We as human beings have 5 senses (excluding the sense of inferiority, of course) sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. Now, gaming stimulates our sight, sound and recently (with the vibration controllers), our sense of touch. I think the graphics have reached their peak at the moment. You can't dream of beating Resident Evil 1 on the NGC, so why bother? But most game shave always fell short in the sound department. It's a vital part of play, but for some reason, developers neglect this, and mostly add some boppy melody to their game, without considering the full benefits of having a proper soundtrack.
Bee Bop, Yippity Yap!
I sometimes give up with developers. They spend three years of their life developing a game, and then do a shoddy job on the sound side of it. I don't honestly know why this is, but some games are just rank when it comes to hearing the play. An example is ALL wrestling games. WWF No Mercy (N64) has by far the worst soundtrack I have ever heard in a game. What the developer was smoking when they conceived it I have no idea. They wrote about a 2-minute loop of mind numbing music, then decided to loop the thing! So if ever a match went over 10 minutes, your brain would be fried from listening to the soundtrack, that is, unless you had the sense to shut the damn thing off. But when you do turn the sound off, you feel some how cheated that you are forced to do this by the inept composer/developer. You spent £45 on a game; you want to experience it to the max!
It's Too Damn Catchy!
But there are some gaming tunes that are legendary, and most often they come from Japanese Development House, Nintendo. The Mario and Zelda theme are sickeningly catchy, and you'll find yourself humming the damn tune for the next couple of days. It doesn't help your street cred when you're humming the Mario theme in a Slipknot concert. The reason behinds its effectiveness is its ability to get under your skin. The tune just fits the game play. While jumping on koopa's heads, you want to be humming a happy tune. Playing Mario when listening to Linkin Park is not healthy! It takes all the fun away from the game.
It affects you, the Sound I mean…
"Ding!" that's the sound of you collecting a coin in Mario. "Ehh, Ehh, Ehh, AWWW!" that's the sound of you snapping a baddies neck in Metal Gear Easy (also the sound effects from the xxx-version, Metal Gear Hard). Sound effects are vital to every game. The ultimate game for sound effects is Metal Gear Solid 2. The game just oozes atmosphere and style thanks to its superb sound quality. The chink of a ricocheting bullet, the tap-tap-tap of your hand on a steel wall, the sound effects not only increase the game play, they make the atmosphere.
The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Gaming!
Yes, the end is all too nigh for this mediocre article. I've come to the conclusion, that sound is important to a game, but it is an under-developed section of the gaming industry.
Hopefully in the future, thanks to improved sound quality, larger disc mediums and longer development cycles for games, sound will not go unappreciated, and it will go a long way to making a game more atmospheric.
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Ragey