Sound is such an invisible force in games. You don't really notice it whilst it's there, but if we were to take it away, you would surely see people quickly checking the audio options bumping up the sound levels and frantically cecking all the audio cables are still plugged in.
Now its not just the sound of footsteps and the realistic sound of brains splattering up a wall when you get a head shot with a 50. cal sniper that i'm talking about. I'm talking about the atmospheric and and epic scores that are composed just to make you cry, laugh sit on the edge of your sofa or other bum cushioning device. But before we get into the whole live orchestra sat in front of MGS4,I want to point out far in game sounds have come and affected our everyday lives.
Travelling home the other day I was just on the train to London, pretty boring and normal when all of a sudden I hear a few seats in front of me the mario coin collection sound go off and a guy picked up his phone ans started reading a text. Now pretty much everyone had looked up and a slight smile on their face remembering the Super Mario games and then immediately began to scowl at the crosswords they don't understand. Still on the subject of Mario, a great viral youtube video of a guy who took the original 8 bit sounding theme and thought it would be cool to beatbox it with a flute!
A little less recently another ringtone/ text alert sound caught my attention as the classic "!" MGS sound went off and I almost caught myself running for a cardboard box to hide under... well ok so its not all about making cool sounds for your phone, but games have really tried to make gaming a wholistic experience. Sound is a very emotional part of our sensory perception of things and can totally change the way we view dramatic moments and relate to events that happen in games. Halo in my opinion, really honed in on their music with large orchestral scores and grandious "LETS KICK ALIEN ASS!" style music to coincide with the games very dramatic intergalatic war based shooter. Uncharted 2 was something that was clearly inspired by the indiana jones scores and kept the music very tight to the way the environment and culture would be represented throughout the level. For example quite eery tibet throat singing was used throughout the creepy tibetan ice cave level in the hunt for the chitamani stone. Now i'd hate to say it but COD Modern Warfare 2 did have a few moments of great music to go along with the mindless killing of NPC's, especially in the Gulag level towards the end of the game (which by the way was totally stolen from the film THE ROCK starring Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/).
Little Big Planet is actually quite thoughtful in the way it allows you to create levels. I mean sure all the visuals and cool interactive effects are there to keep you entertained but they also give you a variety of soundscapes and the use of sound triggers They even went as far as allowing the characters you can make to have a sort of weird simlish language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simlish) to communicate with you, with the help of added speech bubbles! I've created and messed around with the creation tools in LBP and the levels really only come to life when the sounds are added, which is personally the last thing I though would make the levels fun and totally made me realise how stupid I had been in overlooking the most basic of senses that I clearly take for granted!
Actually really good sounds to look out for are in Dead Space 2 well and the first one! That is a prime example of a game that without sound just wouldn't work at all. You can hear the necromorphs running through vents and the humms and buszzes of generators and the clangs of metal falling all help to make wet stains appear on the front of your trousers as there is nothing more scary than the sudden loud bang of a door opening next to you randomly and you can never tell if something is going to come running at you from the dark. Even the futuristic gun sounds are interesting, this is clearly a field waiting to be played in further and hopefully one that big composers can really influence the gameplay just as they influence the story and character in the film industry.
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Sunday, 13 February 2011
Game Engines
Game Engines are the foundation and major tool in allowing everything that is modeled and created for a game to come to life. The Game Engine is not only a way of visually creating a space for the player to move in but also a way to create animations and interactivity for the player to have a more rounded and fun experience in this virtual world.
Recently I have have been toying with the Unreal Editor, which at first seemed kind of daunting but actually once I sat down and watched the incredibly useful tutorials they provide I found that it was actually quite fun. The Unreal Engine is one of the engines I seem to notice more when I'm playing games at home with releases that use the engine such as the Gears of War series, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Splinter Cell: Conviction, Bioshock, Mass Effect 1 and 2. Each of those games is very different but uses the same engine which shows in my opinion that the Unreal Engine has a lot to offer companies in search of a good Engine.
Now don't get me wrong Unreal isn't the only Engine out there and some games just wouldn't run right on it, which is why there are probably about another 100+ for you to try. Now, I won't go through all of them, I'll just pick out a few that have made me go oooooh, ahhhh,GEEZUS!
Ok so one of the cool engines out there that has to be mentioned is the Source Engine. Games such as Portal, Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead have all used this engine. Well the first thing we should notice is that all the games I just mentioned are all first person shooters, however they all awesome FPS's. The Source Engine seems to keep expanding its potential with each release of a new title on it. Well something that is very cool about the Engine is that it's run by Valve who with Steam can automatically distribute updates with new versions of the engine. This means that games will run smoother and faster and means people don't have to shell out a load of money for latest release of a new engine package.
Well Cry Engine 3 has been shown and it looks very impressive indeed. Not only does it make everything look 10 times better than in a lot of game engines, but the physics and attention to the interactivity in the world is astounding. Smoke looks and behaves realistically, Fire and Water and explosions have never looked better on screen in a game. From what I've seen it seems like one of the most powerful engines out there and I think Crysis 2 will definitely show us what it can do.
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Uncharted 3 : Drakes Deception coming soon....
I said I would post the new trailer so here it is, I am amazed at the release date! Those hard working Naughty Dog employee's never seem to surprise me! Hopefully they will raise the bar they set in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, if so it could be the main contender for Game of the Year in 2011. Oh and it looks like Drake has done some shopping and got himself more than one outfit for this game!
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