Outlaw

Silent Hill 2 features detailed yet gruesome graphics and a psychologically disturbing story. But the sound is what tops it all off. The music is ambient, dark, forboding, and brings you into creepy environment. Not to mention the excellent sound effects of monsters far in the distance or cry's in a distant dark hallway. Now your probably saying, "thats not innovation, its been done before right?" And you'd be right. So why did I make this thread about innovation in sound in Silent Hill 2? Read this except from an interview with sound producer Akira Yamaoka by MVC about the real innovations:

And there you have it folks!! There are sounds and music in this game you cannot hear ! Well, unless your a cat or dog. Even though its strange, somehow Silent Hill 2 is the only game I would expect them to do something like that. I think it would be cool if your playing and you enter a room and can't hear anything because its playing high frequency sounds. Then your pet dog starts acting all crazy because he/she can hear it. I don't have any pets, but those of you that have dogs, cats, or even chinchilla's, play Silent Hill 2 with them and post your their reactions.

dvdsteve2000

IAll I have to say about the sounds of SH2 is:

When the friggin' radio makes that annoying, constant, high-pitched, fuzzy , repetitive sound, I wanna bash my TV in with the friggin' 2X4 since I can't find anything else to whack!!!!

Seriously, I hated the game so I quit playing after the first day. But, since we have a 5-day rental, my GF has been playing it ever since then. We have the X-Box coming through the stereo, and even though I'm not even in the same room, that game is the most annoying sounding game I've ever heard. I begged her to turn the in-game radio off, but she says it's the only way she can tell if monsters are close. Thank God we have to return it tomorrow!!

Groucho

Due to new internet technology, I have embedded sounds that humans cannot hear into this very DVDTalk post. Enjoy!

Centurion

Hahaha. Cool!
Part of me actually wants someone to try this out too just to see what would happen.

Spiderbite

So that is why my dog suddenly went spastic!

Really, though, I do not recall my dog hearing something or acting strange while I played the game.

I will be the first to tell you that the sound I could hear freaked me out anyway!

Trigger

Played it with 5.1 surround and my cat could care less... she leaves when I play the stereo too loud anyway, so when I turned it up she went in the other room (to nap I suppose). I don't know about all this "sounds that can't be heard" business, but people knocking SH2 should back off because it's starting to sound like trolling. It's an Adventure game - one of the oldest video game genres there is. Adventure games started out as text based and then as computers improved, so did the graphics in the game... Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, Space Quest and Bioforge are all Adventure games. If you're not into games like this, then why even bother playing an Adventure game? SH2 isn't like Resident Evil so much as it's meant to be played slower and the story is pre-determined (with different outcomes) so your path is more or less already chosen for you. I love Adventure games and SH2 is among my favorites of all time. Some people just don't like Adventure games and probably shouldn't even look at a game like SH2. Stick to fighting or sports games or whatever tickles your fancy. SH2 is a well-made Adventure game - bottom line... If you don't like Adventure games, then you shouldn't be reviewing SH2. It would be like me trying to review a sports game like Madden when I pretty much hate all football games and the only sports games I like are Soccer games... wouldn't make sense for me to play a few minutes of Madden and then come online saying "What a piece of crap this Madden is - it's all about football and the screaming fans and whistles and grunts are the most annoying things I've ever heard - the inventor of this game needs to have his kneecaps broken"

I'm not telling you what to say or not say - I mean, I'm not a mod or anything. Just seems to me like Trolling at this point with the relentless Silent Hill 2 bashing and sooner or later someone who really likes the game is going to take these words as fighting words and a squabble will ensue. I'd rather not see that happen. And quite frankly, I'm starting to get offended with some of these comments about SH2 because some of these comments are ridiculing the type of gameplay that I enjoy and it's bordering on insulting the type of person who likes this type of gameplay. (hope that sentence made sense).

That all said - I think the whole sound you can't hear thing is a bit silly, but I've heard sillier things come from game developers over the years.

AgtFox

The true question is how exactly did they test this technology? I mean, did they get a group of dogs and cats as their QA testers and they all went spastic? Seriously, think about it

Aghama

Trigger: What does that have to do with this thread?

Kudama

It’s funny ‘cause it’s true!

(that you need the radio to warn you about monsters)

BigDave

My dog left the room while I was playing it, but I had the stereo on. He usually leaves the room when I'm playing the PS2. I think it's just the loud noises that bother him. He never wigged out on me while playing SH2 though.

stevevt

Speakers (PC, Home Theater, Music, etc.) are generally not capable of producing sounds that humans can't hear and pets can....

Kudama

My cat turned out the lights and started yowling “redrum” over and over again.
(‘til I gave her soft food.)



















(forgive me.)

Outlaw

haha some some of these were funny . I'm not sure how innovative it really is putting sound and music humans can't hear, I was joking about that but its still pretty interesting and post worthy. Its sort of tough to find the spots though because no ones sure where they used it since you can't hear it. Wonder if they'll put those tracks on the CD soundtrack hehehe. Anyway I told my friend about it and he said his kitty reacted!!

The first apartment you walk into where you get the flashlight thats on the dress, and then when you pick it up something startling happens. He said when he walked up to the light his kitty's ear twitched! You know how cats ears twitch when they hear something. I'm not sure if he was joking or that she heard something far away or even outside though because you can never really be sure. It might have been a one time thing or coincidence. But I got the proof right here! (note: this is not me in the picture its my friend)

Tuan Jim

IIRC, it's been proven scientifically that certain sounds at specific frequencies and vibration levels can heighten emotions and increase tension, even in humans.

Tuan Jim

Centurion

Outlaw--

Off topic here but.....
It's a good thing there's a cat in that picture, otherwise, I would have to say that your friend has got more hair on his belly than Austin Powers.

Outlaw

!!! hahah. Yeah now that you mention it it does look like the cats tail is hair on his stomach. He has a weird sense of humor but so do I, does everyone see whats happening in the picture? He was making the cats head HIS head. BUt he wanted it to be a completley authentic picture so he didn't want to use photoshop or any CG program. I didn't mean to ressurect this thread again though, I guess stevevt ruled out the whole animal hearing thing but at least Yamaoka tried. The real reason it probably the reason tuan jim stated, although it would have been pretty cool if it really was made for animals to hear it(not harmed in any way of course). She's a really nice kitty if you get to know her but sometimes I think she knows more than she lets on.

sniper308

I'm waiting for a game with the infamous "Brown Noise" in it ... great for a game like RE or SH2

Scott

There might be something to the extra sound.

I've been playing SH2 for the last several days, and there are definite times when I can feel the hair on the back of my head stand up. It's usually associated with the background music, but sometimes with the audible sounds when you don't see anything.

There's nothing scary about SH2, so there must be some reason for the reaction.

AGuyNamedMike

I haven't played SH or SH2 but when I was playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein I was getting pretty creeped out in the zombie catacombs sequence. Might they have used some odd sonic techniques there?

AgtFox

Speaking of sound and PC games, you guys should check out the severely underplayed and underrated Clive Barker's Undying. If that game doesn't make you crap your pants, I don't know what will. I'm usually not scared by games, but the sounds in this game certainly made me jump.

Tuan Jim

especially since it's only $10 from gogamer.com right now. I think I'll go ahead and pick it up. The demo by itself was a lot freakier than RE or anything else I've played. Try using scrye in front of some of those paintings or the mirrors: good gravy, that's a surprise.

Tuan Jim