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Back in 2006 Skyrim game director Todd Howard called up composer Jeremy Soule and told him he wanted the music for the game to sound like The Elder Scrolls theme as sung by a barbarian choir. Lacking barbarians, Soule just hired some men with deep voices. More »
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The answer to the question posed in the headline is a simple one: the Guild Wars 2 sound team. It's how they do it that's a little tricky. More »
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Vacuum your floors. Reduce background noise. Make sure you have adequate lighting. Are we playing video games here or hoping to score? This Xbox Live video shows the steps needed to ensure a pleasurable Kinect Experience. More »
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Arcades hold a very special place in my heart. More »
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Ever wonder what video game composers have to work with when creating those big sounds for big games? More »
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As I mentioned in my review of Dante's Hell, I loved the scoring and sound of Visceral's take on hell. More »
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Games have long preferred visual innovation to audio. I mean, they're called video games, not video and audio games. But that's not to say game audio doesn't deserve recognition! More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5192948&view=rss&microfeed=true The Wilhelm Scream. Cinephiles recognize it instantly (you only need to hear it once in the above video). It's been reused so many times since it was first recorded in 1951 that its inclusion today is almost beyond cliche, easter egg, or inside joke, and has become a combination of the three. (It's been in every Star Wars and Indiana Jones title thanks to sound engineer Ben Burtt, who resurrected its use.) More »
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I love the random stuff that occasionally pops up on Gamasutra, such as this combination how-to on doing winter field recordings and essay on why we need better ambient winter sounds in games. Part lavish love letter to snow and its various states, part practical considerations, Finnish game sound designer Tapio Liukkonen tells us why this stuff is important and why field recordings can trump studio technology: More »
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Critics weren't shy with praising Bioshock or putting it on countless top 10 lists. But if there was one element that enough could not be said about, it was the audio. The dark, eerie sound design pulled us into a game that could have been just another scary FPS. More »
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Game Developer Magazine's audio columnist is hoping to get some input on an upcoming column he's writing about the importance of music and sound to gameplay. More »
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Earlier, wrote an article about a game called Metronome and posted a trailer. Thanks to a link provided by commenter, Psychotext, I was able to check out a page on the game on creator, Tarsier Studios' website. There's more about the plot here and while it's not much, gives us at least a little more information on a game I'd like to see more of. There are also several screenshots that look pretty amazing and remind me a bit of American McGee's Alice. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=226773&view=rss&microfeed=true There are a few things in this world that I find irresistable and Eliza Gauger is one of them. We've shared laughter and tears, a love for Rule of Rose and giggled and whispered naughty things about Jimmy Hopkins. So, any missive from Miss Gauger is always treated with the utmost pomp and circumstance. I poured myself a cup of Earl Grey and sat down to read her email at my Victorian rolltop desk. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=226748&view=rss&microfeed=true Are headphones that important to gamers? I mean, does it really matter how high-def the sound is if you're a pro-gamer? Maybe I'm just clueless about the latest trends in pro-gaming, but it seems like Razer's new gaming headphones, due out Aug. 15, are a bit of a stretch. The Razer Barracuda HP-1 Gaming Headphones feature: More »
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Opera DS, by all accounts, looks remarkably usable. But there's got to be trade offs in any portable browsing solution like this: PocketPCs haven't mastered portable web browsing yet, so we can hardly expect full usability from Opera DS. So what, exactly, can't we expect? More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=183988&view=rss&microfeed=true Someone who was definitely smoking something inserted Mario Brothers sound effects into a scene from Kill Bill Volume One. Very strange, but it did make me realize that not nearly enough Mario games end with nail-studded planks of wood thudding into skulls. More »
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Those Sony prepackaged PSP headphones really don't cut it. Gamers need better gear. So for handhelds, sound equipment manufacturer Shure employs the same "sound isolating" tech that concert singers use to hear themselves. These sound isolating earphones sport hi def drivers that deliver ultra-wide range sound. These aren't just sound blockers, canceling ambient noise. Shure's buds create a sealed environment to shut noise out with out covering it up. Talk about isolating. More »
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