Hello everyone, I would like to know what people think of sound in games and how important it is to them, i for one normaly turn the in-game sound off and just put a music cd on. Mark

Well, I think that sound is a very important factor of a game and that it can contribute to the atmosphere of a game. Also it can get the focus of the graphical performance of a game, because when you play a game sound goes directly into your subconsciousness and this will "add" to the graphical performance in the players mind, But bad sound can irritate and do all sorts of terrible things to your game.
Generally spoken I think that sound is not something you must neglect.



Economics is a subject that does not greatly respect one''''s wishes.
-Nikita S. Khrushchev

Personally, I rank audio quality as highly as graphical quality when I play games. A good soundtrack and strong voice-acting can make all the difference for me.

R.

if you want to know how effective sound can be in games get your self a bargain bin copy of system shock 2. it goes beyond scary to being genuinely distrubing.

for sound to really be good in a game i feel it must compliment the visuals; if either overpowers the other the experience is diminished.

giants :citizen kabuto was another game that had excellent sound. when those things can rumbling towards me under the ground the whole house shook. have a klipsch promedia system helps, i guess, but whatever it was, it sounded damn good.

i believe it is a philosophy of george lucas that the sound of a film is as important as the visuals, and he works to have the aural experience at least on par with the visual. this is a good way to think, in my opinion. with all of the new technology out there for sound cards and speakers, we can really start xploiting a long underwhelming aspect of games.

<(o)>

MButchers:

Let me take a guess:
You enjoy playing QuakeIII while listening to Britney Spears,
right? ;-)

The people who do the music for games create it to
exactly fit to the game, to support the athmosphere the graphics
produce, and you hurt the hearts of the composers if
you turn off their music.
Be ashamed!

Sorry, forgot to enter name,
I''m the AP above.

Ever played OUTCAST ?

The music is great!!!


again: be ashamed!

If you enjoy tetris kind of games only.. Then I guess sound isn''t important. But try turning off the sound to any good movie and you''ll see what''s happening. Of course the same will happening when turning off the sound in a good game of today. Maybe not same quality of the sound in games (yet). But it sure is very important. If you ask me, sound is the pure link to human chemistry/mind.

Mvh Mario..

quote: Original post by Dharma
If you ask me, sound is the pure link to human chemistry/mind.

I would expect that from somebody whose username was "Dharma"!

A crappy soundtrack in a game deserves to be turned off... A good one, deserves to stay on. brings you into the world and makes you keep going...

George Lucas isn''t the all mighty that you make him out to be. He isn''t the only one with the philosophy that sound is just as important as visuals. Many people have lived by that philosophy for many years, even before the star wars epidemic. It is now that people are starting to get 5.1 surround systems and decent sound cards to fully realize the philosophy. George is but a voter in the campeign for good sound. There are many of us who make sure that sound is up with the visuals and the content of the game.

Sound is 50 percent of any presentation, be it game, tv, film, commercial, performance...

There are also movies that have used far less elaborate scores than John Williams and have said so much more. You don''t have to be Da Da da daa.. to tell a story, just make sure you have good people on the team who know how to apply and marry each aspect of the game or other production together. (what the hell was that da da da daa??? you ask..?) Well, if there was sound, you would know... but you must have had your britney spears CD on. (to the poster above.) haha. good times.

quote: Sound is 50 percent of any presentation, be it game, tv, film, commercial, performance...

What about radio?

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I finally got it all together...
...and then forgot where I put it.