A little old, perhaps, but not spotted by many - Science Blogs' 'Cognitive Daily' blog took a look at how in-game music affects video games last month, citing a study in which researchers made volunteers "play three different segments from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers."

Apparently, the volunteers "rated the game/music experience along 21 different dimensions", presumably into parallel universes, and science-blogger Dave Munger suggets: "Perhaps the most interesting result of this experiment had to do with the gender of participants. Males rated the game as significantly less "dangerous" when music was not being played compared to when music was played, but women found it equally dangerous in either case."

So... music is kinda important to the whole gaming experience, right? Or do you guys all put Cat Power or Mantovani on when jamming to God Of War? [via Fort90.]