AA2 - Week 3 - Process and Planning

I have analysed a section from the XBOX game Burnout Revenge by Criterion. The Burnout series is known for its extreme realisation of speed and spectacular crashes, and Burnout Revenge is one of the fastest and most explosive incarnations. The music is inconsequential to the game, as it is simply a culmination of unheard-of pop-rock bands ("EA TRAX"), and as such I will leave it out. The beginning of the recording is main menu orientation sounds, including up/down selection, choosing selection, changing car colour etc. The race itself begins with a running start, so actual player interaction is not occurring until a noticeable change in the severity of acceleration is heard (about 4 seconds in). The ensuing sound consists primarily of engine/boost noises (player, opponents and traffic), car damage/crashes (same again) and extraneous sound (environment whooshing past, slow-motion SFX, timer or score 'dings').



Special mention must be made regarding the sound when using the slow motion feature, which is used after crashing to steer your wreckage into opponent cars. The on-screen sound has a filter placed over it which makes it sound like it has been covered with a blanket, while an avant-guard style screeching metal sound effect is placed over the top. The sound is reminiscent of sharpening a kitchen knife, or perhaps a church bell tolling in reverse. This can be heard after the boost-then-crash that occurs at 1'30". I wish I could have recorded it in stereo, however I do not want to lug my XBOX all the way into uni on a bus for an assignment that isn't actually an assignment. I had to stop writing each different crash sound heard, as there is a ridiculously large variety. I recall that for Burnout 3: Takedown onwards (Revenge is #4) the developers had the backing of Electronic Arts as their publisher, so the in game sound effects are mostly real recordings. They used real cars and smashed them up with bricks and axes and (of course) other cars, building up a library of sounds that could be layered up at convenient points in the game. As most of us know, the perfect sound effect for an object does not necessarily require that object to make the sound (eg. coconuts for horse hoofs), however the use of real cars for the sounds of twisting metal and smashed windscreens etc. is very believable in Burnout Revenge.



The realisation of speed is helped by the 'whoosh'-ing that occurs fairly frequently during gameplay, triggered by passing traffic, opponents or significant landmarks such as bridges, trees or even road signs. In surround sound (or even stereo) the speed at which the whoosh moves past is analogous to the speed the player is moving past the object, which makes the extreme speed seem all the more treacherous.





~MP3 1.77MB~
~XLS 35KB~

I only did a couple file names, as you get the idea pretty quick. Of course if this was real it would have all of the file names.