Necessity, some say, is the mother of all invention. So it was that the audio crew on BioWare's Mass Effect, upon discovering that they weren't going to get their hands on an assault rifle from 2183AD, were forced to use their brains.
After experimenting with a barrage of Foley effects, they began to combine real gun sounds with clever tweaks. "The assault rifle was created using the sound of a .50 calibre Browning with an Indy racing car sampled at the tail end," says Michael Kent, associate audio lead.
Developers, you see, are a creative bunch when it comes to gun sound effects. And this doesn't always involve a strict adherence to reality...
