Salford City College Eccles Sixth Form Centre BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games

Game Title StarCraft II Wings of Liberty cinematic – Arcturus Betrayal - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1XQTOW2tmA

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

Throughout the clip, we get a very good idea of the setting overall and where we are. The first clues we get as to the setting is at about 00:13 to 00:17 where we can hear very faint gunshot noises suggesting they are far away, giving us the scale of the background, then we hear very loud and distinct noise of someone walking on a metal surface and hear some kind of device. All of this can suggest that we are somewhere in a suburb area and that there is some kind of fighting going on, when we venture forth into the clip. At 0:24 the female character says: ‘This is Kerrigan, we neutralised the Protoss but there is a wave of Zerg advancing on this position, we need immediate evac.’ This sentence introduced us to many new things that can explain the setting to us. First off, we find out that the name of the female character is Kerrigan, and that she is possibly a soldier which commands a squad/army which just neutralised Protoss (perhaps another race) and now needs evacuation because of some zergs advancing, this tells us that the war has been going on for a long time now and it is about to come to a close. It also tells us who is fighting who etc. The last thing it tells us is that the action is happening not only down on the planet (I am assuming this because of all the ambient wind, echo effects we could hear) but it is also happening somewhere above the planet possibly. Going further into the clip can yield additional results. Starting from about 0:31 to 0:44 there is an important thing happening, I.e. a male voice saying: ‘Belay that order, we’re moving out’ in the background you can hear a very classical music playing, also, by his tone, we can tell that he is a very important figure to the faction that he is representing, then, another voice, but this time very frantic says: ‘What?! You’re not just gonna leave them?!’ And therefore we can see that the ‘important’ character is somewhat betraying the other 2. Finally, we get the confirmation on the Sci-Fi setting by the male character saying: ‘All ships prepare to move from Tarsonis at my mark’ which tells us that we are above orbit of a planet called Tarsonis. The clip then starts playing the sound of bullets flying past, gunshots etc. to suggest that we’re back on

The basic sound of stepping on a metal plate could be easily reproduced by stepping on a metal flooring, or a bin etc. and then possibly edited out in the studio to make it higher quality. Gunshots sounds could have been taken from developers sound bank or recorded directly on something like a shooting gallery. The script could have been easily voice acted and edited out. Other things like the wild beast noises could have been recorded using a sound from an animal that is a hunter and then editing it to make it sound more ‘alien’ and scary.

Salford City College Eccles Sixth Form Centre BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games

the surface with the female character, Kerrigan, again. The setting therefore gets very clearly explained, that it is dealing with Sci-Fi, War and Betrayal.

Mood

The mood is set by several different things. The cinematic keeps throwing us between the very nervous and constantly ‘on the edge’ planet surface and the very calm and ‘classy’ environment above the orbit. Additional mood is provided by other things, such as at 0:20 the sudden electrifying music signifies Kerrigan suddenly appearing, then at 01:06 the build-up of the very dramatic music signifies something happening to Kerrigans surprising and her reacting to it – i.e. shooting it. As we can hear the gunshots and then a click that could signify the gun to be out of ammo. Then at 1:55 we are presented with a high pitch to signify tension, after that immediately we get the music that is very dramatic sounding and then after that one we get a very melodramatic music, perhaps signifying something like Kerrigan being overwhelmed and therefore giving up. The mood therefore is very good and keeps throwing the listener off balance and thus allowing for greater immersion.

The mood is mostly set by the music and therefore it required a good team and program to make the music.

Game genre

The game genre is very possibly either a Sci Fi shooter or a Sci Fi Real Time Strategy. There are a lot of evidence which suggests that which I have reviewed earlier in the Setting section but to briefly sum it up, we get a lot of narrative that tells us about a planet, ships, orbiting etc. and thus it leads us to Sci Fi, we also get strange races called Protoss and Zerg which again, suggests Sci Fi, but the fact that we hear both a lot of gunshots but also a lot of commands which could be associated with a Real Time Strategy makes it unclear whether it is a Shooter or an RTS.

The same methods would be used that I spoke about in the Setting

Narrative

The narrative throughout the clip is exchanged between 3 main characters, 1 female, Kerrigan. And 2 males, one Arcturus and the other one Jim.The narrative is very tense and deep as it makes the main plot for this cinematic and possibly something important that will continue within the game later on. This therefore shows us that the narrative within this particular cinematic is very important and can have a massive impact on the story and how it goes.

Character would probably just read their scripts out in a manner that was intended and then their voice would be mixed and edited to make it higher quality and to add additional effects.