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GDC: Akira Yamaoka on the disturbing power of audio
The title of Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka's GDC panel was "As long as the audio is fun, the game will be too." Kind of a perplexing title, especially if you've enjoyed Yamaoka's work in the horror genre. Don't get us wrong, it's good, we're just not sure fun is the word for it. Yamaoka used the panel to explain precisely why his music and sound effects are so disturbing, and it's more technical than you might think. "Sound is very close to stimulating emotions in your brain," said Yamaoka via an interpreter. "What do humans fear?" He asked. In the case of audio, he noted that gaps between visual cues and accompanying audio. Specifically, if a sound precedes a visual cue, it can cause anxiety, while a sound that arrives too late is comforting. As an example, he noted the sounds of footsteps being made slightly before the onscreen action in a game. He noted that this effect can be felt even if the sync between sound and visual is off by a few frames of animation. Yamaoka said later in the panel that he used this technique in Silent Hill 3. Another technique mentioned was the use of silence."When there's no sound, the brain fills in the gap," said Yamaoka. He then played a special version of Beethoven's "Für Elise" which had been injected with tiny, periodic gaps of silence. He then played the same piece, only this time injecting harsh noise instead of silence. Even packed in a fully lit lecture hall with hundreds of GDC attendees, it was unsettling. Unfortunately, Yamaoka wasn't able to give us the sound samples used during the panel, so we've done our best to recreate them:
Reminder: Today is your last chance for No More Heroes
Well, all good things must come to an end. And, as such, today is your last day to enter for a free copy of No More Heroes. Arguably a masterpiece of a game, it deserves to be in every Wii owner's library. So, why not try and get a copy into your library? Get to entering already!%Gallery-4611%
Spoiler alert: No More Heroes for 10 minutes
The first ten minutes of the game, to be exact. So, if you're the kind of person who doesn't like to see a game before you play it, then you might want to check out some of our other stories. If such things don't bother you, then feast your eyes on the video above. We just fell in love with Travis that much more.[Thanks, Chris!]
No More Heroes too tough? [update 1]
Famitsu recently reviewed Suda 51's No More Heroes and we're glad to say the game received some good marks. But, even though the game was received well by the Famitsu folk, they still found one problem with it: it might be a tad bit too hard. See, the game is supposedly too tough for the Wii's casual audience. So, it's not so easy to pick up and play like, say, Super Mario Galaxy is. At least, that's what Famitsu thinks.We would like to know exactly what Famitsu found to be too difficult about it, whether it was the difficulty of performing Travis's maneuvers or it was simply just the mission structure. Heck, it could've been a combination of any number of things. But, regardless, we can't wait until February, when we will find out for ourselves.[Update: We don't know the actual text of Famitsu's review, but we do know that the translated review summary was a joke on the part of NeoGAFfer "Dascu." We do know that the game received scores of 9, 8, 8, 9.]%Gallery-4611%[Via Go Nintendo]
Heroes footage revealed: exclusive game from Suda 51 [Update 1]
Quite some time ago, Suda 51 announced he was developing an exclusive game for the Wii. As the rather insane mastermind behind the bizarre Killer 7, this was caused a noticeable stir...yet, at E3 2006, nothing was shown. Flash forward to today, where rival fellow Wii-centric news site The Wiire managed to hack obtain the official trailer for the game, slated to be shown at E3 by cancelled at the last minute. These three and a half minutes show some good stuff. Cel-shaded in a style similar to Killer 7, Heroes seems to share the assassination themes of its forebear. A man named "Travis Touchdown" uses a lightsaber to kill "Helter Skelter" and...well, maybe you should just take a peek yourselves. It's pretty insane. Seriously, props to The Wiire for obtaining and hosting this video; we would have all our readers head over to their site to check it out. This is exciting, exciting stuff, and Heroes promises to be a HUGE game for the Wii. It's being developed by Grasshopper Manufacturer, and is tentatively scheduled for release in the summer of 2007.[Update 1: The Wiire has posted a higher-resolution video for your viewing pleasure.]
