GamingNexus: There's been a lot of talk in the industry about gaming creating emotions. Does music have a role play in creating emotion in games or is it strictly the writing/plot in the game?
Kemal Amarasingham: I think when done correctly and it’s kept in mind from the beginning during the design of the game that sound has a huge impact on emotion. Since it’s not something that we can see, audio has the ability to really creep into the backdoor of our emotions and play with them in a way that is unique. Sometimes we really can’t tell why certain sounds and music do this, but it works in a way that can really support and twist the way we feel about the plot in a game.
GamingNexus: Outside of your own work, what's your favorite use of music in a game? Who are the other composers who are really driving the industry right now?
I’ve recently been playing Okami and really been enjoying the music that was done for that. I’m a fan of music that brings something unique to a game (or any medium) as it’s a really great way to explore new emotions within entertainment. I’d say the people who are doing that, as well as trying out new ways to incorporate sound and music into the gameplay itself are the people who are really driving the industry in a good direction right now. There are some great audio directors in the industry that work at various developers and publishers who are the ones that are making this happen more an more.
GamingNexus: You’ve been working on Mage Knight Apocalypse for quite some time, why has the effort taken so long?
Kemal Amarasingham: Games now are extremely huge and the amount of content needed is staggering. We worked on Mage Knight for about a year, with a team of from 3 – 8 during various stages. When you take on the implementation of the audio as well the time needed to complete the work becomes much longer, but as many of my game industry audio friends say, that’s about 50% of what makes a game sound good.
GamingNexus: dSonic also does voice-over work for games, do you have a set group of people do you work with or do you look for new people for each game? What’s your opinion on using celebrity voices in games?
Kemal Amarasingham: We have actors that we’ve used for a long time and are always auditioning new people as time goes on to find the talented people out there. We tend to find that the people who can do many different character voices are the most use to us.
As for using celebrity voice in games, I think it can be great if it really adds something to the gameplay. For example, I think using a voice like Arnold (you know who I’m talking about) is really fun because of his unique sound and attitude and it feels great to hear those lines in a game and take on that persona. I’d like to see games explore the different character voices that celebrities can do so that it really serves the game, rather than just have them read in their normal voice….I think this would be great to have someone come in and do 10 different characters voices in a game and really get involved to bring it to life.
GamingNexus: What’s the hardest sound effect you’ve ever had to come up with? Are there certain types of games that are harder to come up with sounds for?
Kemal Amarasingham: I think the hardest sounds effects to make are the shortest ones, like button sounds for a medieval game or effective weapon swooshes that sound unique for every weapon in the game and give the gamer a sense of the weight of them. It’s easy to make these sound ok and passable, but to make them sound really cool and give the game a unique aural personality takes some doing since they tend to be repeated throughout the game and do so in rapid succession.
The hardest types of games to make sound good I think are the ones that only have a few sounds in them. Since there are only a few sounds, then they better be good, and not get on peoples nerves otherwise you’re in trouble. Difficult to do well!
GamingNexus: Of your body of work so far what are you most proud of?
Kemal Amarasingham: We’ve actually had a groundbreaking year with many projects including Oblivion, Might andMagic, etc. But two projects, Namco’s Mage Knight being one of them and the other, which you might have read about in the news, was that we worked alongside Creative Labs to create an adaptive audio MOD for Unreal Tournament. That MOD works in conjunction with their X-Fi sound card to enhance the audio and allow it to “adapt” to what is happening on screen. For example, it alters each weapon sound so you’re not hearing the same repetitive sounds again and again, and as your strength gets low, the music and audio effects adjust to that to signal “low strength.”
Putting out an Adaptive Audio patch was a huge milestone for us and we hope that it starts to become more noticed as a viable audio strategy – one that can really impact games and catch audio up to the amazing graphics. Our goal is to make audio just as much a priority for gamers as the graphics and gameplay. Gamers shouldn’t have to settle.
Thanks to Kemal for taking the time to answer our questions and to Stephanie for hooking us up with the interview opportunity.
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