Greetings, all. My name's Alex, and I'm new to the GameDev forums. I'm interested in getting involved with sound design for video games, and ought to become familiar with the titles that have set the mark for audio excellence, as well as those that fall miserably short. I'm curious to hear about your opinions. What games over the years have stood out to you, and why did the audio grab your attention? Was the soundtrack particuarly rich, complex, and immersive? Did the ambient sound and music adapt to fit your changing situation? Was the sound design a lesson in economy of means, and clearly chosen carefully to reflect the highly engaging character designs? Did you yourself design the audio and music, and are you particuarly proud of it? Or did the game stink, with audio to match? Knowing what TO do is just as important to knowing what NOT to do. Give us an example of your stand-out game soundtracks, good, bad, or unfit for cattle-feed. Cheers!

Check out Dead Space's behind the scenes on their audio--really great sound design there.

Most bad sound design in games comes from a developer relying on stock or generic sound effects with little to no regard for in-game volume levels--obviously, to those developers, sound is not a priority.

I think that good sound design comes from creativity, just like good music, and bad sound design comes from generic uncreative approaches.