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The Week in
Review: June 10-16, 2002
Last week's features at
3DsoundSurge
Last week's sound news
Drivers and bugs
New games, demos, patches and bugs
- Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos Goes Gold
Blizzard Entertainment has announced that Warcraft® III: Reign of Chaos(TM), the eagerly
awaited sequel to the company's #1-selling series of games, has gone gold. In Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, players revisit the war-torn world of
Azeroth a generation after the end of the Second War between the Orcs and the Humans. The
fragile peace that had since settled over the land is now on the verge of being shattered,
for a dark power has returned after thousands of years to carry out its nefarious plans.
You can find more
details in the press release.
A recent review of the Acoustic Edge revealed that Warcraft III
takes great advantage of EAX 2.0.
- Neverwinter Nights Goes Gold
Infogrames has announced that the long awaited and highly anticipated epic, Neverwinter
Nights™, has completed development and will ship to retail stores under the
Company’s Atari label before the end of June. The most complete software adaptation
of the classic pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons® role-playing game ever, Neverwinter
Nights is the latest game from BioWare Corp., creators of the 4 million selling
Baldur’s Gate series. You can find
more details in the press release. The game was the A3D
game of the day back in late 1999 but not sure if the plans to take advantage of 3D sound
remains. There's no mention of it on the official site.
- Dragons Lair 3D will take advantage of DD 5.1
YiYas has posted an interview
with Don Bluth the animator about Dragon's Lair 3D, the cel-shaded action adventure in
development at Dragon Stone Software. Here's the audio relevant bit:
I've read that you are going to produce a Dolby Digital 5.1
sound for the game, is this true ?
DON: Yes, as I said before, you're going to love the sound,
especially if you have the Xbox and a high definition television with a home theatre sound
system.
- Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project feature good use of
3D sound
Two new reviews of Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project reveals that the game features good use
of positional 3D audio. Here's the two snips, first up Gamepen:
Well, to say the least, both the sound and graphics are
astounding. The sound effects are rendered in positional 3D, so you can track the sound to
its source. For example, you can hear the babes (the ones strapped to the bombs) saying
“Help me, Duke!” and know their position relative to Duke’s location –
to the right or to the left? Above or below Duke?
Avault was equally impressed :
Nearly as good as the graphics. Jon St. John - the voice of Duke
Nukem - has lost none of his ability to bring Duke's hysterically conceited personality to
life since our hero’s last appearance on the PC in 1996. Although Duke's quips have
nothing to do with Manhattan Project's audio quality, the writing works hand-in-hand with
St. John's vocals to give us the same Sir Nukem we have always enjoyed. (ARUSH's
one-liners are especially good, so it will be fun to see if 3D Realms can top them in Duke
Nukem Forever.) The only place St. John stumbles is with Duke’s death cries. They
sound wimpy. Fortunately, the remaining audio effects more than make up for this
shortcoming: The shotgun has punch, the assault rifle will rattle your teeth and the
FemMechs almost make death inviting with their sexy, electrifying taunts. ("That's a
big gun you've got there...") I do wish ARUSH had given the rest of the enemies as
much character through the use of distinctive sounds. Manhattan Project lacks nothing,
however, when it comes to environmental ambience. Load the first level and you will hear
sirens wailing in the distance, dogs barking, cars beeping and the indistinct hum of big
city machinery. So what if this is a side-scroller - Sunstorm put in enough high quality
sounds to fill an immersive first-person shooter. The audio guys even employed positional
audio that allows you to hear when Duke is getting nearer or farther away from a babe in
distress. Also listen for a very cool sound effect when Duke has gathered all ten Nukes in
a map. Those kinds of touches make games fun.
- UFO: Aftermath will take advantage of 3D sound
In an interview
on Gamer.Hr reveals ALTAR Interactive PR manager Jiri Rydl that their upcoming
X-COM-inspired strategy game UFO: Aftermatch will take advantage of 3D sound. Here's the
quote:
Tell us something about graphic engine and sound in the game.
How are they contributing to the atmosphere of Aftermath?
Our in-house made 3D engine is capable of generating missions at runtime. Every time you
start a new tactical mission (e.g. when you shoot down a UFO), the engine dynamically
generates a combat map from predefined blocks of buildings, car wrecks, walls, street
lamps, aliens, crates, etc. No two missions are the same.
You can expect 3D sound as you do from most modern games.
- Spider-Man: The Movie - Multichannel Audio on all
Next Gen Consoles
For the first time, Dolby Laboratories' audio technologies have been simultaneously
implemented across all three next-generation gaming platforms in Spider-Man: The Movie,
recently released by Activision. Would-be web-slingers everywhere can experience
immersive, cinematic surround sound during gameplay due to the incorporation of Dolby®
Pro Logic® II on the Sony PlayStation® 2, Dolby Digital 5.1 on Microsoft's Xbox, and
Dolby Surround on the Nintendo GameCube. Dolby Pro Logic II
delivers five channels of surround sound through conventional stereo connectors - included
with all game consoles - and a system that includes a Dolby Pro Logic II decoder. Dolby
Digital 5.1 delivers 5.1 channels of surround sound during actual gameplay through the
Dolby Interactive Content Encoder found in the Xbox. Dolby Surround is the technology that
first made home theater possible, providing four-channel surround sound over a system that
includes a Dolby Surround Pro Logic decoder. For additional details you can check out the full
press release.
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind for Xbox feature
DD 5.1
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind for Xbox takes advantage of DD 5.1 according to a review on UGO. Not surprising considering the PC version also use
DS3D. Here's what they had to say:
Bethesda has also been kind enough to provide us with Dolby
Digital 5.1 sound. You will hear people walking behind you, monsters in the distance and
in one level a weird evil whispering that will give you the willies. Jeremy Soule's score
on the game is very impressive and sounds even better in 5.1.
- Tsunami 2265 Demo
Got Game Entertainment has released the playable demo of Tsunami 2265, the third-person
anime-inspired action game. It's supposed to support 3D sound according to a recent
interview. The game is already out in Europe and is expected in North America August
5.
- Half-Life 1110, Counter-Strike 1005 Patches
Released
Sierra has released new patches for Half-Life (1110) and Counter-Strike (1005). You can
grab them from 3DGamers
- Test Drive for PlayStation2 SoundMAX SPX Extra
Cars
The following comes by way of Analog Devices. With Test Drive for PlayStation2 hitting the
store shelves it's time to break out the cheat codes and experience some fun and exciting
new cars. The game not only features SoundMAX SPX "animated audio" from Analog
Devices, but three hidden SoundMAX cars that promise to tear up the tracks. The SoundMAX
SPX audio rendering technology allows players to differentiate between the turbo charger
on a V6 engine and the deep bass roar of a big block V8, thus bringing the game's engine
sounds to life. To access the cars, players must do the
following:
On the Main Menu Screen tap these buttons in order:
RIGHT, RIGHT, LEFT, SQUARE, UP, L2, L2, R1
This unlocks all of the cars/tracks and allows you to select from
the fastest cars on the lot. At this point the easiest way to unlock the SoundMAX and SPX
Cars is to:
- Enter the SF Drag Race
- Select the Dodge Concept Viper
- Set a new time record (not difficult with this car.)
- Enter: "SOUNDMAX" in the Name Entry Screen.
NOW the 3 extra Cars (Jaguar XK-R "SoundMAX SPX", Jaguar
XK-R "Analog Devices", and the Aston Martin db7 "SoundMAX SPX") will
appear on the Car Select Screen in all modes except Story Mode. Select the cars, and
prepare to race!
- Unreal Tournament 2003 audio designer interview
Unreal Tournament World has conducted
an interview with Digital Extremes audio designer about his contribution to Unreal
Tournament 2003. Here's a taste:
Can You tell us anything new or special about the sounds and
music in UT2003?
hmmmm... musically my goal with this game was to create an atmosphere and pulse. i've
attempted to make music that coexists rather then distracts from the playing experience.
my tracks definately get me in the mood for some hardcore fragging
Will they be dolby surround or even digital? So You can hear riding the rocket?
dolby digital baby!!! oh and i wouldn't recommend riding the rockets, those things blow up
you know
Not sure if he means the music will be in DD 5.1 or talks about the
sound effects. In the latter case I bet he just means the game will take advantage of 3D
positional audio.
- Bill Brown's radio interview on "Visions In
Sound"
Film, TV and Game composer Bill Brown's radio interview on the TV & Movie Soundtrack
show "Visions In Sound" with Host/Producer Rob Daniels on CKMS 100.3FM in
Waterloo Ontario Canada is now available for listening on Bill's
Press page.
Reviews of soundcards, speakers, headphones and MP3
players.
- Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum
ActionTrip has posted a review of Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum. The review is oveall
very positive but have some benchmark number that's less positive. It's worth noting in
case of the Jedi Outcast results that the performance should be much better if they used
Audigy drivers that directly support OpenAL (the new ones from Compaq does).
- GSM20 5.1 Speakers
BurnoutPC has posted a short review with plenty of images of GSM20 5.1 Speaker system.
They found it to offer pretty good sound quality for the price (€100).
- TDK S80 2.1 Speaker System
BlargOC has posted a
review of TDK S80 2.1 Speaker System. The S80's are a 2.1 speaker system comprising of
2 slim-line speakers, a very substantial subwoofer and stands for the speakers. The review
is very positive and found them to rival his 5.1 system. Now worth noting that 5.1 system
is not a high quality home theater system but Creative Labs inexpensive DTT2200 (about
$100). The price for the S80 is according to the review £64.62 at dabs.com which would
indicate a price a bit below $100 in US.
- Jazz 9940 5.1 Speaker System
Hardware-TestDK has done a review of Jazz 9940 5.1 Speaker System. It's a 5.1 system
featuring a wireless remotecontrol, 2-way satellites and a subwoofer with an 8"
driver. According to the review you can find the system for about 3000 Swedish Crowns
which should roughly translate to $300. They think it performs very well but is to
expensive for most people.
- Sony D-CJ01 MP3 Discman
BlargOC have reviewed
the Sony D-CJ01 MP3 Discman. It's a portable CD MP3 player featuring anti-skip
protection, wired remote control, ID3 tag support. Blarg OC found the audio quality to be
excellent but complained about the navigation of tracks to be tricky and sometimes
painfully slow and perhaps more importantly ridiculous expensive. The SRP is £175
(~US$250) which can be compared to SonicBlue's RioVolt SRP of £120.
Other sound news
- SRS Labs and Micronas Create Strategic Alliance
SRS Labs, Inc. and Micronas have announced a strategic alliance that will make SRS Labs'
technologies vastly more available to the global television market. Under the terms of the
first licensing agreement between the two companies, Micronas will feature SRS Labs' WOW
stereo audio enhancement technology in two families of digital signal processor (DSP)
semiconductors that target low-to-mid priced TVs, the highest unit volume segments of the
global TV market. These two chip families, MSP34xy and MSP44xy, sold more than 130 million
chips in total to date. Micronas supplies chips to all of the
world's leading television manufacturers. The global stereo-TV market reached 53 million
units in 2001 and is expected to grow to 90 million by year 2005. The SRS WOW feature will
be available on the Micronas TV audio processors in June 2002 and will be marketed by the
global sales force of both SRS Labs and Micronas. SRS Labs will receive a per unit
licensing fee for each television shipped with WOW and expects licensing revenue from this
new DSP solution to begin as early as Q3 2002.
For additional details check out the full
press release.
- Analog Devices Improves Voice Communication
Moving to facilitate the widespread adoption of the voice as a viable, mainstream input
device, Analog Devices, Inc., through a collaborative relationship with Intel
Corporation,has announced its role in a new desktop PC platform that eliminates the core
obstacles to reliable voice input. These obstacles include: acoustic and electronic noise
interfering with voice input signals, expensive far-field microphones, and end-user
objection to wearing headsets. Speech-based technologies have entered the mainstream with
a resurgence of interest in VoIP applications, such as Net2Phone, NetMeeting® and .NET
Messenger, and in the use of voice command and control for data mining. With the
availability of Intel's D845EBT desktop board-which features ADI's SoundMAX® Cadenza
Digital Audio System with built-in noise cancellation technology and support for Andrea
Electronics' Superbeam® Array Microphone-PC OEMs and systems integrators can now offer a
desktop PC platform designed for speech-enabled applications. For additional details you
can check out the
full press release.
For more news from last week check out our news archive.
Upcoming features at 3DsoundSurge
- Reviews that we are currently working on:
Updated Santa Cruz/Sonic Fury and GameTheaterXP reviews
Hercules Fortissimo II
Terratec DMX Xfire 1024
CMedia CM8738 Reference Review
Full Audigy Review
Full Philips MMS305 Review
- There are several other hardware reviews in the pipeline
including, but not limited to the following:
Guillemot Maxi Sound MUSE
Terratec m3po
DigMedia MusicStore
Philips Seismic Edge
Lots of other stuff on the go in including several guides and major site revisions that we
will soon be releasing more details on.
As always if you have any ideas for products we should review or
features we should do, please let us know.
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