Gaming Audio - Beep boop beep

Sound in games in one of the unsung heroes, on the surface it seems that the only important aspect is the ambient music that you hear, but what many dont realise that everything that you hear in games, from weapon fire, rain falling, footsteps, voices and a huge number of different things are part of what the sound guys use to help create a visceral experience.

And with people like Martin O’Donnel, Yoko Shinomura, Jeremy Soule and Koji Kondo working on creating audio for games, means that we can be assured that games will continue to have excellent audio work, and with each of these composers having games which I consider to be excellent in the area of audio.

And as for my own key moments when it came to audio in games, I would have to say that a number of recent games have certainly caught my ear whilst playing, but Halo ODST is the most recent one for me to take interest. The feeling of solitude is evoked when travelling the empty city of New Mombasa thanks to the music and this sensibility continues on even in the action scenes of the games.

And whether the Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards ‘Good Times’ being one of the most influential recordings in the 20th century, well I have no clue, due to a recent interest in music with most of it being very modern or that which I play, means that very little of the influence that may have occurred to exist. I did take the time to listen to the song and search for information, but couldn’t see why it was influence. I’m sure that it was influential to people, Duran Duran have said to been influenced by the song, but apart from that I found very little influence.

But then so long as people continue to make great music, then all is not lost.