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One of the most important aspects of a game to me is how it sounds, but I can't easily explain why. I do know for certain that the audio is very frequently a deciding factor in whether I really, really like a game, or whether I don't care for it much at all. And in other words, if I take a step back and consider what my all-time favorite games are, many of which are being catalogued here, it occurs to me that while these games come from different time periods and from different parts of the world, and were created for different platforms and for different audiences, they do have one thing in common: They sound terrific. That's it. That's the only similarity they have to one another, aside from being truly great games, each in its own right. And I believe this is no coincidence.
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The sound of Street Fighter II is permanently etched into my memory. Though, so is everything else about it. |
The best anecdotal example I have of what makes sound so incredibly important to gaming relates to my glory days of playing nonstop Street Fighter II. Through the early '90s, I must have poured hundreds of dollars in quarters into various Street Fighter II arcade machines. I did so gladly, as this was what I considered to be the greatest game of all time, and I maintain that belief to this day. Though obviously it was Street Fighter II's gameplay that kept me coming back for more, I really loved the look and sound of the game. I soon memorized every individual frame of animation for every character, and memorized every note in every piece of music, and memorized every sound effect. The audio, in particular, became something that drew me to a Street Fighter II machine like some kind of siren song. Ryu and Ken's shouts of "hadoken!" tended to reverberate at a high pitch, rising above any other noise in the vicinity, guiding me straight to where I needed to go in the arcade, in the convenience store, in the shopping mall, in the bowling alley, you name it. Just as the sound of a bell ringing made Pavlov's dogs start watering at the mouth in anticipation of their next meal, it was the sound of Street Fighter II that made me want to play.
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Why is Undying one of my personal favorite first-person shooters? The sound. |
I realize this perhaps only now, around a decade in hindsight, and only in the context of a game called Super Street Fighter II. Released in 1993, Super Street Fighter II was by all means an exciting event for hardcore fans like me. It introduced four brand-new characters to the roster and featured retouched graphics and completely overhauled audio. Or so we were led to believe at first--Capcom vaunted that the game would feature "Q-Sound" technology, for a much richer audio experience. But in fact, Super Street Fighter II sounded horrible. All the character voices were redone, and a number of the popular favorites--Ken, Guile, and Sagat--now sounded like something out of The Revenge of the Nerds rather than like the master martial artists they were supposed to be. And you know what? I simply couldn't bring myself to play much of Super Street Fighter II as a result. All it took for my undying love for Street Fighter II to come crashing down was for Capcom to change the pitch of how Sagat would say, "tiger uppercut!"
Admittedly this is a pretty extreme and specific case, and I don't expect you to be able to relate. Nonetheless, let me offer you this little self-test: Can you quote lines of dialogue from your favorite game characters? Can you hum the theme songs from your favorite games? I bet you can.
And if you give me double or nothing, I'd also bet you do.
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"Hitotsu! Futatsu! Mitsu! Inoshikacho!" |
I've actually never admitted this to anyone before, since it's either embarrassing or maybe a little crazy--but I think in video game sound bites all the time. I quote video game characters often, and my references are so obscure (Bushido Blade 2, The King of Fighters '97) that I frankly keep these little quips mostly to myself. I professed to learn the Japanese language in no small part so that I could try to make sense of Ryu and Ken's kiyais and so that I could understand all of the no-doubt-fascinating things being said during the course of a match in SNK's Samurai Shodown. Boy, was it worth it. It's been a decade or more since I started playing these games, and yet still, the speech, the music, and the sound effects are imprinted onto my memory as clearly as ever--permanently.
Music and sound is what keeps me going with a game. When a game plays great and sounds great, the audio becomes the driving force for me, reinforcing my actions every step of the way, rewarding me for my efforts. Some game designers clearly go the extra mile to include first-rate, original sound effects, musical compositions, and voice work in their games. Occasionally these efforts seem overblown--who's going to appreciate all that effort that went into the audio? Plenty of people are going to play with the volume turned all the way down, listening to Korn or something, aren't they?
Not me. I don't care when games let me rip my own soundtrack. I absolutely can't stand it when a game reuses sound effects from a predecessor--I always notice. I don't know if such a thing exists, but if it does, then I'd consider myself a connoisseur of video game audio. And this doesn't have anything to do with the Dolby Digital 5.1s or the Pro Logic IIs--the quality of the speakers I'm listening to the game through is far less important to me than the quality of the sound I'm hearing.
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