Salford City CollegeEccles Sixth Form CentreBTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGNUnit 73: Sound For Computer Games

Game Title Fallout 3 teaser trailer / opening cut scene - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPt08UYmyMo

Provide detailed descriptions from chosen examples that establish… Clearly state what production technique(s) you think have been used to create specific soundtrack elements

Setting The sound opens up with what sounds like a radio that is either damaged in some way or very old sparking to life. The song that play’s has an oldies feel to it and you can easily tell it was almost certainly written in the earlier half of the 20th century. The fact that the song jitters a lot and often seems to be close to cutting out altogether further emphasizes that this is probably a very old form of music player which tells the listener that, although the music may be from the early 20th century, there is a good chance that the game is set a while after that time. The music slowly fades out giving you the idea that the focus is getting further and further from the source and as it fades out a piece of music that has sounds far grander and larger than the first piece fades in and there are also some sounds of dust in the wind. This gives the feel of a very large but lifeless environment. In the last few seconds of the piece of music it gets louder and more instruments/sounds are clearly added making it feel as though its building up to something. Then, just as reaches its loudest point it suddenly cuts off and a deep voice of a man who sounds as if he has seen far too much and is very tired ruggedly says “war, war never changes” the tag line for the series. This further adds to the idea of the environment being an old and empty place because the only human voice that you hear during the entire trailer, presumably one of its inhabitants, sounds old and empty himself.

I think they’ll have gotten/made a recording of this song and then manipulated it to make it sound old and worn. This could fairly easily be done by just lowering the quality of the audio when rendering it and possibly adding a slight fuzzing sound in the background although lowering the audio quality may do this of its own volition. The two pieces of music clearly fade into each other and overlap slightly to make the transition between the two a very steady but slow one. The second piece of music start off simply enough with just one or two sounds recorded from instruments or possibly synthesized. However the piece of music rapidly begins to have more instruments added to it along with the sound of dust in the wind and of heavy, almost mechanical, breathing both of which are sounds that should have been fairly easy to record and probably didn’t require much manipulation other than changing the sound levels to make sure they didn’t overshadow the music. All of the sounds then cut off more or less the same time. Chances are not much was done to the recording of the voice that plays at the end of the trailer. The only thing that may have been done is it was deepened artificially a little in order to give it the intended effect but there’s a good chance the voice actor

Salford City CollegeEccles Sixth Form CentreBTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGNUnit 73: Sound For Computer Games

did this his himself.Mood The first piece of music has a very eerie feel to it .It doesn’t quite sound right on its

own almost like its missing something. In this case I believe it is the lack of an audience a song such as this which is clearly being played on a music device (in this case a radio although you couldn’t tell that from the sound alone) should have an audience but there is no sound of someone singing or humming along not even the sound of someone so much as breathing. This technique is often used in horror movies to similar effect in order to unnerve an audience. The man is singing about not wanting to set the world on fire with his passion but he has no passion in his voice and it gives the feel that he is either failing to do this or has given up and is trying to justify his actions to the person he was trying to court with them. As a result the song and the way it is sang just feels lonely and broken. It also has a sense of foreboding since if he’s trying to justify his actions he’s probably done something wrong hence there will be consequences. Just listening to the piece of music with the dust in the wind on its own for the few seconds after the first piece of music has faded out makes you feel almost lonely because despite the music feeling grand it feels somehow empty or hollow. The build-up to and use of the voice also creates a feeling of emptiness as the man who talks does so in a fairly monotonous way and the only emotions he really conveys are maybe a tinge of sadness and regret but they are very slight. Like a man with nothing to lose who has accepted that fact and pushes on regardless.

Game genre The sound used in this trailer beautifully complements the post-apocalyptic genre. As I have mentioned it makes the listener feel lonely and the environment feel empty which makes a lot of sense in this genre as most of the world has been wiped out.

Narrative The trailer doesn’t give many hints to the narrative. It does give hints to the main characters to some extent by having a lonely feel to it since the main character of the game is known as the lone wanderer and throughout the main story the idea of him being alone is reiterated rather often but it doesn’t really give any major hints.

All in all I feel as though the use of sound in this trailer was very subtle and probably didn’t take a lot of manipulation to pull off but it was definitely used effectively. It got the setting, mood and genre of the game across effectively and while it may have only hinted at the narrative that is somewhat expected as it was merely a teaser trailer.