What PC, PS2 or X Box games do you think have the best sound design and best sound?

[BDuncan]

What PC, PS2 or X Box game/s do you reckon has the best sound, best sound mix, best sound design, best sound effects, etc. that you've heard and please
elaborate on your reason/s why, for each game/s mentioned.

[hifiaudio]

Halo 2 for the Xbox has great sound design...very immersive soundtrack....terrific pacing...sound effects dont sound like effects, which means they did a good job in that department...depth and localization very well represented.

robert

[Ziggy!!]

Total annihilation on PC (few years back now) had some cool music...


I can't get enough of my commodore 64 at the moment. If you like 8bit tonality, you should check out "Prophet 64". It turns a commodore 64 it a sequencer and tone generator using its internal SID chip. You can even be sync'ed via midi to a DAW.

Just google prophet 64... its a free download and hours of fun for your old 0.985Hz processor

[AlexLakis]

Final Fantasy IV for SNES, Nobuo Uematsu is a composing GOD. Plus, the snare on the midi voice set he chose was ROCKIN! =p

[Ruudman]

I did some tracks and sound design for Microsoft when they released X Box Live
in Scandinavia.
A part of the preparation was to listen to music from Bungie games.
Good quality IMO, getting better all the time.

ruudman

[Youn]

Doom 3 with the original (now illigal) Trent Reznor / NIN sounds... such a bummer they didn't end up staying with the project, as the sounds as it stands now are OK at best.

[cdog]

Battlefield 2 - the Foley sounds, such as flipping the auto / semi auto switch on a M-16, are amazing - as are the nature sounds that permeate the background - birds, water running, then the sounds of war - far off machine gun fire, helis swarming overhead, people screaming for medics.... its crazy.

Only problem with the game.... its an absolute system hog. I had to go buy a new ATI X850 graphics card just to play it on my P4 2.8 / 2GB RAM system. Worth it

[cultureofgreed]

Tribes 2 had a great soundtrack, but Tropico kills them all!

[djui5]

Originally Posted by AlexLakis

Final Fantasy IV for SNES, Nobuo Uematsu is a composing GOD. Plus, the snare on the midi voice set he chose was ROCKIN! =p

I can't recall if I played IV, but X had a "strange" soundtrack. X-2 has the corniest soundtrack I've ever heard. The songs, sounds, even the colors in the game are immensly cheezy and catering to 12 year old Oriental girls. It was had to get through the game.

I remember 8 had a decent soundtrack, and 7's was ok. I gotta get 9. Is it the same on PS2? That's what I've played all these on.

[djui5]

Originally Posted by Youn

Doom 3 with the original (now illigal) Trent Reznor / NIN sounds... such a bummer they didn't end up staying with the project, as the sounds as it stands now are OK at best.

Remember the "nails" boxes? :)

[the1Hub]

halo 2 for sound design. if you have the HD AV cable for your xbox iand a suround system its amazing how easy it is to tell where your getting shot at from on xbox live.

sound track is ok iam not a big fan of stevie vai who played all those wanker guitar rifts

best sound track has to go to final fantasy's 9 or 8

of course in the hornorable mention category super mario bros was damn cool.

[AlexLakis]

Yup, FFIX is a PSOne game, but you can play it on PS2. It's onna my favorites in the series, great story, dialogue, and gameplay. Yeeeeah... I think Final Fantasy X-2 was marketed towards the same crowd that buys "Hello Kitty" stuff. I've gotta give it up for the soundtracks for Final Fantasy IV (2 in the U.S.) and Final Fantasy VI (3 in the U.S.) Vrenna for Quake was great, I also loved the Quake I soundtrack. You can find great songwriting in pretty much any original NES game if you can get past the cheesy MIDIness. Personally, I love it.

[radiospace]

In terms of music, my favorite is the original Diablo. The music in that game played a big part in creating the peculiarly addictive gaming environment. I don't know that the music on its own is that "great", but it is a good example of how finding the exact tone or mood for the music is perhaps more important than the quality of the recording or what have you.

In terms of listening pleasure, both the Railroad Tycoon 2 and Tropico soundtracks are pretty great.

For sound design I kind of dig the sound of SSX 2 (or is it three?), the snowboarding game on the X-box, with the music turned off. Just the cool sound of crisp snow being shredded as you boogie down the mountainside.

[juicemaster1500]

Mariokart, and that's for GAMECUBE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NINTENDO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS2 and xbox is crap.

[Youn]

Diablo is another favorite here.

Of course QUAKE 1!!! How could I forget. I also liked Kingpin, when you speak it really sounds like it's coming from your body, it really freaked me out at first!

Some of Final Fantasy is very great and moving, while some of it terrible like nails on a chalk board.

Anyone remember Final Fight for SNES, damn BEEFY sounds, as well as Street Fighter 2 - the pause sound was mind boggling good! SNES has this bass boost thing going that no other console has, it's so warm and punchy, if only I could mix some drum tracks audio through it...

[Marbarbaar]

I second Total Annihilation.
The only way you would know its'old by knowing the date or watching the graphics.
(not so with the cutscenes!)
Far as I'm concerned this game is still 'ahead of its time'

SFX were absolutely great, but not as fantastic as the music

Basically it was red book, so no real fancy interactive system, apart from crossfading songs with different moods when battle situations changed.
Worked good though.
+/- 8 live orchestral tracks, still some of my favourites works today.
Fantastic gameplay btw.

Also, this game was AFAIK one of the first games with complete live orchestral scores. (1997) It totally blew my mind.

You 'should' watch (& listen to) some clips;

Site with movie clips

[Marbarbaar]

Can't help but to get a bit off topic just one more time.
I'm talking music but I know the thread is about sfx....
Last time, I promise.

One guy that always gets me jealous by being able to produce such fantastic scores as those for Undying & Return 2 Castle Wolfenstein...
Bill Brown.
D@*n that guy!

For if you want to listen to it;

Undying Theme

RTCW Theme

Back to sfx, rts Homeworld 2 was incredibly good. (incl gameplay, graphics etc).
(space-warfare game....)

The Music was only thematic on certain points, important events.
Otherwise the music would be kind of an ambience track, with a "space-feeling" to it, reducing the need to add sounds that would exist in vacuum.
So a thin line between sfx/foley/music here.
Instead, most of the sfx to create 'that space feel' you'd still need for such a game were linked to the spaceship you'd be controlling.
So each unit has its own spacy sound.

This suggests that everything you hear comes though an imaginative intercom or something like that (provided the mics & speakers in spaceships would be of recording studio quality;-)

For me this worked great since I always get distracted by the abundance of outer-space combat sounds in these games.
There's always that "What kind of 'space' is this anyway??" thought in the back of my head

If we'd have sound in space, we could use this little baby as a giant tweeter instead of a radio transmitter.

"HELLLOOHOOO!!! ANYONE OUT THERE???"



Wouldn't you like to hear that woofer btw...?!?!