Writer at nightmaremode.net. An audiophile who became inspired to write about sound and games after seeing a lack of interest and knowledge about the subject for too long.
Music and sound are important tools in framing player expectations on what is happening in a game. In this article I explain how Portal 2 did things both right and wrong with its use of audio.
Dynamic range and listening fatigue are concepts most don't think of when talking about games, but they play an important part in determining how long you can stand playing a game in a single sitting.
I 'm glad you decided to go with the most dynamic Home Theater setting by default. Dynamic Range controls have started to show up in many games and there is no consistency across titles to make it easy for player to understand what they do. The default is what most ...
The Hi-Fi, TV , Headphone etc settings are confusing even to a crazy audio enthusiast like me so there definitely needs to be an explanation in the game of what those do. The home theater setting is easy enough to understand if I 'm using a surround system, but the ...
I've been a big Falcom fan for probably 15 years now. Their games have always had a unique feel compared to all other Japanese games as if they really didn't care about what other developers were doing and just did their own thing. The Ys series always had fast and ...
Portal 2 was perfectly set up for a streaming system as the elevator and airlock sections could have been used to load the next area in a similar way to Metroid Prime. I would hope the next major Source engine upgrade comes with an effective streaming system that can load ...
The music in such a situation can be completely devoid of any dynamics, as long as it then isn't louder than everything else in the environment. If the music is put at the same volume level or slightly lower than the ambient sounds then the dynamic range can come from ...
