As we all know games are reviewed in sections and for good reason. Games more so than movie hinge on a lot of elements coming together to make it worth the 59.99$ USD price tag. One of those areas is music and sound.
Is sound in gaming as important as some of us think? Well let me ask you this have you ever turned of the sound in a Smack down game? If you answered yes then you might have an idea of why the sound of a game is needed.
A lot of people wouldn’t even look at sound as a factor, but a true gamer knows its value. Still some could make a good argument that sound isn’t necessary to enjoy a game. The Xbox 360 offered gamers the option to turn on whatever music you wanted while playing your favorite games (which was a stroke of genius). Some games don’t really even have music while your playing for example most sports games like Madden or 2K basket ball. Lets explore this idea of music being an option or not.
Pros—With the right type of music playing at the right time…so much feeling and power can be achieved. You can probably remember some of your favorite game’s music right now if you tried. The theme form Mario Bros., Mega Man 2 Crash man’s stage, The Street Fighter 2 theme or Ken’s stage, or how about any tune from Final Fantasy 7?
These and more games can cause you to hum tunes uncontrollably or even have a buddy join in with you. I remember playing Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross with the music giving me a certain feeling of awe. It pulled me into the story and had me invest interest in the adventure before me. Cut away from great music to Voices used in gaming.
I remember when you had to just imagine how your favorite character sounded like. When you played Final Fantasy 7 or Metal Gear you had no voice to talk to you or comfort you. The dialogue had to be that intriguing to get you wrapped up into the game. Then Final Fantasy 10 and Metal Gear Solid came along and solidified what you already knew to be true. These characters sounded as awesome as they looked. With the proper voice actors a game can take you to new heights. Madden wouldn’t have been Madden if you didn’t hear John Madden and Pat Summeral. Finally What about the plain old sound effects? Every gun blasting, creek and cracks of floor boards, or the clang of steal as two weapons hit in a fighting game like Soul Calibur matters.
It’s undeniable that these things wouldn’t be the same if sound weren’t present. When Call of Duty Modern Warfare arrived I lost count at how many people were astounded by how the weapons sounded. The realism was very much alive in those guns. Yes there is no doubt about it that sound effects can bring things full circle.
Cons—as with everything there is a down side and with music this factor can’t be ignored. Some games have awful music. Some games are MUSIC based and are terrible.
Look at any Guitar Hero/Rock Band knock of game. Licensed music played a big factor in those games so without it things pretty much suck. How about when the music in a game is just plain horrible? In the 8-bit era of gaming bad music was slightly excused because let’s face it…equipment was very limited. Cartridges could only do so much.
When games like Action titles, most racing games, and FPS’ games were all poplar, but as most can agree it wasn’t for their musical prowess. So it’s safe to say you can survive without good music. As pointed out earlier the Xbox 360 let you play your own music, which worked very well for sports games and provided a great alternative for most sports gamers. This fact further enforces how one can enjoy gaming with no music. On to the voice work…”HEY anyone ever play Dead Island?” “How about Resident Evil 2?”
If you have no need to imagine what bad, cheesy, and downright deplorable voice acting can do for a game. With there always being an option to turn voices off in some games you can see why voice acting wouldn’t be at all required. Let’s cover the sound effect department. It’s hard to say a game can be good without its sound effects, but it can be said that horrible sound effects can take away from an otherwise good game. When a gun doesn’t sound like its real life counterpart things can fall flat. When a space ship comes nowhere near to what you’d imagine you find yourself let down. In short sound effects are needed, but when done wrong it can break a gaming experience.
When it comes down to it sounds and music in a game might not be necessary, but without them gaming could be changed, and for the worst. Could you picture Halo with no theme music? Imagine for a second no realistic weapon sounds in a Call of Duty series. Would you buy a Rock band games with songs mad by your local garage band? If the answers to these questions were yes then you’d have to agree that Music/Sound in games is not only needed, but also definitely warranted and unacceptable if it isn’t good.
I don’t want to envision a gaming world with no music, sound effects, or voices, as these things are much need to bring the experience full circle. With that being said if you don’t agree; turn on your favorite game and mute the TV…. then come back and let me know how it worked out. Just in case you do disagree with this point use the comments section below and let me know why. Until next time if you can’t be GOOD, be GOOD at it. PEACE!
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I'd vote yes, and some games the music/sound effects were the saving grace of the game itself. Some games I even started playing because the music was that good which ended up being very good games in my book (Tekken 3 comes to mind).
I can see though for someone who's disabled/deaf that needs some sort of closed captioning to let them know of certain things going on.
Definately..
Without question. For me, a game is divided up into equal thirds:
Gameplay
Audio (music, sound effects)
Graphics
In that order of precedence. Audio is important to me in every game, but especially RPGs. World music (towns, etc) and battle music need to set the right mood and tone. Battle music needs to give an appropriate sense of the battle's importance, with themes against normal enemies needing to be good enough for me to want to hear it as many times as I will when level grinding.
It's integral to the experience for me.
I'm playing Lightning Returns right now (and very soon, Child of Light) and while I generally like the audio I've heard thus far, it's won quite a bit of points for me for the two following tracks:
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
Hamazu-san has made some good tracks across the FFXIII series, but he usually does something with them somewhere along the line that makes them 7.5s and 8s out of 10 for me, instead of 9s and 10s. The above two are, IMO, two of his best across all three games. His remix of Blinded by Light isn't bad either, if a bit short (called Crimson Blitz in LR).
I'm also glad he avoided the..."questionable" attempt at diegesis he tried with some XIII-2 tracks with the LR tracks. Historia Crux and Colliding Worlds still make me cringe with disgust *shudders*...
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
That is all.
OG Xbox had many games that included custom soundtracks. Vice City and San Andreas even mixed their commercials in with your personal mp3s. NFL 2k4-2k5 let you even control Stadium music and edit the waves if you just want the chorus to play during the after play. Example you could have backstreet boys sing "incomplete" after a dropped pass. It was sweet.