Sound problems

Sound Design Problems in Games 

Problem #1: Call of Duty: Blackops 4 

Armour breaking sound. The sound made by the breaking of armour in the game is very loud and high pitched like breaking a plate or glass. This sound is very annoying as the game favours playing with higher volume, but this sound is much louder than others and can be damaging to hearing.    

One solution to this is to re-work the sound effect. Use a more realistic sound effect and /or lower to sound of it as well to match other sounds. In my opinion the sound should be more like a thud representing the stopping of the shot and the armour breaking. This can be made using possibly a hard metal object and hitting wood which would make the heavy sound of the impact and the breaking like sound of the wood. This would be far more pleasing to the ear and with the volume matching the rest of the game will fit perfectly. A more technical solution is to simply add volume adjusting settings to specific sounds, but this can be unfavourable to those unaware of these settings. 

In this clip you can hear me the player breaking another person's armour, it sound perfectly fine but shortly after the person breaks my armour which make the very high pitched and annoying sound. This effect can cause disorientation and should be addressed and changed. nearly every video game uses foley to record sound (this means that each sound is recorded in a controlled environment without disturbance) this makes it easier for them to edit the sound without re recording the entire action.

Problem #2: Borderlands 2 

Weapon reload sound. The sound of many weapons reloading is practically the same no matter if the gun has a different clip. This means that many of the guns don’t sound appropriate while reloading and due to the fantasy nature of the game the reload just doesn’t fit and if you are constantly having to reload may be repetitive and annoying.  

One solution for this is recording sounds of different like real life guns being reloaded to then apply the different sounds easily to the random weapons system by making it match the body of the weapon. With the fantasy and sci-fi weapons make up sounds either using royalty free sounds or make their own either electronically or physically. 

In this video you can hear the reload sound of 3 very different weapons, however they all have very similar reload sounds , although they might not sound the exact same they do have the same pitch and tone type of sound making it seem boring and not fitting some of the fancy weapons.

Problem #3: Minecraft 

Block placement sounds. Every block has its own sound when placed but every time you place the same type of block it always makes the same sound. This can become repetitive and while building large structures or small any require lots of the same type of block and a slight change in the style of placement sound would add a little very small variation but might be worth the result. 

This can be fixed by taking every block looking at its sound and recreating it multiple times with the same Technique but slightly different this will create enough micro changes in the sound to give the player a little variation in sound ques. Over all making a more cohesive and slightly more unique experience with every placement, these sounds could be chosen at random every time to avoid repeating in loop.

In this video you can hear me placing 3 different types of blocks however when you place the same type of block over and over again the sound that it makes is very similar and can even offer no difference at all, this makes each placement less varied and when building be very boring, a good way to make each placement unique is to have a wide range of sounds it can make rather than a very small one if any other at all. 

Over all sound is extremely important in video games as they provide immersion , indication and story to nearly every game. Although many sounds in games are good some can be improved as someone might have overlooked them or didn't change them. As sound is so important some issues can completely ruin the game for someone and some sounds can even make the game impossible to play comfortably.