Unit 73: sound for computer games - assignment 1

The Last of us: Main Theme Song https://youtu.be/CEs8t-lZe4M?t=11m40s

The main theme for the 2013 PlayStation 3 The Last of Us, it starts out with a guitar playing which creates a feeling of worry/doubt, it gets louder until around 20 seconds in where it ends. rhere is a lot of discomfort and sorrow with the background instrument, creating a tense atmosphere and making the player feel out of there comfort zone as well and really puts the player in the mind set of a person entering a cold and scary world which is extremely fitting with the game as this is exactly what it is about.

after this the drums kick in and the pace of the song picks up a lot, this sort of makes the track more up lifting and really come to life, making it feel as though you are about to partake a grand journy across the world. the track to me has a very native feel to it with a lot of light instruments used and the pan flutes used in the background giving a sense of being one with the elements which the player is put through various times throughout the games playtime. the song end in a very climatic finish with a heavy beat of the drums and they instruments getting loud for a brief moment and then fading out. this symbolizes to me as though the game is saying to start your adventure with them.

I think that they used multi-track recordings. The reason why I believe that this song was created by multi-track recordings was so that Gustavo Santaolalla could listen to the orchestra separately from his guitar tune to listen to what he is actually playing without getting distracted. In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ejdjcun2Jo4 around 1:10 - 1:30, this is where we see Gustavo Santaolalla conducting his orchestra to play exactly how he wants it be. meaning it would be near impossible for him to do both at the same time.

Halo 2 main theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_cwHnQ7Xsg

Halo 2's approach in its opening is completely different to the last of us' format. it starts off with a a sort of wind chime effect maybe played on the steel drums perhaps or a gong perhaps, it is very reminiscent of the main theme of the game mortal combat giving it a kind of ancient Chinese feel to it but changes very fast into a very low pitched humming from a quire. occasionally throughout the humming with be a brief chime on a hi hat. i believe the opening to this theme fits very well as it kind of gives you a kind of almost mystical feel as if you're about to journy into the unknown which is exactly what you are doing in the game. then you slowly hear the beat of a drum and the electric guitar kicks in giving the theme a whole different vibe and making it into a more rock and up beat track. while the drums and guitar is playing the quire is still performing slight hums here and there giving me reason to believe the track is done using multi-track recording and then the two scores where peiced together to make it into one complete track.

Halo was made for the original Xbox which means the disc they used was a dual-layer DVD disc. Its most likely that they would have compressed the sound files due to the amount of storage on the disc. The sound file they could have used is .WAV.  WAV files can be compressed meaning they can fit they can fit more on and not have to worry about any space limitations when it comes to the actual game fitting onto the disc. the music is more than likely compressed meaning they would be able to fit more onto the disc leading back to my last point i just made about space on the actual disc.