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Industry Audio Magazine Focuses On Videogames
Thanks to the Gaming-Age messageboard regulars for pointing to an extensive feature in Mix Magazine ('Professional Audio and Music Production'), including an editorial discussing the rising importance of professional audio creators in videogames. The magazine's editor suggests: "Galaxies removed from the blips and boings of Atari's 1972 Pong or the primitive 'soundtracks' of early 1980s classics such as Donkey Kong or Mario Bros., the cheesy 8-bit music and effects have been replaced by high-quality streaming audio (16-bit/44.1kHz) with real-time, hyper-realistic Foley thunks, screams, shots and explosions that are triggered from RAM, with near-zero latency." The rest of the game audio feature also includes an in-depth look into audio at Electronic Arts, as well as articles on Ensemble Studio's audio, examples of musicians moving into game music creation, some tips for game sound designers, and the market for licensed songs in videogames.
I'd have to agree with the general trend here, that although sound is "higher quality" in modern games, it isn't necessarily better. Whereas on the Nintendo I first heard the Zelda theme, and felt a heroic urge to adventure forth, or I first heard the few blips called music at the Metroid title, and felt the aloneness of space, modern videogame music is almost like elevator music in its almost pointless background. Very rarely do the themes seem to be as well pointed, because of the lack of limitation it seems less detail and focus on perfection goes into the music. (As always, with some exceptions. Every now and again I play a game where the music beautifully sets the scene and gameplay.)
I'll give you sound. Modern sound effects are a notch or two above where they've been. Not that I care too much about how well sampled the squishing noises made by exploding zombies are, mind you. Though better surround sound would be nice, with attention not on the quality of individual sounds, but the environment as a whole, and the interaction of the sounds not only with themselves but with the environment.
Which brings me to my third and final paragraph. I'm sure most of you are familiar with Doom3 and have probably seen the screenshots, if not played the leaked alpha. I read in a few articles / interviews published in gaming magazines several months back that id was claiming that they were focusing more on sounds than graphics, and that if you thought the screenshots looked good, wait until you heard them. Though they suggested a 6.1 setup.
One thing I've noticed is that even though we now have the ability to reproduce a cinematic level of sound in games, voice acting in games is often weak. Its rather irritating to see your well modeled & textured character, with cool battle sounds and whatnot all of a sudden start talking with a tinny voice that makes me picture some guy standing in a studio with headphones on, reading lines from a script.
A couple recent examples would be Praetorians (their psuedo 'Roman' accents were debatable), X2 - The Threat which the voices themselves were ok but had horrible voice acting, and lastly, Ill include Freedom Fighters since though it has no voice acting, its sound work was frankly pathetic, and arcadishly crappy vs a game like say Battlefield 1942.
By making voice acting a last priority, game developers are almost intentionally lowering the quality of their end product to an almost amature level when it comes to sound; how much more embarrassing is it to show a game off to a friend and maybe a graphic screw up or two happens, versus really shitty voice acting coming in and all of a sudden, you cant take the game seriously at all.
For completeness, Ill name a couple games that obviously put a lot of time into their voice work: Sacrifice, Jagged Alliance 2, Splinter Cell (for the most part), and Freespace II. Each of these games, listening to the voice acting immerses you in the environment, unlike games where the voice acting reminds you that you are indeed playing a game, a not-so-well produced one at that. I'll admit that horrible voice acting is not the end of the world for a game, but it sure makes a worlds difference on how you feel while you're playing; I like my illusions to be as complete as possible, and bad voice acting puts a cramp in that illusion.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Granted, star control 2 had some of the best mod's to ever grace my ears. more recently, however, the baldur's gate series, planescape torment, system shock 2, the fallouts, and the "newer" lucasarts adventures like grim fandango or curse of monkey island all have tunes permanently lodged in my brain. if you think all video game music has to be dull, lifeless, or uninspired, please do yourself a favour and buy these games or leech their soundtracks.
.. anyone know what happened to it?
inertplay had, up until a short while ago, an online mp3 collection of the soundtracks to a good chunk of the games they put out. not sure why the page was taken down.. used to be here
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Grand Theft Auto III: Vice City
I play that game for time wasting, just because I can change my audio streams at a whim. Perrhaps audio location should not be as big an issue as how the user can inteact with it. Granted, I don't forsee being able to manipulate your virtual iPod in any Splinter Cell games soon, but I would hope that a major MMO gives the players audio streams for the game. But that's just me.
is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
One thing that has surprised me is how much real-time synthesized audio has been overlooked in games.
t y". Then, when we reach the next transition point (say, point A) we transition into prerecorded transition 1A2 that takes us from track 1 to track 2. This lets music flow seamlessly as we play the game.
It's clear from watching an animation (FLCL is a good example) or movie that has extremely good music/video synchronization that having a tie between the two can have a phenomenal impact on the emotions of the viewer.
If you can make music ramp up and then peak just as an explosion occurs, the viewer is much more impacted by the visuals.
In general, however, the trend in games has been very simple -- have a set of pre-recorded tracks, and change to a particular track for each "area" of a game.
There have been a few good moves. One notable one is Total Annihilation. TA had a John Williamseque soundtrack that was normally epic sounding. However, when battle heated up, the game would transition into much more rapid, frentic music.
Video games are a perfect medium for audio synthesis. Frequently game engines know that something is going to happen shortly in the future, and audio synchronization is extremely powerful with respect to the player, who is already immersed.
Among other things that I'd like to see tried:
* For games which either store note information or have enough CPU time to do real-time rate shifting, adjusting the BPM in real-time of a track being played may be effective. As the game gets more intense, speed the music up.
* Transition at points intelligently. I could see a sound engine existing that stored a set of samples and transition points. For example, normally Track 1 loops as Krog the Barbarian walks around. When Krog gets in a fight, instead of doing a primitive transition (cutting out one track and in another or doing an immediate crossfade), set a flag in the sound engine "transition-to-battle-music-at-earliest-opportuni
* Synchronize visual effects to music. There are a number of visual effects that could be postponed for a given amount of time. If a building is destroyed, why not allow it to burn onscreen until the next triple-beat comes along, at which point three explosions could go off, wiping out the building.
* Use dynamic instrument substitution. I don't think I've ever seen this, but I'd like to see a game playing a music track with note information (say, MIDI or MOD). When the main character enters a jungle area, the snare drum becomes a jungle drum. No idea how well this would work, and could flop, but it'd be interesting to try out.
* If your game lets a player substitute his own music (a la some X-Box and PC games), do beat detection, and tie the beat into some visual elements. You might even be able to get away with non-real-time work. I've been unimpressed with the beat detection in xmms's visualization plugins, but I'm convinced that good beat detection *is* feasible.
For those that have never played Rez, it's worth a look. A good chunk of why the game is so amazing is because of the good synchronization between audio and video.
May we never see th
Am I the only one who thinks the problem with today's game music is NOT with the quality?
Sure, DTS, dolby digital 5.1 is great enhancement, but the problem is with the source. Why do we license mainstream garbage into games. Gone are the days when every game had their own music. Do good composers not exist anymore?
Listen to classic castlevania, blaster master, phantasy star... those music fit the theme so much more. Imagine castlevania had licensed MC Hammer? Years from now, playing this game the music will sound extremely outdated.