GAME SOUND PRODUCTION
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PlayStation To Go Sony
John Broomhall talks with Jordan Pedder, audio manager – WWS Creative Services Group for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, and composer Walter Mair about creating sound and music for a handheld instalment of Sony’s iconic Killzone franchise.
THOUGH JORDAN Pedder is no stranger to audio for handheld game titles, working for the first time with the PlayStation Vita system was far from business as usual. Every game platform presents its own set of challenges, a new set of features, and a new level of user expectations. Unlike its predecessor, the PSP (PlayStation Portable), Vita has multi-core processing power, greater RAM capacity, and dedicated DSP chips for audio, not to mention a host of touchpanel and accelerometer functionality for developers to explore. Expectations were high, as Pedder explains. “With Killzone: Mercenary
we set out to make the best ‘shooter’ on the platform – to really take advantage of Vita’s unique feature-set and create an experience near-comparable to its home console counterparts. Before our audio team could even get to work
32 December 2013
on that goal, we had some teething problems to contend with – primarily the machine itself – what can it actually do? “It’s easy to assume it won’t be able to handle much, being a portable device, but surprisingly, its commendable audio capabilities sit somewhere between the Playstation 2 and Playstation 3. With a polyphony count of 64 ‘VAG’ voices, each being decoded at runtime with its own LPF filter, EQ, and distortion along with two instances of an I3DL2 reverb all firing through the DSP chip. This is a machine not to be underestimated. “Additional features were added to play with the filtering – like ray-cast occlusion, distance filter, and simulated HRTF. As most game audio developers know, streaming bandwidth from the disc is a resource that can really save the day. With the
Killzone: Mercenary art team already using a fair portion of this to make the game look spectacular, we leaned heavily on Sony’s proprietary ATRAC format for a useful trade off in file size for quality. We had around 12MB of sound RAM to work with (which by any handheld standards is generous) but working with a first-person shooter it would still prove a little tricky…”
ICONIC AUDIO “With the technical hurdles laid out, it was time to get creative,” continues Pedder. “The first step – ‘recognise the iconic’. Working within an already established IP, it’s vital for all disciplines involved to get it right. One wrong character, one wrong story detail, one wrong sound and the fan-base will be unforgiving. For Killzone audio, this meant the classic ISA M82 and Helghast STA-
Jordan Pedder
52 assault rifles had to remain true to the brand, the Helghan VO couldn’t stray from the original processing, and the slightly less obvious, but still just as important, Killzone ‘Kill Blip’ had to ring out as targets dropped. A large section of our RAM budget was dedicated to getting this in, sounding crisp and tight. Having got the iconic stuff in stone, we could then see the remaining areas where we would really carve out our own sonic identity.” Killzone: Mercenary takes a
different approach to previous titles set in the same universe.
You play as Aaron Danner, part of an elite crew of ‘guns for hire’, known as Phantom Talon Corp, orchestrated by fellow mercenary, ex-ISA marine Anders Benoit and supplied by rogue weapons trader Blackjack. During the course of the game, the player fights for both factions in the ongoing ISA and Helghast war, earning cash from completed contracts which can be spent upgrading and changing your load-out, or buying new tactical weapons. Pedder: “It was here the game team excelled in taking
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