Salford City College Eccles Sixth Form Centre BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games

Game Title WarCraft III Cut scene – The Fall of Lordaeron - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eVne-kYhn4

Provide detailed descriptions from chosen examples that establish… Clearly state what production technique(s) you think have been used to create specific soundtrack elements

Setting

We do not know a lot in terms of the setting when we listen to this cinematic. The cinematic starts off with a quite grand styled music and bells ringing which could possibly mean celebration, this therefore could mean that the celebration will most likely happen in a larger city so we can already guess that whether we are, we are in a large city or even a capital city. This is the only thing that can signify any meaning of setting to us.

The music was probably generated by a specific team in a music generating program or taken from a music library of someone that writes music more professionally.

Mood

The mood is set mostly by the music, there isn’t really a lot of dialogue here to express emotions, and rather, music does it, changing dynamically from mood to mood like a human would. At the start of the clip, we hear the glorious song that is being sang in Latin, as spoken – ‘glory to victors’ i.e. the song is signifying that we are currently celebrating. Then, after about half a minute, the music changes to a very melodramatic, almost like something sad and ironic is happening. Then we can hear a sudden dramatic noise which sounds very threatening and hostile. Suddenly we hear a door slamming against something like a wall and then a very dramatic but a very short conversation happening possibly between a King and his son. The son ends up on executing his father and proceeds to say: ‘This kingdom shall fall, and from the ashes will raise a new order that will shake the very foundations of the world.’ While he is saying that, very dramatic and dark music plays to signify the fact that the King has just been possibly slain by his own son and that very dark times are coming for the Kingdom.

The music was probably generated by a professional team

Game genre

There isn’t much to go on the game genre again, at the very end, the son says ‘You no longer need to bear the weight of your crown’ and ‘This kingdom shall fall, and from the ashes will raise a new order that will shake the very foundations of the world.’ Both of them can suggest that we’re in a medieval setting and possibly a fantasy one at that. Other than that, there are no further clues as to the game genre throughout the audio.

The dialogue was probably recorded and then edited out to make it sound professional and with high quality

Narrative The narrative is very simple and is straight to the point. The basic line comes down The narrative is simple and thus was probably

Salford City College Eccles Sixth Form Centre BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games

to the King greeting his son, possibly coming back from a long journey, and then getting attacked and killed by him, his son taking over control and wanting to turn the kingdom into the ashes. Nothing more happens.

done quite quickly in terms of voice acting.