Hello guys,

please post your tips. The goal is a list of games with exceptional sound design. The point is to get inspired.

My tip : Alien:Isolation.

Cannot wait to hear yours !

Elite Dangerous has some exceptional sound design work. There's nothing singularly amazing about any one effect, but everything is just done so well it makes it feel real. So many times when I'm playing games I can hear the bits and pieces of effects and know where they comes from. Like 'that impact is from SI' or that explosion is from 'Hollywood Edge' or that synth sound is from Omnisphere. But nothing in Elite Dangerous sounds stock or is recognizable. There's a ton of creative digital effects and well recorded foley and it all feels right and blends in seamlessly, truly exceptional work.

Going to the way back when, I've always thought System Shock 2 had some fantastic sound design especially considering the age of the game. Especially of note is the Shodan voice which even with all my modern gizmos I would have a very difficult time re-creating. The amount of painstaking time it must have taken to do that in 1999 is just mindboggling. The multiple-voices, echo delay, mutilator, reverb, time compression/expansion, pitch-shifting, layers of effects, and everything else that went into making that voice is beyond impressive. Here's an example if you're not familiar with it.

Limbo. Just play and you will understand :)

The Park. Very immersive game in general; the sound compliments the experience perfectly but is not so intrusive that you notice how good it is until after you've played the game.

Check it out: http://store.steampowered.com/app/402020/

Crono Cross, Chronopolis Soundtrack.... so epic, and perfect for the mood of the ingame area it was played in.

Which was basically something of a "futuristic ghosttown" as far as I remember it (just dusted off my old NTSC PS2 to replay the game, no idea when I will have time though).

Rest the Soundtrack was not bad, but never up to the level of that one track. Effects where meh, as was expected for a JRPG of its time. But that one track combined with the level it was played in... Chrono Cross knew how to make scenes look epic through sound and background graphics.

*edit*

One year ago... did I really bloody say that...