple and never touch the sound options in a game, you do you.