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The forgotten sense

Music is something that's usually just playing in the background of the game or movie. You don't pay any attention to it, it's there and puts you in the right mood. From time to time however, a game comes around with such great music that it's coming to foreground and becomes a reason to enjoy playing the game. Tropico 3 is one of those games and its music is a more then worthy successor to the great music of the original Tropico.

A large part of the atmosphere in Tropico 3 is coming from the great Caribbean music. It really helps to set the mood as Tropico is a one of those games where you spend quite a bit of time just thinking what to do next. Having some great music on while playing makes the waiting process a lot more fun. It would be great if the Tropico 3 game came with its audiotrack on a CD as the music is so great that I'd like to add it to my music collection.

Of course, the track is limited so I might get tired of the music if I play too long. It took quite a bit of time until I put of the music in WoW. But eventually I turned it off and just started playing my own music. Being able to play your own music certainly makes sure that a game does not get repetitive fast. It's something that games like GTA have figured out. Just add your own music if you're tired of the built in games.

The recent Batman: Arkham Asylum also surprised me in the audio department. But in the case of Batman it wasn't in the music but in the voice acting. Last years Batman: the Dark Knight showed the great Heath Ledger in the role of the Joker. I didn't expect that the voice actors in this game would be any good. Yet Mark Hammill manages to convince me as the Joker. Evil, a genius and also completely mad. His voice adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game and manages to convince me that he is the Joker.

But it's not only Mark Hamill who manages to put up a great performance. The actors who did the voices of Harley Quinn or Poison Ivy also did a great job. Sadly the voice of batman himself does not sound very exiting. Combined however, the quality of all the voice actors in this game does raise the entire game to a higher level.

It's rare to see a game where voice acting is essential to the game. It's often just something that has to be done a few weeks before you meet your deadline by cheap, third rate actors. Or the quality of the voice acting drops dramatically after the dialogues are dubbed. Voice acting is too often an afterthought while it's one of those factors which can raise your game from being an average game to a great game. As such I hope to see more games where just hearing someone talk gives me the shivers and more new games where I want to play the soundtrack all day long.

Comments

  1. Wow! You've finally started a blog of your own!
    I don't know if I should congratulate you or regret you... :)
    It's a ton of work but it's fun in it's own peculiar way. Addicting.

    Miss you at Stormrage though. :(

    Hope life in other games treats you well.
    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks. I've been wanting to try and write a blog for a while now. I decided to just give it a go. I'll see where it takes me and most importantly if I find it enjoyable.

    I'll come back to Stormrage one day. I'll surely return the next expansion. And probably before that to have some fun leveling my alts.

    There's other games besides WoW. I enjoy playing a plethora of games.

    ReplyDelete

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