Task 18

Breaking the Sound Barrier

The use of sound in games is like the shoes in a sprinter of 100m. Without the shoes the sprinter can’t reach the maximum of his performance.

A game must have sounds which suits to the game; the sounds must create the right atmosphere for the gamer, in order to make him feel part of the game!

So with the right sound (music) we can have pretty much everything, such as suspense, fear, mystery, rush, peacefulness, fun, and action atmosphere. The sounds (not the music) are another key to prove to gamers that the game is “real”, in other words that the graphics complete the sounds and vies versa. For example, the sound effects of the cars from Gran Tourismo 2 were marvelous, from the sounds of the exhaust of each car which were defferent, to the sounds of the tires of the cars while they were drifting at the corners.

Some of key composers
(http://www.last.fm/music/%E4%BC%8A%E8%97%A4%E8%B3%A2%E6%B2%BB/+similar )

Nobuo Uematsu (//Time Magazine's list of the Top 100 Innovators// "Eyes on Me" from Final Fantasy VIII and others games)

Yasunori Mitsuda (Square-Enix- Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Xenosaga EPISODE I: Der Wille zur Macht)

Tsuyoshi Sekito (Brave Fencer Musashi, Metal Gear Solid 2, FFVII: Advent Children, FFChronicles, FFIII)

Yoshitaka Hirota (Shadow Hearts, Shadow Hearts II and Shadow Hearts: From The New World)

Noriyuki Iwadare (Grandia and Lunar series)

Hamauzu Masashi (Tobal No. 1, Front Mission: Gun Hazard, Final Fantasy X)

Hiroki Kikuta (Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3)

Well my key sonic moments in my gaming history are at the Final Fantasy VII (especially at the village Red XIII), V-rally 2, Colin McRae Raly 2.0 and Grun Turismo 2.