So, one of the most reclusive musical geniuses of his time, Syd Barrett, is dead at just 60. For those of you who don't know him, Barrett was one of the founding members of Pink Floyd (and if you don't know who they are, well there's no hope for you I'm afraid) who left a major mark on their early work, and inspired quite a few artists since with his quite acidic style of music that is a lot sharper than the later, post-Barrett Floyd music that's probably much better known (Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall and so on.)

I'm a big Pink Floyd man, and unlike most of today's flash-in-the-pan bands that last four years if they're lucky, Pink Floyd has been around for about four decades, making music for three. You can chart their music, their influences and those of their front men across a wide spectrum of periods and events.

One reason I mention them here, apart from extolling of their virtues, is because I listen to a lot of Pink Floyd whilst gaming. It has me thinking, how many people actually do that? And in what type of games do they do it? For example, I rarely listen to music whilst playing first-person shooters, as it can take away from the atmosphere. I also rarely do it whilst playing online games that require intense tactical concentration, where hearing footsteps and so on is important, but I do listen to it whilst playing more frantic, Unreal Tournament, type games.

One also listens to different types of music for different games - frantic rock whilst playing a shooter, and more mellow music (think Shine On You Crazy Diamond, to stick to the Floyd theme) whilst playing turn-based strategy games, or city building ones. Not many games have soundtracks that can hold themselves up, unfortunately. The likes of the Hitman series, with their Kyd music, do it well. But fire up City Life and tell me you don't want to bleed out your ears after listening to the cheerful music for an hour or two.

Well lucky me I have the likes of Bike and Jugband Blues to see me through... Rest in Peace Syd, and thanks a lot.