Been watching the Michael Bay Transformers movies lately and realised just how much sound design makes or break any visual media; made me start wondering if this was also the case for some PS2 games. What do you guys think? My first thought goes to Silent Hill 3; the sounds of muffled footsteps in the otherworld are stuck with me to this day.
As a musician myself, yeah, sounds and music are one of the things that I most get interested in videogames in general, along with art direction and design. Silent Hill games in general have a very interesting thing on the sound campus, thanks to the experimentations of yamaoka. All SH games where yamaoka was involved have little details like the one you mention, or for example in SH2
the little whisper that james does on the hotel that can appear on random gameplays, not in every run. The prison also got me scared AF in the backyard, where you listen sounds of something that seems to be running horses that are approaching to you, or having the radio static sounding constantly even through there are no enemies in most parts
in sh1, the part of the sewers with that scream on the background, jesus.
getting out of SH, the last game I played was katamari damacy, and Also has a very nice sound desing. I always laughed when I grabbed some people that scream, they're very funny, or other sounds like cars honking (that word exists?). Awesome game.
another game that caught all my atention with it's sound design is einhander. All the music on that game is composed with the level design, because most cinematic parts that you're not shooting, and the camera angle changes, are synchronized with something in the ost, like some bass drop, or just little ambient noises preparing you for what's coming.
i love sound. i agree that team silent excels at it.
im playing through Siren 2 at the moment, and i enjoy sound design in it a lot. very deliberate, and often more gentle than Silent Hill games.
Gran Turismo 4 has my favorite menu sounds and menu music.
Ico and SOTC have great subtle nature sounds.
Armored Core 3 sounds chunky, feels like you are listening to everything while in a mech.
Suda51 games have interesting sound design, that feels like its equal part as important as graphics.
In most cases i can hear that music and sounds were mixed to sound good on weak crt tv speakers, which gives the whole ps2 library its color. I love it.
Sometimes you get games that disregard that mixing and go for pure sound, from the top of my head id say Lumines Plus is more of a headphones game (also great sound design)
Other times you get really hastily made games that just put raw audio files into the game and call it a day, like simple 2000s series and a lot of other budget titles, which also has its charm for me sound design wise.
I feel like im only starting to discover the ps2 library, despite playing it for the most of my life.
A lot of translations come out for JP only games right now, and they often have really cool sound design.
I agree that sound can make or break the experience, at least for me. Sometimes i boot up games just to listen to them.
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