Here are a couple experiments in using the sound effects tied to the in-game actions of videogame characters to approximate the background music of the same game. The first clip is from Super Smash Brothers Melee on the Gamecube; second is Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64. The second clip is more successful from a technical standpoint, but both are interesting explorations of the appropriateness of game sound.
Here’s video footage of a performance I did last year with the group of Advanced Audio Production students. It was more of a proof of concept of the technology, which took a long time to get configured and just working, so the quality of the audio and the performance in general were not what I had hoped. The Wii remote triggers audio, while the video is simply a capture of gameplay from the classic Nintendo game Metroid. I’m interested in experimenting with the way that sound influences the formation of images in our minds, and especially in the immediate reception of sound vs. the iterative process of imaging. There are video images on the screen, but there is also the image of the player using a game controller to trigger the sounds. I’m thinking of working more on this piece to submit it as an installation for the upcoming student/alumni show in the Myhren Gallery.
[audio:guitarHeroMusic1.mp3]
Here’s an audio piece that I recorded and mixed as a meme. On a previous post I tried to identify my meme and came up with this: “my meme really has to do with the feedback between critical and cultural reception of games as rhetoric and the creation of intentionally rhetorical (through the rules of their systems) games.” While this piece doesn’t exactly do that, it does deal with another of my interests, which is to find ways to engage creatively with the environments, interfaces, and rules that make up the games we play.
I stumbled upon an idea that I had been discussing with a friend that represented this and took it a step further by critiquing so-called “rhythm” games. This genre of videogames usually involves trying to match visual cues on the screen that correspond to the beat or melodic parts of a song. It is impossible to play the game Guitar Hero without hearing the clickity-click of the specialized guitar controller that comes with the game, but most of the time you don’t listen to it. It occurred to me that it is making it’s own music; this is my first attempt at recording and arranging this sound.
