Sound design

[Anonymous No.8611407]

What /vr/ games have the best overall sound design? I don't just mean limited to soundtracks, although those are clearly a key part. Soundtrack threads are pretty common.
I think top place might be Silent Hill - for one, it has a dual-purpose soundtrack with both melodic stand-alone pieces and ambient industrial tracks, both high quality and used to great effect. The stilted dialogue (by luck or design) fits the nightmare setting, such that every conversation feels unnatural and bizarre. Monsters on rare occasions make unusual sounds you don't usually hear, making you feel a little uneasy even when facing something you've seen a number of times before. Perhaps most importantly, sound effects are used to heighten and control the mood to an outstanding degree. There are jump scare sound effects, frightening noises in empty rooms to put you on edge, and oppressive effects after you perform minor actions, making you feel tense even though there is (often) no actual danger. I'm constantly blown away by how perfect the finished package here is. Perhaps the only criticism I can think of is that the firearm noises are quite anemic.

[Anonymous No.8611432]

Another top choice might be Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (and it's sequel, Abe's Exoddus). The game seeks to create an alien world and environment, and obviously sound is a major part. The music is mostly atmospheric and properly fits each zone. It has ambient noises in it like sounds that are clearly meant to be things like birds in the forest, although obviously not recognizable as real-world birds. The alien creatures make bizarre sounds that bring them to life. The protagonist's voice is iconic and helps build his character a lot, as a goofy character way in over his head.
I think the highlight here are the voiced lines, since they have gameplay value. It is one of the few games I can think of that has an in-game audio-based dialogue system ("GameSpeak") - you can issue commands or taunts to other creatures, who respond in kind, with each being given a dedicated hotkey. Your available "speech" changes depending on what form your character currently has, with there being around probably 30 unique vocal actions.

[Anonymous No.8611438]

>>8611407
Sound design feels like a more modern thing you see in Dark Souls and Resident Evil.

Old games generally just relied on the soundtrack. Like Batman Returns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF9rvAORyaY

[Anonymous No.8611443]

>>8611407
System Shock 2

[Anonymous No.8611451]

Thief

[Anonymous No.8611570]

>>8611451
This. The game is designed to be played with your ears. You can even lean against doors and guess the size of the room based on the echo. Plus the god-tier ambience. I think the sword's hitting sound is the most realistic one I've ever heard it's almost jarring to hear against the animations. The audio guys went to work for Harmonix and Valve afterwards. I wish I could learn more about their process on Thief but I can't dig up anything on it

[Anonymous No.8611751]

Anyone who's played it knows exactly what I'm talking about.

[Anonymous No.8611773]

>>8611407
Who the fuck describes the sounds of guns in a game as "anemic", lmao. get over yourself you fucking nerd.

[Anonymous No.8611871]

>>8611407
I always liked the sound effects in Ocarina. The sound of enemies shuffling around always put me on edge

[Anonymous No.8611908]

>>8611451
Fuck Undercover. The switches never worked for me.

[Anonymous No.8611943]

>>8611407
Half-life is probably the best example of A3D 2.0 support in a game if your hardware supports it. Features include realtime sound reflections, occlusion, HRTF.
https://youtu.be/AAOcdfCN-RU

[Anonymous No.8612396]

>>8611443
/thread
shouldnt this be obvious?

[Anonymous No.8612439]

>>8611407
I also liked the sound design in Smash Bros Melee. Something about all the donks and bonks feels really impactful. Tekken is the same way, no other fighting game feels as impactful as that one

[Anonymous No.8612732]

>>8611407
The monster sounds were great in Silent Hill. I can still remember what every monster sounds like even though I haven't replayed it in a while. They all sounded really unsettling and threatening, especially the rompers. That weird moan they do just immediately makes me feel like it's something I do not want to be near.

[Anonymous No.8612736]

[Anonymous No.8612768]

>>8611407
I don't know what that cover is trying to convey but it's adorable.

[Anonymous No.8612775]

Space Harrier

[Anonymous No.8612851]

>>8611943
Cringe-Life is not retro.

[Anonymous No.8612983]

>>8612851
Yes it is retard.

[Anonymous No.8614738]

>Metroid: Punchy and satisfying, highly limited but distinct for a NES game
>Metroid II: Uniquely alien, brutally synthesized, echoy sound that feels totally embodied in the underground and blurs the line between ambience and music.
>Super Metroid: Doing everything right, dense atmosphere, weird sampling, highly detailed, achieving still relevant horror ambience on a fucking SNES
>Metroid Fusion: Persistently eerie ambience, crunchy and fiery explosions, great stingers, weightless but vicious sounding beams
>Metroid Prime: Reinvents the wheel and makes it work, more dynamic palate, extremely detailed weapon and environmental sounds, elevates old stuff with orchestral bits without making anything sound too earthly
>Metroid Dread: "Greatest hits" of every game's stylistic choices up to that point shoved into one tonally coherent package
Metroid chads just keep winning.

[Anonymous No.8614794]

Diablo 1 has some excellent sound design. Every monster's attack sound and death cry is iconic and distinct.

[Anonymous No.8614801]

That one game withtout graphics made for blind people by Kenji Eno.

[Anonymous No.8614804]

>>8611407
Vagrant Story
Any retro Silent Hill

[Anonymous No.8614809]

>>8611407
Tenchu
Super Metroid

[Anonymous No.8615032]

>>8612983
Retro is about the spirit of the game, not the release date. When you play Gay-Life, you may as well be playing Fort Night.

[Anonymous No.8615063]

>>8614794
Indeed. I love the music and finding the books that the characters will read aloud too.

[Anonymous No.8615386]

>>8615032
If you're going to troll, at least make some attempt at making it good.

[Anonymous No.8615402]

>>8611871
lol the N64 isnt generally known for its high quality sound, but ill give you that
oot has a good ost and the way the ambience and sound effects are handled in stereo give it a great sense of depth

[Anonymous No.8615412]

oh i got some
the whole dark forces/jedi knight series
or basically anything lucasarts put out in that era

[Anonymous No.8615424]

I love all of the sounds in WarCraft 2, something about it is so satisfying to the ears.
>"WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"
>CLING CLANG CLUNG CLANG CLANG CLUNG CLANG CLING CLANG CLUNG CLANG CLANG CLANG

[Anonymous No.8615498]

>>8615412
Those games support A3D 1.0, theyre not bad.

[Anonymous No.8615524]

>>8611407
Sound design in Silent Hill 1 is very advanced for its time. For example, ambient is often multilayered - more layers start to play when Harry walks over triggers placed in a particular room or location. Certain rooms and locations have unique ambient that you won't hear anywhere else. As one youtuber that I watched put it: in Silent Hill 1 the background music is not just sound accompaniment, it feels like a natural phenomenon, as if this is how this particular place sounds. This is also true for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games.

[Anonymous No.8615628]

>>8615498
not just that, but their studio had access to some of the best audio engineers and recording studios in the business at the time
in fact i cant think of ANY contemporary vidya studio that had anywhere near the resources that lucasarts wouldve had for producing audio

[Anonymous No.8615728]

>>8615424
RTS' in general have way above average sound design. There's a lot of ones that shit the bed but on average they're way better than most things out there.

[Anonymous No.8616270]

>>8615032
that's some lousy trolling right there, trying too hard and not enough at the same time...

[Anonymous No.8616390]

>>8611751
Y E S
Also, I keep the OST on my phone at all times.

[Anonymous No.8616440]

>>8611443
this. Even over 20 years later its sound design is honestly unsurpassed. I can play that game, close my eyes, and hear the level around me. A true soundscape. Everything that's come out after has just sounded flat in comparison. You don't feel like you're in the game, even all these years later.

Sound design in games peaked with those old dark engine games and it's been downhill since.

[Anonymous No.8616976]

>>8611773
"Anemic" is pretty commonly used to describe low-power firearm cartridges irl.

[Anonymous No.8617029]

>>8614794
This. I'm replaying D1 right now and the audio is impressive.

[Anonymous No.8617034]

>>8612736
Love this game.

[Anonymous No.8618506]

>>8614738
Metroid Dread is fucking shit. I love Metroid, but Dread with its repetitive bosses (e.g. you have to fight that Chozo bird 10+ times) and shitty linear map design makes the game very mediocre. Even Fusion is a much better game.

[Anonymous No.8618586]

>>8618506
And the sound design?

[Anonymous No.8619539]

>>8618586
good

[Anonymous No.8620027]

For me it's Unreal.

The game is known for having a great soundtrack, that's a fact. But what I love about it is the way how Unreal makes use of these songs, along with the ambient sounds to sell the scene. When you start at Vortex Rikers, all you can hear are blaring alarm sirens, screams of dying people and explosions rocking the wreckage. Once you reach the control room - a dark ambient song starts playing, complimenting the carnage even more. Then you reach the locked door, and the music goes silent as survivors are being murdered by an alien. And just a map later a soothing ambient plays as soon as you exit the wrecked ship onto the landscape of the planet, and along it - sounds of the waterfall and animal calls. But not for too long, when you enter a corridor a dead guy is thrown against a wall, blown to gibs and the music goes from soothing to frantic combat mix as you engage your first enemy. And of course - that moment in the tarydium mine. You walk through another corridor, passing several dead bodies, you switch off the forcefield generator and the music goes silent. Then barriers lock you out and lights are going one by one with a distinct sound. Total silence, darkness. And then the combat track plays just when the lights are blinking red and a Predator-esuqe figure is running towards you, ready to rip you a new one. Perhaps the best introduction to an enemy in a /vr/ FPS.

>>8611943
Technical stuff aside, my favorite part of HL sound design is the voice of HECU grunts. Before they arrive you think the military is really going to help you against the Xen aliens, but once you hear that fucking angry, distorted "LET'S GO!" you can't be more mistaken. The game tells you "this is the enemy, shoot him" that way, on top of the scripted sequence with a trooper murdening the scientist in "We've Got Hostiles".

[Anonymous No.8620040]

>>8620027
cont.

Honorable mention - nearly all the NES Konami games, especially when Hidenori Maezawa was involved. Contra, Super Contra and Gradius II have one of the best sounding explosions and gunfire on the system. These games are action games - run and guns and a shmup, and you need sound design that's impactful and rewarding - the Konami sound team nailed this one. Who doesn't love the ending where the island blows up with an echoing boom? Also the standard rifle sound from Contra/Super Contra is the most realistic gunfire sound on the NES.

[Anonymous No.8620084]

For me it’s the golden age arcade games by Atari, Williams and Midway. Coin-ops such as Defender, Missile Command and Robotron: 2084 sounded like the devs had stuffed a Moog synthesizer inside the cabinet … a relentless onslaught of raw futuristic digital noise that attacks the eardrums and overwhelms the senses, perfectly matching the dark themes of dystopia, alienation and apocalypse that these seemingly primitive score based games often touched upon.

[Anonymous No.8620174]

>>8611407

I was 10 when SoE came out and the part when you get to the beach really fucked me up because I had never played a video game that had ambiance as a central interest in the sound design. When I was older I was able to listen to the game as a whole and holy fuck it's a masterpiece. Some serious foresight since he would eventually do Skyrim. I love it.

[Anonymous No.8620181]

>>8611407
>>8611451
>>8611570
There's a lot of examples, but Thief made me really realize how important sound design is. I can't imagine playing it without good headphones/speakers.

[Anonymous No.8620309]

Battlefield 2 Modern Combat. Some of the EA games had dynamic audio mixing and really great surround sound. You could hear every gun bit, the music, and where you were being fired on from. The explosions were great.

[Anonymous No.8620393]

I found X-Men: Mutant Academy 2 sfx to be surprisingly satisfying

[Anonymous No.8622079]

>>8611751
Lol this game is shit

[Anonymous No.8623448]

Just finished Silent Hill 1. Great sound design.

[Anonymous No.8623451]

>>8611407
half-life
system shock 2
deus ex

[Anonymous No.8623475]

>>8620084
based post. I’d also add Sinistar, those digitized voices still sound terrifying 40 years later https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-XEINagmaU

[Anonymous No.8623563]

>>8618586
Kraid's Lair is the only memorable track from the 2D ones, everthing else is grating repetitive

[Anonymous No.8625210]

>>8611773
Lol

[Anonymous No.8625958]

>>8611773
we describe wimpy cartridges as anemic all the time
t. /k/ommando