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Trigger Happy
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videogame developers were to experiment, say, with
weird and unexpected sound effects to accompany
supposedly “realistic” visual action, this might open up
new avenues of strangeness and even comedy—the
amusing disjunction of small action with epic sound,
say—to future digital experiences. Videogames are best
at imagining whole new worlds of their own, so why
can’t they invent more new sounds to bring them to
sensual life?
Moreover, given that in real life all sorts of
information about our environment is constantly
flooding into our ears, videogames ought perhaps to
think of cleverer ways to let us use this gift in their
imaginary worlds. After all, a videogame player, unlike
someone watching a film, needs to use information
from the senses to decide what to do next. Any sound
can become a clue, a spur to action. One fascinating
new idea has been tried by Rare, which in Perfect Dark
(2000) has engineered a quasi–surroundsound system
that lets the attuned player know which direction
enemies are in purely by listening to their footsteps.
This is one example of sound design that is not
merely decorative, but functional. Many games,
particularly in the popular horror genre, are already