The fourth time since 2004 that Duty has been Called
Mix Magazine, a fine purveyor of professional audio topics, has just released their February issue chock full of excellent information on all aspects of video game audio. The following is a wrap-up of five of the featured articles highlighted in this months print issue.
Answering the Call of Duty
Infinity Ward’s fourth installment of the acclaimed Call of Duty series was released at the end of 2007 to much fanfare. Not only was the story-line intriguing, the graphics stunning and the controls butter smooth, but the audio was spectacular. To pull of such stunning sound effects the audio team atIW went out to the field to capture real-life audio from M1A Abraham and AK-47 and small arms. While this is not new to video game recording, their methods of multiple recording angles optimized for surround sound is.
The closest you’ll ever get to rock stardom
This being a voice over blog I can’t not talk about the over 170 hours spent recording for all the dialogue for the game. Not only is the game translated into six languages, but theIW team scoured the globe for authentic and professional Arabic and Russian voice over actors. With the teams focus on battle moment intensity to produce a lifelike experience to the player, these must have been some fun recording sessions.
Guitar Hero Rocks
WaveGroup Sound is the recording and production group responsible providing the music tracks for a majority of the Guitar Hero games. In this extensive write-upWaveGroup owner/president Will Littlejohn talks about the future plans of one of the most established video game audio recording studio in the business. The article chronicles the beginnings of the company and their methods all the way to the estimated 250 million Guitar Hero tracks thatWaveGroup has so graciously bestowed upon the gaming public.
RTS Games Still Going Strong
Big budget action/adventure and first person shooter games aren’t the game on the market. You can’t forget about the scrappy Real Time Strategy genre that has been around longer than just about any other genre type. DevinHurd, Audio Director of Big Huge Games, sure hasn’t forgotten about RTS’ and with the sounds that he brings to the games, we’re betting that you won’t forget about them or the RPG’s (role-playing games) that he works on. With over 10 years in the game audio business this article details the sights, sounds and technology thatHurd and Big Huge Games utilize to pull you in to the top-down world view of the Age of Empire series.
He’s actually a tender thoughtful man
Scoring Splinter Cell: Conviction
What is one of the best ways to get into the gaming industry, in every aspect of the field? Be a gamer yourself. That’s what Michael Nielsen and Kaveh Cohen are and after a seemingly lifetime-length audition process the two 33 year-old virtual new comers are scoring one of the most highly anticipated and epic games to released, the fifth installment in the Splinter Cell series, Conviction. The two themselves grew up playing the Splinter Cell games and use their intimate knowledge of the games to other an audio experience that rivals any other. If you only pick up one thing from this article it’s guaranteed to be a new found familiarization of layers.
Total Immersion Effects
Video games have gone next-gen. With graphics this means high-definition 1080p imagery. With audio this means shake-you-in-your-seat rumble 5.1 surround-sound. With the number of actual audio clippings used in games today it can be daunting and costly to recreate these sounds for each game. This is where high-def audio collection come into play and the final article in the video game edition of Mix Magazine chronicles some of the best of those collection for audio engineers to use in triple-A blockbuster titles. Or if you have the money, for use in your own home movies.
[h/t to Gregory Best]
