Rock, Paper, Shotgun

As I mentioned before, I was at the One Life Left Christmas party last week. Which was quite the thing, as arriving into a room full of drunk people four hours into a session tends to be stressful. So I caught up. I also got into the other reason why they were having a party – launching their first CD, Music To Play Games By. It’s available to buy for seven quid, but you’ll find a review of it and what it’s like beneath the cut. And since this is a games blog, I’m going to keep tight reign on my usual bag of music-critic tricks. That is, I’m going to write-it-not-as-a-wanker. Well, as much not-as-a-wanker as I ever manage.
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This piece on the state of contemporary game audio was first published in Edge magazine, earlier this year. In it I talk to Marty “Halo” O’Donnell, CryTek’s Florian Füsslin, Introversion’s Chris Delay and the ledgendary George Sanger.

Game design lecturer Tom Betts is feeling pretty downbeat about the attitude of his students towards videogame audio. “I do a few lectures on this topic and unfortunately it often comes down to the fact that while you can play a game with the sound off, you can’t play a game with the screen off.” If you’re studying the things that make a videogame work, sound comes way down the list. Why should Betts’ students worry about what he has to say on the subject of audio when there are so many other things to worry about, like visual design, level design, or the nature of puzzles? “It’s been an underdog for years,” says Betts.
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Today is somewhat stressful. My one source of relief, bar relaxing bouts of onanism, has been the webgame which the ever-lovin’ Simon Parkin linked to me first thing this morning. It’s Music Catch. Shapes are thrown up from a line, arcing in the air before falling back to whence they came. You have to pick ‘em up. The yellow ones increase your multiplier. The red ones decrease it. The purple ones are a splendid super-weapon. The aim: Get as high a score as possible before the music stops. About the only thing I don’t like about is the over-pumped-and-excited words that flash up, breaking the contemplative little-book-of-calm mood. ” I heartily approve of Purple Power,” adds John Walker, before beating my best score effortlessly because I’m using a touchpad and he has a proper mouse.