I believe it was Mozart who said, "Music makes the people come together." That or it was Madonna. Either way: Truer words were never spoken, am I right?

Think about the things you love most about your favorite games. Sure, we all love great stories and characters. Graphics and art are nice, too. But I'll bet that for most people, it's the music that resonates most. A video game's music is what sticks with us as the years go by—we hear our favorite melodies and we're transported.

What's more, games themselves are more like music than people realize. We spend a lot of time comparing games to film, but at their heart, most games have a lot more in common with music. The rhythm of play, the push and pull of fingers and thumbs on a controller; the way we learn complicated figures and patterns like they were scales and instrumental techniques. And don't forget the tension and release of good level design, the synthesis of mechanics and story like music and lyrics in a song...

After all, what do musicians and gamers spend so much of their time doing?

Playing.

Every Thursday from 7:00 to 9:00 Eastern, Kotaku Melodic will take a sojourn into the worlds of music and video games, as well as the many places where those two worlds intersect. We'll talk, we'll listen, and above all we'll play.

We welcome your musical tips and suggestions—please send them to Kirk@kotaku.com and put "Melodic" in the subject line.